No Longer Hopeful: South Africa’s Endless Battle against Gender-Based Violence.

Claudine Hingston, MANCOSA
Portia Simelane, CQ University

Gender-based violence (GBV) is rife in South Africa with women and girls being disproportionately affected. In fact, South Africa has the distinction of being one of the most unsafe places for women in the world. It holds the infamous titles of a femicide nation and rape capital of the world. The efforts of the State and various stakeholders to curb it have not been successful as GBV remains on the increase and as such, citizens have lost hope in the State’s ability to curb or eradicate it. This paper thus prioritizes this issue and places it at the centre of this research inquiry. It explores citizen’s loss of trust in the state’s capacity and commitment to curb GBV in South Africa and in doing so, teases out GBV’s deep entrenchment in the South African society and the state’s non -winning battle to combat it. The paper is underpinned by the hopelessness theory as it lends an understanding of citizen’s loss of trust in the State with regards to gender-based violence. Data was drawn from secondary sources. The paper allows for an academic engagement with GBV in South Africa and provides a platform to explore the trust crisis.

Keywords: Gender Dynamics, Population Policies, Families, Unions and Households, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination

See paper.