As the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence started, Elias Mawela, Gauteng police commissioner, presented his quarterly crime statistics.
During the presentation, Mawela said: "We need to go out there and to educate women and children on how to avoid being a victim of rape and sexual assault."
By assigning women and children the responsibility to protect themselves from men’s abuse and violence the commissioner is inadvertently saying that women and children are to blame for the abuse of men on their bodies. This is victim-blaming and gaslighting of victims of rape and sexual assault into making them, and the rest of SA, believe that they are responsible for men’s violence against them.
Such statements silence victims, fuel children’s mistrust of authorities, perpetuate victims’ fears of not being believed and ultimately prevent them from reporting. Similar accounts have been raised by women who are victims of sexual assault trauma. They reflected on the insensitivity with which the legal and justice system handles GBV cases and how perpetrators are held to little account affected them. They have said that these issues hinder their recovery from sexual assault trauma.
Evidence suggests that known perpetrators are often not arrested. This is a reality that influences victims’ decisions to access legal and justice services when violated. Legal and justice systems service provider mindsets about gender norms – especially the police – hinder them from providing adequate and fair service delivery to victims of gender-based violence.
Women cannot be held responsible for men's behaviours and cannot protect themselves from men’s violence. Children are even less capable of protecting themselves from rapists, paedophiles and sexual predators given that assaulters are mostly people known and trusted by the victim. Often, they are immediate family members, close relatives and friends of the family. Perpetrators often exploit children’s age and immaturity. Rape is about power, and men use their masculinity to reassert themselves over women. Boy children model this behaviour and perpetuate this violence against girl children.
While countries like Kenya introduced a self-defence course as an intervention to help women and children prevent sexual assault the responsibility is misassigned because men and boys should be taught not to violate in the first instance. The responsibility to avoid victimisation must not be placed on women and children, especially girls, because men and boys use their agency when deciding to sexually assault.
Statements like that of the commissioner are rooted in male privilege and hinder women from reporting violence due to silencing tactics used by men and sometimes other women when seeking justice. The tradition of shaming and thereby silencing women is a classic display of patriarchy and these words coming from a police commissioner is very worrying and highly problematic. Such a view signals the attitude of his colleagues and subordinates deployed at police stations.
We must change the discourse on GBV in SA. The current language associated with sexual assault places the blame for GBV on women and girls, as evidenced in statements such as “her rape” when referring to women and girls who have been violated by men. Such references should change to “his rape” to emphasise men’s rape and sexual assaults on women, girls and boy children. By so doing the action of the perpetrator is highlighted .
Interventions that seek to address GBV and sexual assault should not focus on teaching women and girls how to prevent getting victimised but should focus on how to transform society. Socially, men are still in positions of dominance, and when service providers call on women and children to protect themselves it reinforces male privilege.
The police commissioner has displayed the very male privilege that has normalised men’s violence against women and children in the most gruesome ways as can be seen from statistics in his report. It is disheartening to note men’s inability to see their complacency in gender-based violence. SA is the capital of GBV and culturally, irrespective of race, men’s perceived authority over women and children is directly linked to GBV. How can an African man in a position of power and leadership, who ought to be aware of the role culture plays in notions of men’s dominance over women and children be blind to the drivers of GBV?
• Dr Titi is with UCT Children’s Insititute
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