In Violence Against Women in South Africa, released on the eve of the international "Day of No Violence Against Women," Human Rights Watch denounces widespread violence against women in South Africa and calls on the new government to significantly step up its response to this endemic problem. South African women's organizations estimate that perhaps as many as one in three South African women will be raped and one in six South African women is in an abusive domestic relationship, yet the government routinely fails to investigate, prosecute and punish such violence.
"South African women are not safe in their homes, their places of work or in the streets," notes Dorothy Q. Thomas, Director of the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project. "Women across the political and racial spectrum condemn the pervasive nature of domestic violence and rape which often occur in places where they should be safe and by men they know."
Women who seek redress for abuse often face police officers who are indifferent or hostile; medical examiners who are ill-trained and inaccessible; prosecutors who are inexperienced and, at times, biased; and judges who doubt women's credibility as survivors of or witnesses to violence and therefore hand down lenient sentences to those convicted of abuse. A dearth of legal and social support services further exacerbates the effects of violence against South African women.
There are a handful of encouraging government initiatives to reform the criminal justice system and improve the state's response to violence against women, including a specialized sex offenses court and rape reporting centers in some local police stations. However, the positive effect of these efforts is undercut by the lack of a coordinated national strategy to address violence against women and to ensure that policy changes are implemented throughout the criminal justice, health and welfare systems.
Human Rights Watch calls on the government of South Africa to take up the challenge of establishing a coordinated national strategy to address violence against women. No progress can be made toward establishing the type of society the liberation movements pledged to create without addressing the violence suffered by women—the majority of the population—on a daily basis.
