On behalf of all the women of South Africa, especially those who have been directly affected by gender based violence:  a big applause to everyone at Sonke Gender Justice Network – we salute you! There are few things in life as beautiful and awe inspiring as a group of courageous men standing up for the rights of women.  In a country with extraordinary high levels of gender violence it is a victory that will bring hope and much needed belief in the South African  judicial system.

The journey started on 22 January 2009: while addressing 150 Cape Peninsula University of Technology students Julius Malema, ANC Youth League president, suggested that the woman who accused ANC president Jacob Zuma of rape had a “nice time” with him and said, “when a woman didn’t enjoy it, she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money.”

During March 2009: our partner, Sonke Gender Justice Network took action in response to ANC Youth League President Julius Malema statements by taking the matter to the Equality Court.  Sonke said that they believe that Malema’s statements reinforce rape myths and that they constitute hate speech, unfair discrimination and harrassment.

On 15 March 2010: “The Johannesburg Equality Court on Monday ruled that Julius Malema is guilty of hate speech, has no protection in terms of freedom of speech provisions, denigrated women in general, added to the rape problem in South Africa, and must apologise.” The Daily Maverick Malema was also ordered to pay R50 000 to People Opposing Women Abuse .

Follow the link and watch a snippet of the case here:  Sonke Gender Justice takes Julius Malema to the Equality Court .

***

Two weeks ago, on International Women’s Day (8 March), a woman was assualted by two men outside the gates of a huge corporate company in South Africa.   Read More…

Posted under Gender equality, Post-rape care

In November of 2008, Ubuntu Now announced a partnership with Sonke Gender Justice– a South African organization that promotes social awareness of gender issues relating to the local HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Today, we are pleased to introduce a new member of the Ubuntu Now / South Africa Project network: the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Program [TVEP].

Like Sonke Gender Justice, TVEP focuses on raising awareness for social issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Whereas Sonke Gender Justice’s ‘One Man Can‘ initiative places its attention on male education and Rape Prevention, TVEP takes a look at the other side of the equation. Their admirable focus is on building a supportive, educational, and healing environment for the victims of rape– as well as those of HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, and child abuse. Furthermore, they have localized their efforts to the munincipality of Thohoyandou in South Africa’s Limpopo province. Read More…

Posted under Gender equality, HIV / AIDS, Post-rape care

It is with disgust and incredulity that I read daily about the heinous crime of “corrective rape” that is still taking place on the streets of South Africa, especially in the “African Townships” (basically poorer suburbs inhabited by Africans, such as Soweto, Gugulethu, Langa, Kayalitsha etc.) Corrective rape is “the rape of a lesbian by a man either to punish her or cure and correct her sexual orientation”.

Despite South Africa having a very liberal constitution, which forbids discrimination against LGBTs ( Lesbians, gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered persons), lesbian women are constantly being targeted in hate crimes, where the aim is for lesbian women, especially “butch” women to be beaten up and raped (often gang-raped) to “teach them what they are and what a woman should be like”,  sometimes by their own male friends. Read More…

Posted under Gender equality

I’ll be the first to admit that if you haven’t seen one before a “tag cloud” can be a bit confusing, but the concept is actually pretty cool: statistically analyze all the words in a book, on a Web site, or similar, then pick the dozen most common important words (e.g., skip “the” and “and”) and display them, with the words that appear more frequently larger than those that are more uncommon.  You’ve probably seen them as you’ve surfed the Web, perhaps without really thinking about how quickly and efficiently they can convey a lot of information about that given site.

When we wanted to come up with a way to convey our set of values with both the South Africa Project and Ubuntu Now, a tag cloud seemed a natural, and they’ve come out really well. Here’s the one for the South Africa Project:

South Africa Project Tag Cloud

Immediately and without any complications it shows that while we’re still engaged and interested in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, rape prevention is a much more core goal of our project, and that empowerment and gender equality are critical parts of what we are trying to accomplish.  Nice, isn’t it?

What’s better is that we’ve made it easy for you to support our project by buying some gear with this tag cloud featured by going to our South Africa Project Store. Just click and check it out, I know you’ll like it.

And our overarching organization, Ubuntu Now?  We created a different tag cloud for that:

Ubuntu Now Tag Cloud

Since we’re big fans of this one too, which offers up the values that helped guide the creation of Ubuntu Now and South Africa Project, we’ve also made these available with its own online store: Ubuntu Now Online Store.

I invite you to browse both stores and I’ll remind you that it’s one of the easiest ways to help us raise money to support these worthy goals for South Africa and our troubled world.

Posted under 2010 World Cup, Gender equality

A recent study on rape by the South Africa Medical Research Council came as a strong reminder on the severity of the rape situation in South Africa.

According to the study 1 in 4 men have already forced a women to have sex with him. Rape is generally accepted in wide parts of the society.

The police statistics show 86 women and 64 minor girls being raped each day.

30% of adolescents stated that their first sexual encounter was based on rape.

The reported number of rapes per year is 55,000. The University of South Africa estimates that the real number is around 1 million. If this number is correct one woman in South Africa is forced to have sex every 30 seconds. Read More…

Posted under Gender equality

The rulers in Iran made one big mistake during the Islamic Revolution. They cut down women’s rights. But they figured that if women cover themselves up they could be allowed into Universities. And so they went. And they got very educated. The rate of educated women climbed from 30% to 70% over the last 30 years.

Yes they still walk around all covered up but there was something brewing underneath all these chadors and head scarfs. And the rulers missed out on that.

The women of Teheran have shown tremendous courage over the last weeks. They were not afraid to take a beating.

Neda Iran was of course the woman whose tragic fate propelled the women standing up into the world headlines. They know that what is happening in this country is not right.

This should serve as a lesson to other countries that still discriminate against women. No matter what your reasoning polical, religious or cultural.

Yes the demonstrations in Iran are about the past elections. But they have turned into something much bigger by now. These women stand up for their rights.

Bottom line: Many of these women are fearless heros. Some of them are dead now or imprisoned. They are still all winners in my book. I hope many other women from around the world will follow suit. This doesn’t always have to be on the level of trying to overturn a government. But gathering and speaking up does make a difference: To the outside world but even more so to yourself. It is very empowering and can chnge someone’s life forever.

How about that famous quote of Victor Frankl: ” Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ”

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• Video: Neda Iran, one life lost for a greater cause (inquisitr.com)

Posted under Everything Else, Gender equality

Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology, described archetypes as the psychological and emotional energy patterns that are in the collective unconscious. These can manifest individually, in forms of physical symptoms, complexes, dreams, and patterns of behavior, or culturally in popular trends, music, and current economical and social events.

In South Africa,  we have seen a tremendous rise in the AIDS epidemic over the last few years, which has contributed to the current health and social welfare concerns.  An estimated 6 million out of the 45 million people in South Africa are living with HIV/AIDS, the highest officially recognized total of people in the world (South African Department of Health). But underneath this crisis may be a larger social injustice at play that needs attention: sexual violence and gender inequality.

Sexual violence is not a new phenomenon. Dating back to antiquity, women have always played a lesser role in society. Most myths and fairytales depict the feminine as a weak victim in need of rescue. Rape has been used as a medium of torture and humiliation in war, whether between countries or tribes. Sexual abuse is one of the most annihilating forms of enforcing power, one that strips away personal choice. It is most damaging in the context of a trusting relationship, such as in the case of child sexual abuse and spousal rape. Read More…

Posted under Gender equality

Someone might argue that a lot of the problems related to HIV/AIDS and rape in South Africa are related to cultural traditions and therefore can hardly be changed.

I gathered some cultural traditions that came to my mind. This is a totally random list:

• Grown up men in some cultures marry girls as young as twelve years old.
• La Tomatina – People in Spain throw tons of tomatoes at each other every year.
• Also in Spain people spend their Sundays watching bullfights.
• Carneval in Rio – People dance for 5 days until they pass out.
• Female Genital Cutting is being performed as rights of passage ritual – mainly in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
• Tattooing spilled over from Polynesia into the Western World.
• Ramadan and Lent are among some religious practices of self-restraint.
• Women being threatened for violating laws – even though they’ve been raped.
• Millions of Muslims take a pilgrimages to Mecca each year.
• Restrictions on what people are allowed to eat: Kosher food, Ramadan, Lent, No pork for some cultures etc…
• Thousands of Germans gather in tents each year for their Oktoberfest – drinking huge amounts of their beloved beer.

In order to make my point I could define three main buckets for these cultural traditions: Read More…

Posted under Gender equality

I just read another article full of disturbing facts in the German magazine Der Spiegel and have to share this with you:

The new Health Minister in South Africa, Barbara Hogan just stated: “We know that HIV can cause AIDS”. It is hard to believe but this an almost revolutionary shift in South Africa’s official policy. She also stated that the “policy of our government has failed”. FINALLY! Read More…

Posted under Gender equality, Meeting South Africa