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Amnesty International said South Africa's toxic social norms, attitudes and beliefs continue to be driving factors of Gender-Based Violence.
Executive director, Shenilla Mohammed, was commenting as the annual 16 days campaign of no-violence against women and children got underway on Monday.
She said gender power inequality, and pervasive harmful patriarchal social norms, attitudes and beliefs continue to be factors which drive and enable the high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) in this country.
Mohammed said such attitudes were alarming in a nation where approximately 15 women are murdered daily, 172 are assaulted, and an average of 116 rapes are reported each day.
She said the release of the first national GBV prevalence study, conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council show that almost 36% of women reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence during their lifetime.
“This translates to an estimated 7,847,438 women,” Mohammed said.
Amnesty International said it was worrying to see that 10.7% of men surveyed believed that a woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together, and 8.3% of men believed that there are times when a woman deserves to be beaten.
It added that the majority of men, at 69.5%, believed that a woman should obey her husband, while 9.1% of women agreed with the statement that if a wife does something wrong, her husband has the right to punish her.
“It is clear that the high rates of GBV in South Africa are perpetuated by a culture of silence and ‘acceptance’.
“We need more people reporting crimes of GBV and calling out the toxic social and cultural norms that exist at every level of society,” Mohamed said.
“While society needs to do its part in fighting against toxic norms, attitudes, and gender-power relations, the state also needs to play its part.
“The police and the state continue to fail all who live in South Africa by not acting with the urgency and seriousness this requires. This failure to do more is violating people’s rights to safety, life and dignity.
“Enough is enough! More action is needed, and it is needed now,” Mohammed said.
