No rest until women and children are safe – MEC
GRIP CEO, Barbara Kenyon, said, "We need investment into prevention strategies to prevent the cycle of abuse to continue."
On Wednesday, the MEC for community safety, security and liaison, Gabisile Shabalala, said communities needed to protect women and children from being victims of crime.
“We will not rest until we are certain that women and children are safe. Innocent people should not die while we watch and keep quiet. In instances where the murder is committed by a lover, this is a lesson that women must learn, to walk away once they notice abusive actions from their partners.”
CEO of the Greater Rape Intervention Programme (GRIP), Barbara Kenyon cautioned that domestic violence is a very complex situation in which to be.
“Perpetrators isolate, demean, manipulate and take any form of choice away from the survivors and their children, for the perpetrators to continue the violence, be it physical, emotional, verbal and financial. Statistics have proved that women are abused on average more than 57 times before they are even able to admit or seek help for domestic violence.”
Kenyon said we should not judge too harshly.
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“Perpetrators ‘groom’ their victims slowly, that is why it is often incorrect for medical professionals to say that there is no rape if there is no obvious blood or trauma. Mothers are often abused as well, and as this mom said, she was frightened of the perpetrator.
“Note that she did take her daughter to the doctor once she was told initially. Yes, religion and patriarchal cultures so often deny women and children their right to safety and justice.
“We have so many grandmothers, mothers and family members protecting their sons at the expense of children, in the name of culture and money. Many perpetrators are also the breadwinner. Look at the Eastern Cape culture of stealing young girls for sex and marriage.
“In this case it was the stepfather. The very person that the little girl should have had as her protector. The sad thing is that this is going to ‘haunt’ her for the rest of her life and she will probably choose a partner who will be abusive in turn, moving us back to your first question.”
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She added that the ongoing emotional and physical violence in the country is costing us dearly.
“We need investment into prevention strategies to prevent the cycle of abuse to continue. And most of all, GRIP needs the government and community to invest in our very specialised and researched method of ‘walking the healing road’ with each and every unique survivor of domestic or sexual abuse.
“Domestic violence has no quick fixes, especially if the survivor has grown up in an abusive home. Then abuse is seen as normal. If anything, I hope that this article will encourage women to seek help with GRIP. We have a shelter for abused women and children, which is called ‘Home of Hope’.”
Contact GRIP on 013-752-4404 or 083-310-1321.
