During the first week of my remote internship, I focused on growing my background knowledge of South Africa, its history and how it ended as “Rape Capital of the World”. I read news online at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/ and https://www.groundup.org.za/, and listened podcasts like Cape Talk. I also watched some films to learn the nation’s turbulent recent history, the violence that preceded the end of Apartheid, and how people were suffered from the effect of alcoholism, HIV infection, stigmatization, and abuse.
South Africa has a long history of violence. It was used as a tool of power and governance by colonialists to repress and control the indigenous people. The apartheid regime from 1948 used violence as part of its repertoire to gain and maintain social and political control. Such a culture of violence is hard to stop, especially when it has become a legitimized and institutionalized form of coercion.
We have the pandemic of violence against women, which is raging not only in South Africa but in other countries. Unfortunately, South Africa is up there as one of the countries with the most cases. The latest crime statistics show a sharp increase in violent crimes in South Africa. The first three months of 2022 were marred by more murders, more sexual violence and more assaults in comparison to the same period in 2021. Women are trapped by gender-based violence, poverty as a result of apartheid, femicide and now in the lockdown they are trapped even more.
