Higgins says violence against women intolerable

Gender-based violence is one of greatest challenges facing South Africa today and it needs to be rooted out of local cultures, President Michael D Higgins said yesterday after meeting South Africans engaged in tackling the issue.

Following conversations with members of the Sonke Gender Justice group in Diepsloot, a poor informal settlement of 400,000 people situated between Johannesburg and Pretoria, Mr Higgins said violence against women was intolerable. "Gender-based violence cannot be defended under any circumstances and it is a very false statement to say that it is in the culture and that it can't be changed," he said. "It has to be rooted out of the culture, and that begins very early with the youngsters."

Violence against women in South Africa is at near-epidemic proportions, with recent large-scale surveys revealing one-third of men who took part admitted having raped a woman, according to Sonke founding director Dean Peacock.

Irish Aid is one of the principal funders of the Sonke group, which first began to operate in South Africa eight years ago. Sonke tackles issues around gender equality, human rights and HIV/Aids through the provision of training and education programmes as well as legal aid and community intervention initiatives. Mr Higgins maintained that, in the coming decades, South Africa had the capacity to be a wonderful country for all its citizens, but problems around excessive violence were holding it back.

Culture of respect

“There is a lack of appreciation of the necessity of exchanging respect [between men and women]. The South African constitution is about respect, and how respecting yourself is built on respecting others; there is a great freedom in that,” he said.

After his engagement in Diepsloot the President travelled to Pretoria to meet South African president Jacob Zuma.

Their conversation ranged from unemployment and poverty to other issues that arise in an adjusting society in a post-apartheid atmosphere. “It was a very frank discussion,” he said,

“While we were able to talk about what had been achieved in the 20 years, the president also acknowledged that much more needed to be done.”