While the festive season holidays may be filled with joy and happiness for many, the scourge of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) remains a threat to women around South Africa.
Minister of Police Bheki Cele has called on police officers to prioritise GBV cases this festive season. Last year, the Tears foundation received more than 43 000 calls from gender-based violence victims during the 2020 festive period.
Already on 25 December 2021, a man in Limpopo shot and killed seven family members, four of which were children.
The fear is this number may increase. This as South Africans are currently under Alert level 1 lockdown which has less restriction than the Alert level 3 lockdown which was enforced during the 2020 festive season.
Founder and Director of the Tears Foundation Mara Glennie says the problem of GBV is being addressed less by roleplayers. She says that approximately 50% of the calls Tears received last year was from victims who were locked in or lived with abusers
She adds that the problem is often compounded by the fact that some shelters and facilities that house victims of GBV are closed during the festive period. This leaves victims without support when they may need it.
“I'm a survivor and I understand the desperate need for help when you're in that bad situation so we don't shut over christmas, but many places do. So not only have you got organisations such as ours, they shut their doors to counselling over christmas but you have overloaded police stations and we have poor service in the police stations” said Glennie.
She adds that alcohol plays a large role when it comes to the abuse of women. She explained, “ “I'm afraid alcohol does play quite a large role because whilst alcohol can never cause you to abuse it just takes that sharpness off your woods and it might cause you to hit someone you wouldn't normally hit or make you filled with anger that's caused by the alcohol so alcohol does sadly increase abuse”.
Glennie is calling on all roleplayers in society to support women and victims of GBV.
