How Do Political Parties Address the Problem of Violence Against Women?

1. Background
Women are disproportionately the targets of sexual offences and domestic violence in
South Africa. The incidence of such crimes in South Africa is both inordinately and
particularly high in comparison to many other parts of the world. Any political party
claiming to represent all of South Africa’s citizens must address such violence – unless
they wish to overlook half of the population. Responses to violence against women also
cannot be subsumed under responses to crime generally. Violence against women has
unique aspects which, if not recognised and dealt with appropriately, will merely
perpetuate the problem. Our review of the manifestoes therefore examines how parties
understand and frame the problem of violence against women and what they then
conceive of as being appropriate solutions to the problem.

 Violence against women is multi-dimensional:

• The legal dimension encompasses legislation developed to combat violence, as
  well as the structures established to put the laws into effect. Here our review
  examined whether any parties identified the need for new legislation in this area, as
  well as their recommendations around the functioning of the police, courts and
  prisons.
• The political dimension includes issues of governance, oversight and
  accountability. It includes the scope for women’s participation in decision-making
  structures and processes such as parliament. It will also refer to the extent to which
  political parties take up the proble
• The societal dimension refers broadly to the values, norms, beliefs and traditions
  that communities and societies share, or espouse, which may condone or sanction
  violence.
• The economic and material dimension refers to the goods, resources and services
  that are available for preventing and responding to violence such as housing,
  employment, health and social services.
  What are the key problems needing to be addressed?
• Unlike other crimes, both rape and domestic violence have a long history of being
  ignored, tolerated and condoned. For example, it has only been possible to charge
  husbands with the rape of their wives since 1993. Far too many people still believe
  that women in short skirts, especially if they have been drinking, ‘ask’ to be raped.
• Again, unlike other crimes, victims of sexual offences and domestic violence are
  often highly-stigmatised. Because far too many South Africans condone such
  violence, victims continue to feel shame and remain silent. This leads to both rape
  and domestic violence being amongst the most-under-reported crimes in South
  Africa. The true extent of both problems cannot be gauged from police statistics
  alone. In fact, because there is no category of crime termed ‘domestic violence’ it is
  near-impossible to determine the number of cases of such violence reported to the
  police.
• While many victims of violence, like survivors of rape and domestic violence, may
  require medical care and treatment, it is only the latter two groups of victims who
  run the risk of being infected with HIV as a result of such abuse.
• The South African Stress and Health (SASH) is the most comprehensive psychiatric
  epidemiological study in South Africa to date. This survey found domestic violence
  to be associated with the greatest number of lifetime post-traumatic stress disorder
  (PTSD) cases amongst women, while rape was found to be the most pathogenic
  form of violence with regard to PTSD. Another study found that childhood sexual
  coercion and violence is associated with an increased risk of being subjected to
  physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of an intimate partner. In other words,
  childhood sexual assault places women at particular risk of revictimisation. These
  findings highlight the urgent need for good and effective counselling in the
  aftermath of such violence.
• Domestic violence contributes to women’s poverty. In some abusive relationships
  women’s money and property is taken from them and they are denied the
  opportunity to seek or maintain employment. As a consequence women accumulate
  little in the way of income and assets. When they leave abusive relationships, they
  effectively have to start all over again. Further, when men refuse to uphold their
  duty of support, they effectively create two households under one roof: one
  occupied by women and their children in which they might be denied adequate
  nutrition, shelter and health care; and a second occupied by the man in which he
  maintained himself (and sometimes a second household). This creates a situation of
  intra-household poverty which is often overlooked in approaches that look at
  household poverty alone. In addition, the absence of a comprehensive social
  security safety net places some abused women at particular risk of slipping into
  permanent poverty. Finally, access to an income has been shown to protect women
  from abuse (although in some instances it can exacerbate abuse).
• Domestic violence violates women’s right of access to adequate housing. When
  women are evicted from their homes by their abusers, or forced to flee to shelters,
  their security of tenure is threatened. Women’s economic dependence on their
  abusive partners means they frequently cannot obtain alternative accommodation
  and run the risk of becoming homeless. The design of houses and housing
  settlements may also contribute to increasing or reducing women’s risk of violence,
  while the management of public housing developments makes a similar
  contribution to women’s safety. It is therefore necessary to ensure that when
  women are disadvantaged by domestic violence, they are accorded full and
  sustainable access to adequate housing resources.
• Not all women are equally at risk of violence and nor do all women enjoy equal
  access to services. The intersections of other forms of discrimination on the grounds
  of race, disability, class and sexual orientation (to name a few) further marginalise
  some women and create unique situations of disadvantage. These particularities are
  often ignored, rendering such groups (including men) invisible in law and policy. A
  serious commitment to addressing discrimination in all its manifestations must
  therefore incorporate these groups’ equality rights.

2. What do the manifestoes say?
To compile this review we looked at the following parties’ manifestoes:

• African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP)
• African National Congress (ANC)
• Congress of the People (COPE)
• Democratic Alliance (DA)
• Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus)
• Independent Democrats (ID)
• Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP)
• United Democratic Movement (UDM)
• Women Forward (WF)

What concrete and specific proposals do the parties put forward to address violence
against women?

The ACDP:

• Review the parole system and deny bail for certain categories of crime
  including rape.
   

The ANC:

• Combat violence and crimes against women and children by increasing the
  capacity of the criminal justice system to deal with such violence.

COPE:

• Increase the availability of special care facilities for women and children
  in abusive relationships and environments, amongst others;
• Work with communities and NGOs at the local level to intensify the fight
  against many forms of crime, such as rape and violence against women
  and children;
• Consider legislation that will make it difficult to withdraw charges on
  violent crimes and specifically crimes against women and children;
• Establish specialised units to combat crimes against women and children
  and ensure investigators and prosecutors work jointly on solving these
  crimes; and
• Establish a Women’s Development Fund to focus on funding and assisting
  women to engage in productive economic activity.
   

The DA:

• Citizens who are vulnerable to abuse, and women and children in
  particular, know they can rely on an effective police service to protect
  them;
• Reinstate specialised units
• Establish a victims’ register which will enable victims of violent and
  sexual offences to register on a secure and confidential database and be
  kept updated on any developments eg. granting of bail or parole
• Establish a victims of crime fund (taken from prisoners’ earnings and
  other sources.) This will only be available to those “suffering physical
  damage."

FF Plus:

• Supports measures aimed at protecting women and children as vulnerable
  citizens against abuse; and
• The death penalty for extraordinarily violent rapes.

The ID:

• Many rape survivors are still not receiving free anti-retroviral treatment
  due to government inaction – intensify the roll-out of the ARV Programme
  by progressively investing in the provision of ARVs and appointing and
  training staff, create and AIDS Directorate in every department to work
  with the Department of Health;
• Build caring communities whereby neighbours look out for each other and
  everyone, especially women, children and the elderly are respected and
  cared for rather than abused – build a different value system and build
  social cohesion; and

The ID

• would foster greater international co-operation in fighting such
  scourges as the trafficking in women and children.

The IFP:

• Violent crime, especially against women and children, are signs of moral
  degeneration; and
• Reinstate specialised units.

The UDM:

• Violent crimes, as well as crimes against women and children, are of
  particular concern to us.
   

WF:

• The abuse of women and children in particular, is simply the symptom of
  a sick society in desperate need of cleansing and healing;
• Let the abusers be the ones who leave the home not the abused
• WF appeals to all sectors of our society to protect, treat and care for
  vulnerable individuals as their own in the various communities; and
• The Justice system needs to work 24/7 until all the perpetrators of such
  violent crimes against the vulnerable are locked away behind bars.

Concluding analysis

• With the exception of the ID, all other parties treat violence against women as a
  problem of the criminal justice system.
• The UDM makes no practical suggestions around addressing this violence while the
  ANC and WF put forward only one very broad, general proposal around the
  criminal justice system. Three parties (ACDP, FF Plus and the IFP) each make one
  concrete policy proposal. COPE makes two proposals and the DA four.
• COPE is the only party proposing legislative reform (around the withdrawal of
  charges). No party recognises the need for hate crime legislation, or the need to
  recognise the rights of women who co-habit. This group of women runs the risk of
  losing everything when abusive relationships are terminated.
• Only COPE recognises the need to increase the number of ‘special care’ facilities
  for women in abusive relationships. No party addresses the need for comprehensive
  mental health and social services.
• The ID is the only party to refer to one aspect of the relationship between violence
  against women and HIV/AIDS.
• The ID, WF and COPE make explicit reference to involving communities in
  addressing violence against women.
• No party recognises or addresses violence in the context of women’s poverty. COPE
  does, however, make reference to the need for a Women’s Development Fund
  which could be of assistance. Both the IFP and DA favour some sort of basic
  income grant which could be of use to women attempting to either cope with, or
  exit, abusive relationships.
• No party makes any reference to the contribution of gender inequality to violence
  against women and therefore offers no real ideas around promoting gender equality
  beyond the introduction of quotas for political structures. The relationship between
  women’s political representation and the combating of crimes against them is not
  made evident.

In the final analysis, no party has developed a multi-dimensional response to violence
against women, although a few parties are thinking beyond the criminal justice system
alone. While almost all parties respond to the legal dimensions of violence in a more or
less inadequate fashion, responses to the societal, economic and material dimensions are
almost entirely absent. No party recognises the unique circumstances and needs of
marginalised groups of women experiencing violence, including sex workers,
undocumented female migrants and refugees, women with disabilities or lesbians (to
name a few). On the strength of the manifestoes, we can also conclude that attention to
the political dimensions of the problem are also under-developed.