Latest news, events and job opportunities

 The submission, made to the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services, is in lead up to a hearing on the prevalence of torture in Department of Correctional Services (DCS) facilities. As a form of torture, prison rape is a clear violation of offenders human rights. There are also critical links between sexual abuse and gender inequality and HIV in DCS facilities. This joint submission examines the gendered aspects of sexual violence in correctional centres, how rape shapes offenders understandings of gender and sexuality, and how it fuels a cycle of violence both in and out of prisons. We also underscore the connection between HIV and sexual violence in prisons, and highlight the specific needs of male survivors of sexual assault, who are largely invisible in our society.

There are promising developments which will lay the foundation for the work needed to protect the rights of inmates against sexual abuse. There is a draft policy framework to address the sexual abuse of inmates that is currently pending, and the Correctional Matters Amendment Act, passed in May 2011, contains a provision requiring the assessment of new detainees for vulnerability to sexual abuse. The new National Strategic Plan for HIV, STIs and TB 2012-2016 (NSP) also calls on DCS to enforce laws and policies to prevent sexual abuse of inmates as a strategy to stem the spread of HIV. In addition to adopting these pending documents and enforcing existing laws, Sonke and TAC made recommendations for DCS to do the following:

• Engage with the development of operational plans for the NSP (which calls for prevention of prison rape),
• Integrate training on sexual violence and HIV into DCS training college curricula, and
• Work with other governmental departments and civil society to ensure the provision of appropriate services to offenders

Download: The TAC & Sonke Parliamentary Submission

 Africa has been the world’s fastest growing region over the last decade in terms of mobile penetration. While fixed line penetration has stagnated at 4% in the continent, mobile has grown at an astonishing rate to 45% with North Africa leading at 73%. However broadband is lagging behind considerably when compared to other continents.

The reason: lack of an adequate infrastructure and high costs of service provisioning. Currently the average broadband penetration in Africa is only 1.5% with South Africa leading at approximately about 3%. Owing to coverage restrictions and lack of bandwidth, large parts of the region continue to witness connectivity delivered via satellites or mobile technology. Lack of bandwidth availability and limited connectivity with rest of the world has arrested the development of Africa and has constrained the continent from achieving its full potential.

 In 2011, Women'sNet conducted 2 sets of workshops on e-advocacy techniques and digital actvism in the framework of the OWRAP Program and with the Building Women's Collective Power project. More specifically, those workshop have focused on the use of social media platforms and a set of online tools that can help feminist actvists in their advocacy campaigns. Recently, the Arab Spring, and more specifically the Egyptian and Tunisian popular uprisings of 2011, were fuelled by online activists, organising through blogs, SMS, and social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook. How can the feminist movement in South Africa can take advantage of new online and mobile tehnologies to improve their advocacy practices? The following publications start a reflexion on activism and technology in our hyper connected world.

Mary C Joyce of the Meta-Activism project summarizes in a recent blog post the key functions of technology for activist purposes: to shpae public opinion, plan an action, protect activists, share a call to action and take action digitally.

On the 17 of February, Women marched on Bree street taxi rank following the harassment 2 young women wearing mini-skirts were victims of at Noord street taxi rank last December. Organised by the ANC Women's League, the march gathered the support of COSATU, Women and Men Against Child Abuse and the Commission for Gender Equality. According to the Sowetan, a group of men followed the 2 women pulling their clothes and groping them. This is not the first incident of this nature in Johannesburg as similar marches were organized in 2008 by the Remmoho Women’s Forum and more recently last  September  a "slut walk" were organized Johannesburg to bring awareness to sexual harassment and violence against women perpetrated un public spaces.