The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Five men have been formally charged in India with the kidnapping, gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus. India erupted in protest after the violent attack. The case has shone a light on other instances of sexual violence in India, where one woman is raped every 20 minutes. Meanwhile the attitude of Indian authorities towards violence against women is extremely negligent. Conviction rates in rape cases in India have decreased from 46% in 1971 to 26% in 2012....
Anna Majavu -
A recent Supreme Court of Appeal judgment has undermined the plight of incest victims who keep quiet about their ordeals after being threatened with death or given tokens by their abusive father figures.
In this recent judgment, Supreme Court of appeal judge Jeremiah Shongwe - with judges Lex Mpati, Carole Lewis, Belinda van Heerden and Nathan Erasmus concurring - reduced a rapist's life sentence to 15 years. The Limpopo High Court had earlier sentenced Edson Ndou to the mandatory...
One in three women is raped or beaten on our planet. On a planet of 7 billion people, that’s one billion women who experience this savage violence.
To respond to this crisis, Eve Ensler has launched a global campaign – The One Billion Rising Campaign – which seeks to mobilize one billion people to come together on 14 February 2013 to take a stand against these terrible acts against women.
Ensler launched the South African leg of the campaign in Melville, Johannesburg,...
A recent study revealed that 85% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign women experience sexual harassment in Egypt.
Sexual harassment is also being used as a deterrent to prevent female activists from joining street protests and sit-ins. Women are frequently targeted by the military and police during raids at sit-ins. Soldiers and police officers have been caught on tape beating, stripping and harassing women protestors.
After several violent attacks against women in the heart of...
Across the world, in places expected and unexpected, men are joining women to challenge patriarchy, end men's violence against women and promote gender equality.
To capture a sense of this growing movement, the Sonke Gender Justice Network recently commissioned a filmmaker to interview leading activists who participated in the 2009 MenEngage Africa symposium, to create the film, A Way to Justice: Engaging Men for Women’s Rights and Gender Transformation.
Gillian Schutte -
In 2008 hundreds of South African women donned their miniskirts and protested at the taxi rank where a young girl was brutally accosted by taxi drivers and hawkers for wearing a short denim skirt. The men who accosted her allegedly stuck their fingers into her vagina and called her a "slut."
Women were outraged. The angry protestors wore mini skirts and T Shirts saying, “Pissed-Off Women.” They stormed the ranks and told the perpetrators in no...
