South Africa GBV declared a National Disaster

[isthismylifenow]

It's been quite a day for those of us in SA.
Firstly it was day one of the G20 summit, but even more so, today was the Woman for Change protest day. Cleverly coincidening with the start of the G20. This was a peaceful protest against gender based violence and femicide.

Woman for Change started by asking women to change our profile pics to purple and plans were then made for a shutdown today. It wasn't possible for all, but this included for women to not contribute to the economy for one day, to wear black clothing and there were various peaceful marches all over the country. Then at 12pm to lay down for 15 mins, in parks and gardens and where ever possible. And we did. In crowds. 15 minutes as that is how many woman are murdered each day here. And in the vast majority of cases, murdered by their partner or someone they know.

Yesterday the president announced a gender based violence and femicide crisis. Today it was signed in as a national disaster.

This was just so important, big companies started campaigns offering safe spaces. Buildings and bridges being lit up in purple in support.

Just being heard. Finally.

Well done!

A long way to go, but that's a magnificent first step.

Well done. Hope it leads to real change.

Well done. Proud of you all.

I hope that this is the beginning of real progress for South African women who deserve to be safe. I realised when I visited that safety = freedom.

15 women a day is a lot! Is this mostly in native African communities because I know there is a lot of VAWG? A lot of Africans still believe in things like witchcraft.

Well done for making the country listen. I'm surprised this story wasn't covered in the UK media (as far as I'm aware).

I too am surprised that it hasn't been reported more widely I did check and it was reported on the BBC and some other media outlets, the Daily Mail is another.

www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn979g302l9o.amp?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17638829667930&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2Fcn979g302l9o

It is all communities and all race groups, but I would say more so in the poorer economic groups. These are the cases we don't even get to hear about.

Thanks for this, my daughter asked me how to change her WhatsApp profile to purple kn Saturday and gave the explanation. I couldn't, I don't even know if it's possible.

She said she was glad she lives in Britain, where it doesn't happen. Sadly, I told her about the 2 to 3 women murdered weekly here, she was pretty shocked.

For future reference, in settings go to profile and there's a button to edit the profile pic. Easiest way would be just to take a photo of a purple bit of fabric and use that.

I am so happy to hear that this movement has reached other shores. Did you manage to help your dd update her profile? The Woman for Change site has many to choose from to use.

I don't know how old your dd is, but I do think it's a very important topic to cover. No matter how uncomfortable it is.

The stats from the UK show that 78% of these cases, the victim was murdered by someone they knew.

It's a sickening issue over many continents.

I haven't, but thanks to Binturong, I have a chance! She's 12.

This is amazing OP. Thank you for sharing.