The Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Response Fund believes that abusers of women and rapists are becoming younger and abuse, including rape, is growing at institutions of learning.
South Africa has one of the highest rape statistics in the world and the majority of those rape cases are not reported.
Recent research by The Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Response Fund indicates that nearly 60% of women experience abuse in institutions of learning and 57.75% had missed class after those rape or abuse incidents.
Speaking to eNCA, Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Response Fund spokesperson Tshepo Sefothlelo said there has been an increase in gender-based violence across institutions of higher learning.
“If you look across the country ... you see that generally there is an increase in gender-based violence across the board,” he said.
“Now what that says to us is that there are more and more people that are coming out, that are reporting, but we also know there is under-reporting when it comes to gender-based violence.
“We are seeing that abusers of women and rapists are getting younger and younger.
“It is happening in our society, that issues of gender-based violence are currently happening in our institutions and we are seeing that abusers of women and rapists are getting younger and younger, even in high school and primary (school) it starts to happen and we are really in an unfortunate situation.:
He said that in August they wanted to embark on a campaign called ‘Flip The Switch’ focusing on men who, unfortunately, tend to be the ones committing these crimes against women and children.
“Often these perpetrators are known to the survivors or the victims. It’s either they are involved in an intimate relationship, (are) friends and lecturers, and it shows that men need to hold themselves accountable and stop this attack on our young woman,” Sefothlelo said.
“The laws and policies are there to police this kind of behaviour but when it comes to implementation, that is where we have been found wanting and we know that all 26 universities have GBV procedures where they support students if they need counselling if one becomes a victim of these heinous acts.”
IOL