Violence

Sexual violence profoundly limits women’s ability to negotiate safer sex, being able to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights. This is an enormous challenge as sexual violence is so prevalent. It also is devastating for women’s being able to experience sexual desire and pleasure.

25 November: International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Violence against women is the most pervasive violation of human rights, occurring every day, in every country and every region, regardless of income or level of development.

Violence against women is one of the four major causes of death in the world today along with disease, hunger and war, according to the head of a Swiss defense institute that recently published a major study entitled Women in an Insecure World.

Understanding and preventing violence against children

The prevalence of sexual violence, particularly among children, has led an NGO in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province to focus on informing children about their rights and what to do in case of abuse.

Some 61 percent of staff working in the health service have experienced physical or psychological violence over the past year, costing the government R40-billion. This is according to a study conducted by Dr Mireille Kingma of the International Council of Nurses in Geneva, Switzerland, who found that nurses and ambulance staff were at the highest risk of encountering violent situations. Kingma carried out her research in several countries, including Brazil, Australia and Thailand, and South Africa with the help of Dr Susan Steinman, founder of South Africa's Work Trauma Foundation. The foundation deals with violence in the workplace. The findings showed a marked increase in such violence. Staff in the health services are 16 times more likely to be victims of violence. According to the survey, psychological violence - considered as, if not more, destructive than physical violence - was more prevalent between staff. With physical violence, the patient and family members were usually the perpetrators. Large hospitals in densely populated areas experienced higher crime and more violence than private health sectors, said Kingma. Steinman, a trained country-facilitator for the International Labour Organisation, assisted in the development of Stress, Tobacco, Alcohol & Drugs, HIV/Aids and Violence, or Solve, which aims to deal with violence at the workplace. (Source: The Cape Argus, 19 November) 2003

The South African Gender Based Violence and Health Initiative (SAGBVHI), will be hosting this conference in Gauteng, South Africa. Conference objectives are: to share research findings and methodologies on gender based violence and health, and to debate key challenges of gender based violence facing health sector. International experts on gender based violence, health and other related issues, who will be in attendance are: Charlotte Watts (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Janice Du'Mont (Violence and Health Research Initiative, Canada) and Claudia Garcia-Moreno (World Health Organization). The conference will address some critical issues such as child sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS and violence against women, Domestic Violence and health issues, and gender based violence against vulnerable groups. For more information contact Mandy Salomo mandy.salomo@mrc.ac.za

Pretoria - Any person infected with a life-threatening sexually-transmissible disease who failed to disclose that to his or her partner before having sex will be guilty of rape, the South African Law Commission (SALC) said on Tuesday. At a news conference in Pretoria the commission released a report containing its final recommendations on the law relating to sexual offences, as well as a draft Bill on Sexual Offences. In its draft Children's Bill, also released on Tuesday, the SALC recommended that children of all ages be provided with confidential access to condoms. According to the draft bill on sexual offences, prostitution by children or mentally impaired people should be decriminalised in certain circumstances. These included where children benefited from child prostitution, like siblings in a child-headed household. However, the draft legislation called for the explicit criminalisation and severe penalties of all role-players involved in the prostitution of children and mentally impaired people. All offences under the proposed legislation should also be made applicable to South Africans travelling abroad, the SALC said. Medical care In another far-reaching recommendation, the commission said the state should provide appropriate medical care, treatment and counselling for people who had sustained physical, psychological or other injuries due to an alleged sexual offence. The SALC proposed the abolition of the cautionary rule whereby evidence by complainants in sexual offence cases and children should or could be treated with caution. It mooted the creation of a category of vulnerable witnesses - including all complainants and child witnesses in sexual offence cases. That status would entail new protective measures, including the appointment of a support person to assist the witness during pre-trial procedures and the trial. The draft bill also provided for increased penalties for those who identified complainants and witnesses in sexual offences cases or who unlawfully published information in this regard.(Source: News24.com, 21/01/2003)

Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said 9 December that South Africa had long recognised violence as a health issue and that the health department was currently running a number of programmes to combat the scourge. Msimang was speaking in Port Shepstone at the World Health Organisation's local launch of the World Report on Violence and Health - a report that came about as a result of a motion tabled by South Africa in 1996 at the world health assembly. The minister told Dr Etienne Krug, the WHO's Geneva-based research coordinator that the health department was considering plans to put health warnings on alcohol.She said that while there were a number of clearly identifiable risk factors for violence, two stood out above all others - poverty and alcohol. The latest Statistics SA report on the causes of death in South Africa, non-natural causes remain the highest single cause of death. and a significant portion of the health budget was being spent on emergency services . In some areas, up to half a hospital's budget went to emergency outpatient service. Violence-related injuries are the main cause of admission for emergency services. The WHO report has made recommendations that governments and others involved in combating violence should try out new ways of preventing violence, evaluate them and roll out the methods that work well. According to Msimang, the health department was currently doing just that. It was, she said, involved in a project along with the Education Department for reducing violence in schools. Also the department of health, as part of the government's Victim Empowerment Programme, had trained over 500 nurses to adopt a more caring attitude towards survivors of violence. Specially trained health workers can also collect forensic evidence to assist the police and the courts in effectively prosecuting offenders. Were designing training and curriculum models and will ensure that such services become much more accessible to all, she said. In assuring WHO representatives that government was taking their report and recommendations to heart, Msimang said a central team, consisting of representatives from all major sectors responsible for violence prevention, was being set up. to organise an intersectoral plan to combat violence.( SAPA, 9 December 2002).

Violence against women is the world s most pervasive form of human rights violation. Gender based violence represents a substantial health burden for women in terms of morbidity and mortality rates and makes a significant negative impact on their physical and mental health (WHO 1997).