We launched the #KnowYourRights awareness work on our social media platforms to ensure that rape survivors are aware of the health rights and health services that they are entitled to access. In an effort to speak directly to specific instances of sexual violence, the mini-campaign introduced our online community to 6 characters – characters that we could either see ourselves in or recognise as members of our communities – and their experiences with rape and gender-based violence.
We all dream although we don’t always remember our dreams. Dreams are a bit like the brains way of processing all the stuff that has been going on throughout the day including things that you may be struggling with. We might wake up and chuckle a bit or are puzzled by them because our dreams can be a little bizarre or extraordinary or impossible in reality. Many people have at one time or another had a nightmare. For a survivor of sexual violence, nightmares are no laughing matter. They are a symptom of trauma. One of several troubling symptoms that can recur years after the incident has happened.
The possibility of a lock down was on everyone’s lips even before the declaration was made. Along with this came uncertainty and anxiety about the future and high levels of anxiety about how one should respond to feel safe from harm. Conflicting stories and opinions and panic buying seemed to be compressed into a few days that simultaneously felt like they lasted for an age. Anxiety felt as contagious as the virus we had all been warned about.
In these moments it is okay to feel hopeless, helpless, vulnerable and angry. The past week has highlighted horrific incidents of violence against women. People have expressed their rage, helplessness and hopelessness at the situation and rightly so. Many of us are experiencing moral fatigue on social issues in South Africa and globally.
Each person copes with trauma in a different way, depending on their circumstances. We cannot tell you exactly how you will or should feel if you have been raped, but we can tell you what we have learnt from other rape survivors. By describing their feelings and coping mechanisms, we hope to offer you strength […]
At Rape Crisis, we have developed a counselling approach that empowers survivors and encourages them to be active participants in their respective paths to recovery. Our counsellors are trusted allies and empathic witnesses to our survivors and their stories.
People exposed to sexual violence often feel that their lives have changed forever and that they will never come to terms with the trauma they have suffered. They believe they will never again be free to trust other people, especially those who resemble the person who violated them. The many myths surrounding sexual violence only […]
It is estimated that 40% of South African women will be raped in their lifetime and only 8.6% of rape perpetrators are convicted. Unfortunately, most people believe these rapes only occur in dark alleyways by hooded strangers. Rape Crisis’ new campaign reveals that the truth is a lot closer to home. 68% of rape survivors […]
Rape is a violent crime in which a person uses sexual acts to intentionally harm and hurt another. We cannot talk about rape in polite terms or hide the truth about it. Rape is an abuse of power and an abuse of sex.
It is important for rape survivors to understand the exact meaning of the laws on rape for two reasons:
The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act (Act 32 of 2007) has been in effect in South Africa since 16 December 2007. This law states that it is a crime to intentionally commit a sexual act against another person without that person’s consent.
In the world we occupy today, there are currently fewer women executives in the workforce than there are male executives named John. While this seems like an optimal moment to use the now infamous Hillary Clinton, glass ceiling metaphor, it turns out that getting on to the same level as this plethora of John’s is only the beginning of a women’s struggle in the work place. Surprise! More glass ceilings. Not only does there need to be a fight for a women’s success to equal that of John’s, but the false pretense that the struggle ends there only causes a woman to stop and say, “Wait!” when she looks down at her paycheck and compares it to that of her male counterparts.
The gender-wage gap is not a new phenomenon. In fact, as Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James discuss in their writing “The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community,” how capitalism pushed women further and further out of the workplace to the point where men were the primary wage earners and a women’s skills were wasted as she is reduced to her domestic work. However, discrimination in the name of gender is a complex animal and, of course, one glass ceiling would have been far too easy for a woman to break. Even when women shed their soapy, latex dish-washing gloves and join the work force, the system tells them that they are still not worth the same as men.