LETTER | Getting to the root of GBV is key to the solution

If we genuinely wish to reduce gender-based violence (GBV), and not simply exploit the widespread concern about it, then we must obviously find some practical way of addressing the origins of this violence.

It is striking how few commentators attempt to do this.

There are two obvious and easy ways to  address the problem.

The first is to improve policing. Between 1994-2005, there was a consensus that the police needed to be improved and various policies were adopted to accomplish that goal.

For the last 16 years, however, the government has been smashing up the police force, encouraging internecine conflict, promoting purges and insecurity, interfering destructively in policy and structures, and above all, defunding the service while encouraging corruption and incompetence.

We need a government which is willing to stop these destructive interventions.

It may be argued that you can’t police relationships and that is true. However, a major task of police is to know what is going on in their neighbourhood and to identify potential criminals. Someone who is abusive towards his partner should be identified and arrested.

The second obvious way is to stop undermining economic growth. Over much the same period that the police force has been damaged, the government has been damaging the economy, which is now more unequal and less capable of growth than it has ever been.

While there are obviously other factors, a major reason for the problem is that government is obsessed with serving the interests of the rich and powerful, and less concerned with  promoting employment or social well-being.

As a result, poverty and insecurity are not only rising, but nobody has any expectation that the government means to do anything to change matters.

Another important force against interpersonal violence of any kind is a sense of community, in which the individual sees other individuals as community members engaged in collective activity, rather than as competitors who must be fought.

The collective community sees individuals as members of itself, and seeks to take responsibility for and help them.

In the past, many residences were collective spaces crowded with people who cared for each other. Collective bodies like political organisations and churches had codes by which people were expected to live, even if those codes were applied hypocritically.

Today codes have largely vanished and it seems almost impossible to replace them.

I don’t know how this sense of the collective is to be restored. Perhaps we could ask people to work together on goals and projects entailing shared values and hopes, instead of the numb and blind pursuit of self-interest, and thus reduce social conflict and GBV.

— Mathew Blatchford, University of Fort Hare