allAfrica.com: South Africa: Women, Aids, And Violence, 2 (Page 1 of 4)

"In the Southern African region the results of a large scale household survey conducted in eight countries showed that nearly a fifth of the women interviewed reported being a victim of partner physical violence in the preceding year. ... South African based-studies have found that women who experience intimate partner violence are at long-term increased risk of HIV infection, particularly where their partners were involved in multiple concurrent, unprotected sexual relationships." - Amnesty International

In a report released in March, based on interviews in two South African provinces and extensive consultation with South African agencies involved with the issue, Amnesty International provides a detailed portrait of the situation of rural women, and the interaction among violence, poverty, and the risk of HIV/AIDS. The report's title, quoting one of the women interviewed, is "I am at the lowest end of all."

The full 124-page report is available at

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR53/001/2008/en In this and another issue sent out today, AfricaFocus Bulletin provides brief excerpts from the report's overview and the section on violence against women. The overview also provides a useful concise survey of the development of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, including the debates about government policy and the active role of civil society.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on related issues, see http://www.africafocus.org/healthexp.php

"I am at the lowest end of all"

Rural women living with HIV face human rights abuses in South Africa

March 2008 AI Index: AFR 53/001/2008

Amnesty International

2. Violence against women and HIV

[Excerpts For full 124-page report, including footnotes and references, see

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR53/001/2008/en For additional excerpts, including table of contents, see http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ai0804a.php]

"He threatened to kill me and burn down the house if I did not take him back ... So I returned back to stay with him." [Testimony of SS who had been raped and repeatedly beaten by her husband and was fearing receiving the results of her HIV test.]50

"In spite of ample empirical evidence to this effect, states have yet to fully acknowledge and act upon the interconnection between the mutually reinforcing pandemics of VAW and HIV-AIDS". (UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, July 2007)51

South Africa is continuing to experience a major HIV epidemic within a context of persistent and high levels of violence against women (VAW). As noted in the UN Secretary-General"s Study in 2006 on patterns and consequences of VAW, this is a global phenomenon which is both a violation of women"s human rights and prevents women from enjoying other human rights and fundamental freedoms.

...

The South African Constitution of 1996 guarantees that everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes "the right ... to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources".54 Despite this constitutional guarantee thousands of women and girls experience sexual and other forms of violence every year in South Africa. In July 2007 the national Minister of Safety and Security, Mr Charles Nqakula, observed from analysis of the past six years of crime statistics that "the fact that instances of serious and violent crime are very high is disconcerting and unacceptable." They included rape, "indecent assault"55 and attempts to commit these crimes. The Minister also observed that "poorer communities" were experiencing "more violent crime than wealthier ones," and "at least two thirds of all serious and violent crimes happen between people who know one another and who will be found mostly within the confines of the same social environment.56

As is evident from the Minister"s comments, violence or the threat of violence is a pervasive problem for many people in South Africa. Women and girls can experience gender-based violence or witness it from a very early age. Indicative of the scale of the problem were the results of a national survey conducted in the early 2000s, in which a third of the 1,000 women interviewed had experienced physical, sexual, emotional and economic abuse, most typically in their home environment, and two-thirds had experienced at least one form of abuse. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) concluded after hearings on school-based violence in 2006 that schools were the "most likely place where children would become victims of crime including crimes of sexual violence". A national cross-sectional study of nearly 270,000 high school students in 2002 identified an "expectation of sexual coercion among the youth".57 A majority of the women whom AI interviewed in May 2007 had experienced, witnessed or were aware of incidents of violence in the home or rapes occurring in the wider community, including in schools or while en route to school, or on farms where some of the women had worked as seasonal contract workers.

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