‘Traditional practices, norms perpetuate gender violence’

‘Traditional practices, norms perpetuate gender violence’
Written by Isaac Zulu in Kapiri Mposhi
Tuesday, September 08, 2009 3:21:12 PM

WOMEN in Law in Southern Africa (WILSA) community officer Rudo Chingobe has said traditional practices and norms perpetuate gender violence.
And Chingobe said gender-based violence has a huge psychological impact on children.

In an interview after conducting a community sensitisation meeting in Kapiri Mposhiís Soweto compound last Thursday, Chingobe explained that certain traditional norms and practices were working against measures and strategies aimed at eradicating gender violence.

“The biggest challenge, I think our traditional practices play a big role in perpetuating gender based violence,” Chingobe explained. “For instance, our traditions that demand that a woman should submit to the husband, only perpetuate gender violence. Issues of paying bride price tend to make women subordinates to their husbands. Men feel they are in charge, they are overseers in a home, and they are in control. In the end women have no say on a number of issues in marriage. Women don’t have control even on their own bodies. Marital rape, for instance, is not an issue in a marriage.”

Chingobe explained that, traditionally, women were not supposed to reveal what transpired in a home anyhow, saying the situation was compounded by the fact that there was no specific legislation to address gender violence.

“Traditionally, we are told women are not supposed to reveal what transpires in their marriage and as result, women tend to keep quiet on a number of abuses they suffer at the hands of their dear husbands; they can’t report to relevant authorities,” she said. “Even the law is inadequate. We had discussions with police officers who equally feel that the Penal Code does not adequately address gender violence. Some victims take cases of gender violence to local courts. And what do we see? The local court justices tend to apply norms when addressing these issues.”

Chingobe further said gender violence had a long-term psychological effect on children.

“Gender-based violence has a huge long-term impact on children,” Chingobe explained. “Children who grow up in homes where there’s gender violence tend to think that what is, and was, happening in their homes was the right thing. They grow up thinking and believing a man is superior while a woman is inferior. They grow up believing that a man is supposed to abuse the wife or a wife is supposed to abuse the husband. They will grow up not knowing how to love, believing unity does not exist in a home.”

She observed that there would be no meaningful development with perpetual gender-based violence in society.

“The chain of gender violence works against meaningful development in a home, in the community and society at large,” said Chingobe. “A free mind is needed for one to make positive contribution in a home, in the community, at a place of work and the nation as a whole. So, society cannot develop with people who live in perpetual gender violence.”