Violence Against Women
Source: New Era
WINDHOEK – The Women's Action for Development (WAD) has joined a call by the National Council's women's caucus for President Hifikepunye Pohamba to declare "a state of emergency" on gender-based violence (GBV).
"Her (Margaret Mensah-Williams, deputy speaker of the National Council) foresight is commendable and slots in perfectly
with WAD's stance on violence against women in the country," said Veronica de Klerk, the executive director of WAD. She said perpetrators of violence against women have gone too far and have pushed women's tolerance and continued devotion over the edge with acts of violence, murder and despicable acts of mutilation, such as decapitation. De Klerk said too often the law is too protective of the perpetrator's human rights where culprits lodge easily in jails instead of being subjected to hard labour, and this while victims' rights are not respected as much. WAD calls on parliament to encourage much more stringent punitive measures by the courts, which should include severe punishment and long prison terms for perpetrators with obligatory terms of solitary confinement and restricted visits from family. The organization says the unavailability of police vehicles should in itself become a crime as it has become a standard excuse for police inaction. "Some policemen also beat up their women and are sympathetic towards the perpetrators," said De Klerk, adding that the police should be trained on gender related laws, especially in the rural areas.
She also called on traditional leaders, who might have more influence on their communities to teach the contents of those laws, in order for women to know their rights. She further appealed to the private sector, government ministries, churches, health institutions, civil society organisations, youth movements and schools to urgently implement special programmes within their institutions to sensitise males on honouring and respecting women as enshrined in the Namibian constitution. "At the same time, I respectfully appeal to those institutions to urgently start implementing special programmes for their female employees and members to sensitize women on how to prevent violence, even if it means self-defence training for women," said De Klerk.
She said she is not advocating a gender war as such, but merely want women to stop being gullible and trusting and to recognize violence in order to get out of abusive relationships early. According to her there is a need to feature gender-based violence more prominently in schools, especially during Life Skills lessons. De Klerk said the shocking proliferation of licensed and unlicensed shebeens should be curbed, since they are at the heart of gender-based violence and propose that they close from 18h00 and reopen at 23h00 when children are already in bed. This she said would prevent fathers from going home drunk after work and compel them to make time for their families, because boys have become copycats of their fathers' actions and treat women as though they are nothing. "This thing of saying shebeens are good income generators is nonsense. There must be other ways to put bread on the table," she reckoned, adding that shebeens are destroyers of families. She also called on lawmakers to give more power to ordinary people so that they can effect citizens' arrests in cases where they can spare lives. "As we speak a woman is being beaten or raped now," she emphasized, calling on the media and especially female journalists to join the fight against gender-based violence.