Recently in South Africa, social problems such as gender-based violence are interpreted primarily... more Recently in South Africa, social problems such as gender-based violence are interpreted primarily as legal issues that may be ameliorated by carceral solutions. These approaches are appealing because political leaders know how to set sentencing guidelines, monitor arrests, and track prosecutions. Yet what the postapartheid case underscores is that such reactive approaches are woefully inadequate to address the complexity of violence that individuals, families, and communities face. The service providers in this project argue that the prevention of gender-based violence starts with community-based approaches. When communities are strengthened, leaders are better able to foster social transformation. Service providers are calling for a broader understanding of the upstream solutions to address all forms of violence and to uproot the legacies of violence and oppression.
The South African police are widely critiqued for their institutional failures and widespread cor... more The South African police are widely critiqued for their institutional failures and widespread corruption, but the communities in this project point to the importance of the police in efforts to address violence, punish perpetrators, and protect survivors. This is a chilling finding, given the wide discretion the police exercise in cases of abuse and violence. This chapter examines some of the factors that help police stations become positive community leaders, including sector policing, visible policing, community policing, and victim support. The chapter also reveals their overreliance on contracting out key service delivery to volunteers. Volunteers and police also expressed a high level of burnout and secondary trauma working in this sector.
Challenging Traditional Thinking on Electoral Systems
In many ways, South Africa is an ideal case for examining the impact of electoral systems on the ... more In many ways, South Africa is an ideal case for examining the impact of electoral systems on the advancement of women into national office. Following decades of the antiapartheid struggle, women’s organizations and women leaders worked in concert to ensure a lasting place for women’s voice in decision making. These leaders benefited from the timing of this national transition to democracy. They used lessons from the international women’s movement and drew from the experiences of women in other postconflict contexts to prioritize a national gender agenda. Because of their efforts, in 2007, South Africa has 32.8 percent women in the National Assembly (NA), the lower house of parliament, bringing the country to the rank of fourteenth in the world in terms of women in national office (Inter-Parliamentary Union: www.ipu.org; April 2007). The choice of electoral system was one important aspect of this success, but that was only one piece of the country’s strategy.
Feminist scholars and activists engage in meaningful, contentious debates about the relationships... more Feminist scholars and activists engage in meaningful, contentious debates about the relationships among sex, gender, power, and society. One of the most recent iterations of these arguments reinscribes the pleasure of sex positivity and danger of patriarchal exploitation onto new subjects: sex work and human trafficking. This paper brings together two separate empirically based research projects, one working with sex workers and the other working with members of the anti-trafficking community. As scholars working across these topics, we provide new normative propositions that may bridge these different approaches to resilience, survival, danger, and risk. We find that the real threat identified by our participants was the wide reach of the carceral state onto migrating, working, and trafficked bodies. Our projects find unexpected commonality in shared perceptions of pleasure, agency, and danger among sex workers, human trafficking survivors, and service providers working with trafficked persons. Current debates ignore the lived experiences of our participants, who attempt to find pleasure in context-specific agency and survival, and who locate danger in the looming forces of the security state, criminality, and structural inequalities.
Human trafficking is increasingly recognized as an outcome of economic insecurity, gender inequal... more Human trafficking is increasingly recognized as an outcome of economic insecurity, gender inequality, and conflict, all significant factors in the region of southern Africa. This paper examines policy responses to human trafficking in southern Africa and finds that there has been a diffusion of international norms to the regional and domestic levels. This paper finds that policy change is most notable in the strategies and approaches that differ at each level: international and regional agreements emphasize prevention measures and survivor assistance, but national policies emphasize prosecution measures. Leaders across the region have adapted these policy norms to fit regionally specific conditions, including HIV/AIDS, conflict, traditional leaders, and prostitution. Yet, national policies often fail to incorporate preventative solutions to address gender inequality, human rights, and economic development. Until appropriate funding and preventative measures are introduced, the underlying issues that foster human trafficking will continue. Keywords Norms diffusion-Human trafficking-Southern African Development Community-Prostitution-Child trafficking Department of State 2013). A particularly alarming trend is the mobile sweatshops that take victims, from China especially, throughout South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho to avoid detection (US Department of State 2011). In addition to economic inequality, there are ethnic differences that may fuel trafficking. The structural inequalities and discrimination faced by the San people in Namibia make them particularly vulnerable to trafficking (US Department of State 2013). Conflict is another a key factor in determining trafficking patterns. The region has a history of conflict as countries fought to end colonial domination, white-minority governments, and authoritarian rule. The most well-known struggle was the anti-apartheid struggle that centered in
Human trafficking justice centers on the "Three Ps" model of prevention, protection, and prosecut... more Human trafficking justice centers on the "Three Ps" model of prevention, protection, and prosecution. While protection and prosecution efforts have been moderately successful, prevention remains elusive, as "upstream" structural factorsclass, gender, and sexuality inequalities-remain difficult to target. Individuals who are affected by these factors are not fully served within linear service frameworks. Based on a 12-month study in Kansas City, we find that service providers recognize the limitations of a "one-size-fits all" approach. Using a public health model, our research team conducted a public health surveillance, explored risk and protective factors, and facilitated organizational self-assessments of services. Our findings support a prevention approach that supports a survivor-centered model, which creates new, nonlinear or queered avenues of agency and community for trafficking survivors. This model allows survivors to make use of services in moments of vulnerability and opt out of others in moments of resilience. Given the systematic cuts in funding that have affected service providers, this research contends that prevention is cheaper, more effective, and more ethical than relying on prosecutions to curb trafficking. Developing a model that fosters survivor empowerment is a key step toward individual justice and survivor resilience for vulnerable and marginalized populations. Keywords agency; human trafficking; LGBTQ; prevention; public health Issue This article is part of the special issue "Perspectives on Human Trafficking and Modern Forms of Slavery", edited by Siddharth Kara (Harvard Kennedy School of Government, USA).
South Africa continues to top international rankings of incidence of reported rape and sexual vio... more South Africa continues to top international rankings of incidence of reported rape and sexual violence. Rooted in the patriarchies of oppression found in colonialism, apartheid and the Cold War, these deeply ingrained patterns of sexual violence did not end with the transition to democracy. Many fear the level of gender-based violence may be increasing because of a backlash against the constitutionally-enforced gender equality of South African women. In response, one of the most viable parts of the women's movement in South Africa is the movement to end violence against women. Organisations in this sector have become the primary contract agents for the government, yet many women's groups remain thwarted by the complexities of their new bureaucratic relationship with the government institutions they used to oppose during apartheid. This article examines how organisations concerned with violence against women are redefining their mission, securing effective leadership and utilising new methods of activism. Organisations are fighting to maintain their autonomy rather than become 'technocratic handmaidens' for the new government; they are attempting to engage masculinities within 'feminist' frameworks, and they are witnessing the growing institutionalisation and NGO-isation of the South African women's movement.
This paper argues that pre-transition mobilization by South African women fostered post transitio... more This paper argues that pre-transition mobilization by South African women fostered post transition success in constitutional mandates, party politics, and offi ce holding. Informed by examples of failed postliberation gender movements in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Angola, South African women's groups worked collectively and individually to advance gender equality. Women mobilized around their gender identity to form a powerful multiparty women's coalition, which became a vehicle through which women pushed for inclusion in the Constitutional Assembly. Using this external power-base, women's branches of major political parties compelled their parties' leaders to implement affi rmative-action measures for candidate recruitment and selection. These measures, particularly the gender quota of the African National Congress, have pressured all political parties to increase the number of women on their party-lists in subsequent elections.
<p>South Africa's democratization has been celebrated internationally for the remarkabl... more <p>South Africa's democratization has been celebrated internationally for the remarkable advances of women in political office. Despite these visible steps forward, South Africa continues to face exceedingly high levels of sexual assault, rape, and intimate-partner violence. This book is about this juxtaposition between women's national political power and these egregious violations of human rights. The South African women's movement initially pursued state feminism, specifically using insider strategies to construct institutions and enact policies for women's advancement. Yet the most poignant measure of the shortcomings of state feminism is the persistence of gender-based violence. The recent turn toward carceral feminism, with its focus on arrests and prosecutions, also fails to address the complexity of interpersonal violence. Through fieldwork in nine local communities, this book contains the voices of service providers, religious leaders, traditional leaders, police officers, and medical professionals who address gender-based violence at the community level. Specifically, this book examines how community networks are created on a landscape that is still marked by apartheid legacies of racism, inequality, and violence. It is also a story about understanding how place and space affect policy implementation. Rather than becoming immobilized by this complexity, policy makers could support street-level workers who are at the cutting edge of the struggle to end gender-based violence.</p>
Apartheid recharted the South African landscape through its control and restructuring of place an... more Apartheid recharted the South African landscape through its control and restructuring of place and space. The separation of races through the Group Areas Act divided populations and created pockets of extreme wealth adjacent to areas marked by overpopulation, poverty, and structural violence. While apartheid laws have been repealed for decades, inequality continues to structure the daily lived experiences of South Africans. This chapter examines a range of different communities in order to map the networks, institutional actors, and resources that address gender-based violence in the new South African geography. Efforts to end gender-based violence appear to be most successful when they are embedded in initiatives to strengthen community networks that address the larger structures of inequality and abuse.
Survivors of gender-based violence engage the state at critical moments in their lives, and it is... more Survivors of gender-based violence engage the state at critical moments in their lives, and it is essential for the state to address a range of their emotional, medical, and legal needs. This chapter examines several such points of contact in South Africa, including the courts, the police, trauma centers, rape crisis centers, and medical facilities. This chapter finds that these institutions are often framed within a prosecution framework. While such carceral approaches are important, they fail to address the larger patterns of structural violence, inequality, and vulnerability that could prevent violence before it occurs. The chapter explores the toll of emotional labor, secondary trauma, and job insecurity faced by volunteers and staff in these institutions. This vulnerability may contribute to high turnover, perpetuating institutional instability.
Trading Places: Juxtaposing South Africa and the United States
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2006
Inaively thought that I could enjoy several months in South Africa, simply knowing that I was on ... more Inaively thought that I could enjoy several months in South Africa, simply knowing that I was on a separate continent from George Bush. And then he arrived in Pretoria, only a few blocks away from the office where I was working.
F ollowing decades of civil conflict and antiapartheid struggle, Namibia held the first one-perso... more F ollowing decades of civil conflict and antiapartheid struggle, Namibia held the first one-person, one-vote election in 1989. The country achieved electoral democracy in 1990 and committed itself to a process of national reconciliation. The early 1990s also saw the reconstitution of civil society organizations and an expansion of international organizations. It was a moment ripe for progressive social change and legislative transformation. This article examines one social movement that benefited from this rapidly changing political space-the campaign to end gender-based violence. Through an analysis of gender scripts that preceded and persisted long after the political conflict ended, we explore the gap between legislation and social transformation. At the end of the first decade of democracy, Namibia had cultivated a home-grown movement calling for stricter laws on rape. Women achieved notable electoral success during this decade through the use of gender quotas ðenforced by law at the local level and facilitated by voluntary political party quotas at the national levelÞ, pressure from regional and national women's movements, and a closed-list proportional representation electoral system ða strategy recognized for improving election victories for women and minority groupsÞ, filling parliament with a small but critical mass of allies ðBauer 2004; Bauer and Britton 2006Þ. 1 This period corresponded with the regional push for the advancement of women's empowerment and development. The leaders of the Southern African Development Community made sweeping commitments to advance the status of women and to combat gender-based violence. This combination of forces, led most notably by the national movement to end gender-based violence, culminated in Namibia's Combating Rape Act ðNo. 8 of 2000Þ. The act is known 1 In a closed-list proportional representation system, the political parties select a list of candidates prior to the election. The voters then vote for the party as a whole and do not have a choice of candidates within each party. This often ensures that female candidates do not get moved to lower positions on the list.
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