How a social worker is aiding deaf victims of gender-based violence in South Africa
The prevalence of gender-based violence across the globe is rife and in South Africa, violence against women is an epidemic.
Local forensic social worker Khomotso Maluleke has dedicated her life to working within the family violence, child protection and sexual investigations unit to protect victims of gender-based violence in South Africa.
While working on a case of robbery and assault, the social worker encountered a deaf victim at a local police station and decided to study sign language after finding it difficult to assist the victim.
“I had to assist a deaf victim to open the case but I struggled. This is when I decided to study sign language to be able to accommodate the deaf community and ensure justice prevails” Maluleke is quoted by local media Times Live.
The dedicated social worker has put not less than thirteen gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) offenders behind bars in Mpumalanga, a province in eastern South Africa. Two out of the thirteen offenders received life sentences for rape and the others received up to eight-year prison sentences, Times Live reports.
In South Africa, the number of women vulnerable to various forms of abuse is startling. The SADC nation has one of the highest recorded cases of gender-based violence in the world. According to police data, South Africa's recorded sexual offence rate climbed by an average of 146 incidents per day between 2019 and 2020, with 116 of those incidents being rapes.
The occurrence of violence against women in the country is so bad that the President of South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa has referred to it as the nation’s second pandemic.
To add more context to the prevalence of gender-based violence in South Africa, the study conducted by the African Health Organization in 2021 shows that 51% of women in South Africa say they have experienced gender-based violence, and 76% of men say they have perpetrated the act at some point in their lives.
However, violence against women, unfortunately, is a common occurrence across the globe. The problem is not only prevalent in South Africa but everywhere else. One in three women worldwide has suffered from either physical or sexual abuse in their lifetime, the WHO in 2021 reported.
