don't you. write a good trip. to africa syria the world series for the future of the girl you are going to make your city. your answer to the in your area you want. hello and a warm welcome to the 77 percent of the show for africa's you with i promise you this will be quite an unusual episode my name is liz show thanks for joining us today. we normally have a huge variety of stories and topics from across the continent but today we want to only focus on one thing violence against women and girls and just a quick trigger warning if you have experienced this type of violence then some parts of this show might be upsetting. now since this is such

a crucial issue we decided to give the vibe of violence a lot of space. thousands of women in south africa are raped or murdered every year and i was greeted by a tweet here from survivors of domestic abuse and rape about their experiences and last week the change. before we get to our street debate we will hear the story of a cannon and a group of south african teenagers in the city of port elizabeth they are using social media to express their outrage against gender based violence and to mobilize their peers to speak out. elizabeth. this is a grave affair friend 7 years ago cindy gum under was brutally raped and made it in the dunes of the nearby beach. is a constant companion for economy and many other young women in south africa.

and living in fear. and safe we are not safe anyway even in our own homes at times for most of them. so it's. for them and for everyone for the children. for the child activists for prevention campaign violence and misha to have that is run by teenagers from. the come pain is supported by the. mentors a group of 16 learners who help suffering from abuse. they want to produce short video messages for social media just plain how to report sexual abuse. and maybe giving young people of ice. and encouraging them on ways they can use

to speak out and also raise awareness around the issue of child abuse and in this violence the videos are popular teenagers across south africa watch them and many comment describing their own experiences of sexual violence or asking for help so that is why i still stand up taking action and speak for ourselves. today is. to record his message. but we should speak up and we should all understand what abuse is and i think that we mustn't take it lightly thank you jack hopes that he can mobilize men and boys around the issue of sexual violence because it matters not only to women but to all i think we as men should unite. to stop woman and child abuse was i think this is something that might destroy

a future as a nation. too often sexual abuse stays hidden because victims are too terrified to name the tormentors the group's message is clear we have the right to be hit. a very powerful message indeed and sadly there are many more cases than you might think would check some statistics on gender based violence and i found them really shocking a sick a look. violence against women and girls it's one of the most common human rights violations in the world. economic or national boundaries. according to the u.n. every 3rd woman experiences physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. the perpetrator is her partner a family member of someone who knows her. out of 10 women who've experienced gender based violence only for will seek help and only one reported to the police.

often the judicial system is ineffective and victims are blamed. right now this situation is particularly tense because of the call that 19 pandemic. to help plans have increased 5 fold in some countries as many women suffer abuse from their partners. i can't imagine what it must be like for a woman or a girl to be raped the pain the feeling of helplessness and then silence so what drives men to hurt and abuse women in the 1st place and what can be done to stop it. my colleague christian manuel was in south africa to seek answers to those very questions here's our latest street debate. the 77 percent is in johannesburg now around the world women are fighting for

equality but in this country women are also having to fight for their safety that is because south africa's one of the most unsafe places in the world to be a woman now the statistics show women is murdered here every 3 hours this country has one of the highest rates if not the highest rate of filings against women on today's street debate we're asking the question why why are women being victimized in this way i'm joined by my panel today in a bit distraught of the conversation with jackie jackie tell us what your experience was. christy my experience was a gang rape when i was 18 and this is 2007. with a group of friends and little did we know that we were going to be coerced into a room upstairs inside the club and a bunch of men came in and i was getting raped there that's my 1st encounter with

sexual violence right we'll come back to jackie because i do want to establish you in the conversation as well tracy what has been your experience christine i grew up in a home of domestic violence and as a child i knew that i never wanted to live a life like my mother i wanted my life to be completely different and it wasn't and i found myself in an abusive relationship and being beaten up at some point in my life did you know many other women in the position that you were in. sitting off when i was growing up i wasn't aware of anybody else having the same experience as i was having obviously now i hardly know a woman who hasn't had some form of trauma or repeats in her life right because she said i want to bring you into the conversation right now because we've invited you on here you have told us that you were a form of pip shade of violence against women tell us what exactly that means well an age of 16 i you went to see my girlfriend worse you will stay

but the idea was quite simply to take them home so that we could have sex with them they were our girlfriends but we never discussed whether they had permission from their parents whether they were willing to do that at that particular point and then we took them literally against their will we were no no no if i was but we were. nice and sticks because we never alleges so but it comes goes back to the time when i was 10 right when my brother molested me so i grew up with this idea that sex is something to be taken and not negotiated right ok we'll come back and pick up on that idea if i do want to come back at to you jackie because we're you angry at one understand how how you felt how you dealt with with what you experienced at that point i felt like. did i really do something

wrong by deciding to go out with friends was it really such a great violation to be out in public as a female and i just felt so betrayed by the friends and also the paper treatise and i felt like are we ever going to be safe in any social space right and i think i still struggle with that even today because the rape happened at that time and then later on in life when i was at a job draped at a photo shoot and i was traumatized for life then going into adulthood where you start dating men who are not. socially. they have no social compassion they don't care about your body they don't care to ask you if you want to have sex or not they feel entitled most specially if they hear that you've got a history of sexual violence they feel like oh well you've done this before it's not foreign so why should i be asking permission when everybody else has been taking so throughout the years i think 13 years of my life i have struggled with

just understanding what is consent how do i give it how or when do i take it back as well and then you're in a relationship where consent now becomes a huge issue did i give you permission to sleep with me when i was in my period how would i say no. it's things i have that i still struggle with and it comes to the issue of sexual violence right tracy help me understand if if you at some point thought about. the person that you were in a relationship with why they felt that it was ok to do that. well of a the man who beat me up had a history or has a history of violence and i didn't know that at the time because a perpetrator doesn't come out and beats you up on the very 1st time you go out on a date there's a whole grooming process that's involved so we talk about the cycle of abuse is definitely there that sort of by and by the time that you offer to speak nothing

you already invested in this relationship so i didn't know that he was an abusive man and that is without a victim blaming because i take the responsibility for that for being beaten up it was entirely the perpetrators decision right yes talk about victim blaming what was your experience with having to open up i mean your story was made public it made headlines in this country because of who you were perhaps you would introduce that's to some of us but just tell us about how society reacts when you walked out in public and people knew your story what kind of things people say to you. because i was a public figure and on radio and television at the time that i was beaten up it became public almost overnight i didn't realize that that was going to happen because i went to the police station i lay charges and i took the process to court because that's what i think you should do as far as victim shaming goes no one ever said anything to my face but i'm very aware of it victims even to this day of blame and for what happens to them and i find that shameful because it's not the victim's fault did you ever find yourself in a situation where you felt you had being

a victim blame jackie i think now with an air of social media i get it more often where if i were to post something that speaks about rape somebody would say but you never took your repos to court but you still talking about it so what is what's the intention here. can you even show as evidence of that adelaide's rape is the video can we see it. he will say these they do say it's. so it becomes so bad because of social media and you can read all these ignore it because it's just in your face so you see i do want to come back to you because you you talked about . the young women that you had the encounter with and you said you didn't necessarily go to prison or anything of the sort but i just wondered today with where society is right do you feel men just have the upper hand when it comes to violence against women that men can do this and get away with it imitating what you

see around ok so my father would bring his girlfriend home when my mother was very apparent allegedly married. my father was violent would be to have everybody my father very everybody so as a youngster i was like ok this is how life is this what if you're a man and yet when you try and being in charge you induce compliance ok you know and you tell you're maids' whether you did or like you so you get maybe you don't when you tell us yes i'm just trying to understand for instance the man who would have violently gang rape jackie right just trying to get into their heads can you can you step in for us and help us understand why why men would do that white white men would think that is ok to do to a woman well i'm not surprised what to say where i grew up we had a game called stimulus stimulus as in the train it was called a stimulus as in

a train because men young men will queue up outside their house to rape a woman it was never called gang rape was never called anything it was called the male. i never participated i never did ok but just. anything else i want to get back to jackie because you seem to have resonated when he talked about stimulate the train here because i when i reflected on it later on just to understand in my head how was i. actively involved in the you know for lack of for lack of a better word i realize that for them it was again it who has the longer stamina who had the raunchiest things to say to a young child who was more into taney because they wanted to show off a month each other. who had the loudest voice who made me cry more.

who made me scream more so it was like i can do better you didn't do enough and then the next one will come and then this one would like or you got tired after greatest a minute and they don't care if you live they don't care if you run out of breath they don't care if there's blood everywhere as a matter of fact it's like we want to see more we want to see more of your tears screaming more of your blood you going in and of consciousness that's what we want to see and every time something like that happens when i last breath or i was unconscious you could hear them laughing like oh you really did a number on her there is really good and then someone would say oh no no i'm back it's my turn now and then they would fight to come back and you sitting there in a state of my dying or my life and i actually wish that i was really dying in this moment so what he's saying is completely right that's what they did. it and i'll come over to you now i mean if you've been listening to to to everybody speak your

psychologist help us understand when i listen to jackie when i listen to tracy and when i listen to what i what i hear is that society creates a noise in which this stuff becomes acceptable and in a lot of situations becomes not just acceptable but encouraged. and i mean i want to i want to be clear that this is not just. that this is this is not a mental health issue right it's important to recognize that this is not been mentally ill people as we understand them who are doing it it's not you all psychopaths are you and social people this is this is everyday people but the culture that surrounds us the culture that surrounds you mean you not just in south africa but around the world is one which is the sort of behavior is ok yes and bases i'm going to come back to you because you at some point reflects it on your actions and you

went through this process of performing just to tell us how that came about. it almost took a lifetime. but when i was much younger i always wondered too not to be like my father but when i became an adult at some stage every last one and in 97 i was like i don't like the person i am because i did exactly what every other thing that my father had done and was still doing and it's still doing to this day. so i went for counseling it took me 2 years i keep telling people that i was being taught how to be a human being right and that they don't believe me because what i wanted to achieve as a young man was a symbol new start a new family you know with a little bit of kids here and and and a happy home which was never ever going to be possible when i was still carrying

the baggage from from my childhood how do women take back the power jackie how do we because we're hearing it's a man's will write a play these games with the bodies of women how do women take back the power i think our governments need to review start gearing up for women who want to come out because we need safe havens we need places of comfort and legal assistance as well if you want to report a case that should be easy for us to do as opposed to us going to the police station and also feeding violated just being by the police station a police what front line as the people who work at the police station should be more educated in how to deal with these issues and how to treat women in those spaces because women come come back from police stations feeding like victims again or even worse getting raped at the police station while you're there to report a crime so it is really sort of a community okaying to get a woman out of

a violent. relationship where they'd be domestically to work but speaking of is always the best solution we're still talking about making south africa a better place for women. can you maybe talk to us about what could be done in the kinds of places in the villages like you grew up in how we we fix the culture so that men stop playing that game so to say what what's so certainly isn't human. it's a new way of understanding what it means to be a man because the definition that we grew up with not only does it not work for our constitution if it or it does not work for our partners women and not our position but our partners we humanity we have gone off of them so we need to to start almost a new culture that regards women as nothing other than human beings right

it in a do you just want to come back here. so i mean men have to sort of break out of that that culture right from your psychological perspective from a young person who grew up with big ceases experience how do you break that cycle so that one of the most important things in this is when we talk or talk sickness community this is i think what lies at the core of it right is that we as men are taught that we're not allowed to show vulnerability would not allow to show emotion we need a lot to show weakness and so when we feel any one of those things we express is anger as violent as aggression as hostility right and so what becomes really important is normalizing the fact that always mean. males. are allowed to be human too so we're coming to the end of the debate

just what is your message to a young woman today. who's experienced some of what you've experienced how do we take back the power i think we as women are doing whatever we can to keep ourselves safe you know we don't walk on the streets after dark and we lock our doors we do everything to keep ourselves safe and i'm often asked that question you know what should women do to off themselves were we doing everything we can and if you don't mind if i'd rather actually answer that question with saying you know we're in the main where we're all the man that's what we really need so he's going to stop bad male behavior because we work up during lockdown in south africa to the news of a woman and other woman being murdered and been left hanging from a tree nollywood straight outrage from men because men say to me all the time but i'm not a panicking abuser i'm a good man who where are the good men we need those men to talk about because we as women are doing what ever we can tame power ourselves ok so i misjudged him in that jackie what is your as we close this debate. i think in the same ways the way we

host conferences and we have conversations and we we will research and we read up on abuse men should do the same i've never seen a man who says i have i have done this except to a bigot here today who openly said ok this is my responsibility this is what i've done to rehabilitate myself but why aren't other men say ok i also come forth i take full responsibility for what i've done over the years this is the way i'm going forward and this is how educate the next boy child. yes it is. so i think i think what you're saying is that is is of utmost importance right it's things like sexual harassment your things like catcalling in the street all of these things contributed to the culture and that's the kind of stuff that they that needs to be rooted out as well that you know the circle of locker room talk is no longer acceptable yeah yeah it never should have been never should have tracy so i

think it is right we need to we need to talk about it jackie and i 1st written books about our experience as has because he said and i think that for us was a very powerful state in our healing process is to take control of our own stories and when we write our stories we don't do it to share our shame we write our stories to give permission to other people to tell their story so i think that that's a very important part of the healing process and i think that answers your question about how do we empower ourselves as victims and i think we need to talk about it we need to break the silence take away the shame and that is the very 1st step in the healing process. and that does it for our street debate here in johannesburg and of course this conversation doesn't entail we're interested to hear what you think what your experiences have been in the country that you find yourself and of course the conversation continues on social media but i. thank a huge thank you to everyone who took part in that debate and was so brave to share

their story we really appreciate it on our facebook page we asked you guys what needs to be done to protect women better let me read you a few comments that we received novel or is a woman from ghana and she says we need gender based violence education in our schools lyrical bolt's she saw them is from nigeria also believes in education but says it falls back on the family unit parents should be encouraged to discuss matters of affection with their children thank you so much for those comments with that we've come to the end up today's show but that doesn't mean the conversation stops here. feel free to get in touch on social media or drop us an email now we've talked a lot about the responsibility that men have and big gender based violence and so i'll leave you with a man who has written a song about this issue cares looks like he is with us to marry and boy.

is one of the heaviest. for the women and the girl. who saved me. from another. women and. by the man. as a man. and as a father. as the women and children along with.

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