I have spent the past five years making various attempts on different fronts to, at the very least, influence those who have the power to make the necessary changes to do something constructive about the escalating crisis. I have made some judgement errors for sure. Every action I have taken has been guided by a calling to alleviate the unnecessary suffering of victims and survivors of GBV and the families of femicide victims. Sadly, all I have been able to achieve is to support more womxn in becoming activists, knowing that the system doesn't protect them, and finding alternative ways for them to remain safe in spite of the systemic failings - often at great personal cost to all involved. I have heard countless accounts of brutal violence inflicted on womxn, children, and queers at the hands of men who claimed to love them. I have sat with mothers whose children have been raped by family members and those entrusted to care for them. We have wept together. As a survivor, I intimately understand what it takes to recover from such an ordeal. Lip service gets paid to including victims and survivors in processes; the concept of victim-centric systems is well- documented, but how do victims' and survivors' voices get heard in a violent patriarchal environment where all manner of bullying tactics are used to silence us and ignore or discard our daily realities? Rape is not something that ever goes away. It is akin to being killed and then being forced to continue living. At least when one is murdered the suffering ends, not so for the millions of womxn and children who remain trapped with their abusers because no-one believes them. With the development of the NSP on GBVF, it appeared that the government was finally willing to take the lived experience of countless victims and survivors alive in South Africa into consideration and use this knowledge to improve the GBVF response. I have always considered myself a revolutionary rather than a reformist, as such, my foray into attempting to work with government came as a surprise, no less to myself than others. Not one to take a commitment lightly, having been very vocal about the #24Demands and the need to all work together to find solutions,
November 2023 | Collective Action Magazine
96
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