For many years Gender Based Violence in South Africa against women and girl’s has been wide topic of interest from all spheres, with SA being among the highest in the world according to statistics.
Vaal University of Technology (VUT) and North-West University (NWU) in collaboration with Gender Practitioners Community of Practice (CoP) held a three day national conference from 1st to 3rd July which took place at NWU Vanderbijlpark campus marked with a theme “Accelerating Gender Equality for a Sustainable, Resilience and Inclusive future in Higher Education.
The event was attended by high profile Practitioners personnel of all universities across the borders of South Africa. Due to the increasing challenges and cases of women abuse on the rise daily, the mission of the conference was to highlight and discuss gender based cases on campuses. The topic was centred on recognising and finding ways to mitigate various forms of discrimination, harrassment and violence by individuals based on their gender identity.
It was discussed that there is a need for high-level awarenesses and prevention campaigns and the need for creation of economic opportunities for vulnerable women because of poverty.
Among the speakers of the three day thrilling and breath taking conference joined the countries most brilliant minds, the deputy Vice-chancellor of the NWU prof Linda du Plessis highlighted key facts that “one in five women in South Africa in a relationship have experienced GBV during Covid-19, GBV was identified as a second pandemic, with 10 516 rape cases reported by the then minister of police Bheki Cele” .
While VUT Vice-chancellor and Principal prof Khehla Ndlovu further added that they “as institutions of higher learning and trusted voices within our community, it is our duty to shine a light on this issues, to listen to the voices of those affected, and to work tirelessly towards creating a world free from violence and discrimination “ he concluded.
