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Women have gathered across South Africa to protest the high level of gender based violence in the country.

GBV is literally a national disaster in our country.

It's something that is unfortunately very close.

To my heart.

South Africa has one of the world's highest female murder rates, more than five times the world average.

The silence four fifteen minutes is a minute of silence for every woman that would have fallen within the day.

On today's episode of The Next Africa Podcast, we'll look at South Africa's gender based violence crisis, how the G twenty has put this issue into the spotlight, and how the government is starting to recognize the scale of the issue.

I'm ta Ada Bio in for Jennifer's Abazar and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg can provide.

Joining me this week is our government reporters.

Then be Ley Seller stem Bye, Thanks very much for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

So.

While the world was looking at South Africa for the G twenty campaign, groups seems to want to put violence against women back on the agenda.

What do we know about how serious this issue is in South Africa.

It is safe to say that it's the biggest crisis outside of that of the economy.

Would even make the argument that there's a link between the two.

Women in South Africa are killed five times higher than the global average, and more often than not, it's by people that they know, men that are intimate partners to them.

Just in twenty twenty twenty one.

During that period of COVID, we had three women that were killed every day by an intimate partner.

But it's also a woman who walk into.

A post office, the case of a student in twenty nineteen winning in Poitiana who walked into.

A post office.

She was taken by one of the post office officials.

She was raped and brucidly murdered.

And that's just one of many stories that every now and then come up in the media strongly, and they do come to the fore when media plays attention when there's a very kind of horrific incident that stands out, But it's something that happens on a day to day basis, and so there's absolutely no question that there is a war on women in this country.

And it is a very serious crisis that we're facing.

Yeah, And on that point of media attention, of course, there was a lot of media attention on South Africa for the G twenty.

I was very struck by the location chosen for some of these protests at the Union Lawns in Pretorian, the seat of government, also fifteen other locations across the country.

Obviously the eyes of the world were on South Africa at that point.

Just how much pressure do you think government leaders were under to kind of put this situation to bed or be seen to do something.

Look, I think it's something that's we see at all D twenty meetings across the globe wherever there are where different kind of advocacy and lobby groups use the opportunity to essentially air the dirty laundry of what's happening at home, to try and get an ear from the rest of the world and to put pressure on their leaders to do something about it.

So in this case was absolutely no difference.

In addition to these kind of gender based violence protests that we saw, there was a myriad of others as well.

But I think it was a very careful move to kind of distance the meetings itself the leadership summat where the world leaders were meeting, away from where these protests were actually happening, and so the datus to whether or not they were actually ever seen by the world.

Nevertheless, it was a platform that was taken up quite strongly by hundreds, if not thousands of women across the country, particularly in city centers where they staged this lie down protests, for they were all dressed in black, lying down on the floor.

There was also encouragement for women to not buy anything on the day to demonstrate the kind of economic power that they wield as well.

All of this to send us and we're in a crisis.

We need to help somebody do something about it.

Talking about that time there, it's definitely something that was on the mind of the organizers.

I actually spoke to one of them, Merley's Age Joe Gat from Women for Change, that's one of the organizations the NGOs that were responsible for these protests, and she told me a bit about why they chose this moment in particular to take action.

We chose to use the G twenty weekend for the national shutdown because we knew that international eyes would be on South Africa in this time, it was important for the international community to recognize how serious femicide was in South Africa and how dangerous this country is for.

Women every day.

That was the only way that we knew the government would be under prittsure to finally declared gen the base violence and femicide and national disaster, which then automatically would have opened up financial resources and implement changes on the ground to start seeing the cases become less Sevilla.

Do you think the timing helped these protests have an impact.

I think it's difficult to say exactly beca because, like we said that this is something that is part of the course when it comes to G twenty meetings, there were several other protests that were happening, so difficult to say definitively whether there was any impact because of the G twenty, but whether it was or it wasn't, I think the relief is just that we are finally seeing an indication that government is willing to change course in some respects with regards to this crisis that has arguably gotten worse over time and is as dark as those of the economic challenges that are faced by South Africa.

Yeah, and it's really interesting because at the time of this protest, there's been three consecutive G twenty presidencies from the Global South, so we've had India, Brazil, and now South Africa.

These countries do have in common issues with gender based violence.

How much do you think the issue has really come to the fore globally in terms of these big international meetings.

I think it's something that even when you look at the negotiations of the declaration that was adopted by leaders last week, we're seeing what represidency of the G two and C there's a strong emphasis that's made on gender equality and rights in particular for women and children, and I think on this occasion was no difference.

And so I think to the point that you're making, what we've seen in Brazil, what we've seen in India, in this global kind of South agenda that's been brought to the four by the countries in this region, is that there is a very much a concerted push to put this on the table of world leaders.

I think the question really is in their own spaces, in their homes and their countries that they lead, if this goes beyond rhetoric, if it goes beyond this talk shop, beyond this declaration and actually amounts to actions which can save the lives of women that are on resac.

Stay with us then bulight when we come back, we'll talk more about the impact of these protests and how the government has responded.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back today on the podcast, we're talking about the protests against South Africa's high rate of violence against women.

Our reporter stem belay Seller is still with me stimulate.

These protests were timed to make the most impact.

How has the South African government responded?

So they've been calls for many years for what has been termed South Africa's real pandemic and what it means when you categorize something as a national disaster, which is what we've seen of this crisis being declared in the last few days, is that it's conditions in which you suspend something like procurement laws, so in the event that you have mass flooding, you can export out relief.

You don't need to follow the normal channels, which ordinarily would slow things down.

And that's not the situation that you want right when you're in an emergency kind of situation.

And so previously it was tabled before government They've been calls by NGOs, by other advocacy groups to say, this matter is so extreme, it's so urgent that something out of the ordinary, kind of the conditions that you saw during the COVID nineteen pandemic, you need to do something ordinary to save the lives of women.

In practice, though, I think there's a lot of moving.

Parts and so it's not as clear cut as, for instance, diverting funds from one department to another.

There's a lot of role players that are involved in the mix.

So, for instance, you need the to act when they.

Call upon to do so.

That's not always the case.

We have women that go to police stations brutalized by their partners for or by a man that they've met on the streets.

The police laugh at them.

The police don't give them this time of day.

The statements that are gathered by the police are inadequate when it comes to the code processes.

In terms of standing up, you need government to be able to be in a position to provide sufficient safe spaces for survivors.

There aren't enough funds to go around to do that.

The safe shelters that we do have are poorly maintained on the other side of it, you also need the court to do their parts and ensuring that offenders don't get bail, and that's not always the case.

Repeatedly we've seen someone that commits a heinous crime, or is accused or is alleged to have done something like this in the realm of gender based violence.

They are then released by a court on bail.

They go out and they or repeat offenders, they do the same thing.

So we know that if they had been kept behind bars while awaiting trial, they would not have offended again.

And so I think these are the sorts of things that need to be ironed out that once we do declare this as has now been the case, as a national disaster, what actually are are the practical implications.

I think the other side of this is that you can't actually police people in their homes, and that speaks to the aspects of this.

Whereas a societal issue, right, it's an economic issue.

It's a patriarchal issue how men exercise their dominance, their power over women that rely on them, and so it's very difficult to police people in their home.

Where children are subjected to sexual assault by family members, where children are groomed, they don't even know that the behavior that's been brought upon them is wrong.

And so who do they go to?

Who do they who do they speak to?

And in the instances where children do become away that hey, this is not something that should be happening to me, they'll go to elders in the family or in the community and it will be swept under the rug.

And so I think it's those difficult dynamics that government is going to actually have to contend with.

Is once you are saying you are not taking this seriously, you're going to change course.

Are all the parts in place to actually make the successful Are we actually going to see the numbers come down once the state of disaster is fully implemented.

Yeah, I mean it's definitely not clear cut in terms of implementation.

But even in just the categorization this as a national disaster, there was some confusion because previously the National Disaster Management Center said that the categorization didn't meet the legal requirements to be defined as a disaster.

Now they're saying it does after some review.

What does that really say about, you know, the government's handling of this entire crisis.

Are they taking it seriously?

Are they only bowing to external pressure.

Why do you think there was that discrepancy there?

Look, it's difficult to say, because, as we say, it's an ongoing issue, and every now and then, when we do have a case that for whatever reason attracts mass media attention, or in the case of last week, you know, something like the G twenty leader's summits, it does come back onto their gender quite strongly.

But we know that on an every single day basis, woman off face with these kind of peneous crimes, with this violence that is imposed upon them, and we've seen repeatedly that there's been a shortcoming in terms of a response from law enforcements, and so it's really difficult to say that things are going to get better or not by this.

And I think there's a number of things that need to be resolved outside of even the law enforcement situation, outside of the psychological societal issues.

There's also an argument to be made about the economic conditions that drive this kind of behavior.

And so I think improving that an empowering woman economically speaking, would without a doubt maker dents in the scopes that we've see.

Definitely, and in terms of looking to the future, as the spotlight sort of moves away from the G twenty and South Africa.

What will you be looking for to indicate that the government is actually trying to make a difference.

Will we be able to see real implementations of change in the near future do you think so?

I think the first thing would be you would want to have a situation where you have consultation between governments and human rights groups, the Department of Social Development, them coming together to formulate what the terms of reference for the state of disaster actually look like.

So, in practical terms, what can we untly?

Is it money that needs to be unleashed, Does it need to be diverse it from different budgets from different departments.

What will that money actually be used for?

Is it something that we need beyond money?

Is it an issue around law enforcement and strengthening the capabilities of that fund?

Do you need to train police officers differently?

Do you need to train prosecutors in a different way so that they're able to actually get convictions when it comes to sexual crimes or anything else in the realm of gender based violence?

And so I think it's a starting point to have this declaration, But it's more in terms of the nuances in terms of references, the practicalities of what it actually looks like before we can actually make a judgment and whether or not it's going to be successful and move beyond the myriad of kind of talk shops and consultations that we've seen previously in the past that have not actually amounted to anything.

And you can read all our coverage from the G twenty across Blomberg platforms now, including President Trump's threat to exclude South Africa from the next G twenty summit in Miami.

We'll put a link to that in our show notes.

Here's some other stories we've been following across the region this week.

Ivory Coast economic growth is poised to accelerate in the next five years as the country season increase in oil and gas activity.

That's according to Planning and Development Minister Cabiniale, who was speaking to Bloomberg.

And Zambia's inflation slowed to its lowest level in more than two years as food price growth slowed.

You can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter.

We'll put a link in our show notes.

This program was produced by Adrian Bradley.

Don't forget to follow and review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts.

I'm t wa Adebayo.

Thank you for listening.