Chief Rabbi takes on violence against women and children

SUZANNE BELLING

He announced this at the National Religious Leaders’ Council’s (NRLC) launch of a campaign against violence in Fourways on Tuesday. The religious leaders’ campaign to raise awareness about the violence, was in reaction to the spate of killings of women and children in South Africa this year.

While the Chief Rabbi – as a member of the NRLC – is involved in the awareness campaign, he is determined to take this further within the Jewish community to stamp out abuse. 

He said the review board would deal with “any situation of abuse, directed at women and children, or of any human being, which has taken place and been reported to the appropriate communal institutions.

“If those institutions are not taking it seriously enough and people are feeling unheard, the complaints can be brought to the Abuse Review Board.”

Rabbi Goldstein already has a board in place. They are: Advocate Liza Segal (chairman); psychologist Brenda Lasersohn; Dr Efrat Barnes, medical director of the Teddy Bear Clinic; Rabbi Gidon Fox and Rabbi Anton Klein.

“Because no one in our community is immune from this problem, we all have to take personal responsibility”, the Chief Rabbi said.

In terms of the NRLC campaign, he says, it is vital to create awareness. “The words that we use create the world in which we live,” he said at the launch that was attended by the Minister in the Presidency Responsible for Women Susan Shabangu and MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza, of the Department of Social Development in Gauteng.

“It is so important for us that the words we use, the words that are spoken around dinner tables, across our country, between parents and children, in classrooms, and at the workplace, are infused with dignity, with care and with kindness.

“The way that men speak about women sends a very powerful message to their sons about how to treat a woman…

“This is a campaign about speaking in the right way. It’s a campaign to affect the vocabulary, the language, the narrative in our country, to ensure that we can bring a spirit of kindness and dignity into the way that we engage with one another – and, in particular that we, as a society, engage with women and children. If we speak in the right way, then that will prevent the terrible violence that we are seeing.

“So, words are very important, but they also have to be matched by actions.”

Pastor Ray McCauley, senior pastor of the Rhema Bible Church, addressing the media at the launch, said gender-based violence was a crime of power. 

He spoke of this crime as being “one that seeks to uphold patriarchal laws and control the female body in the framework of historically unequal power structures between men and women. It is a problem that belongs to society and is therefore a crime by society.”

Pastor McCauley revealed shocking statistics: According to a 2016 survey in South Africa, one in every five women older than 18 had experienced physical violence. Four in 10 divorced or separated women had reported physical violence and one in three young South Africans had had some form of sexual abuse in their lives.

“We must not only challenge societal attitudes of patriarchy and chauvinism, but also the effectiveness of the government programmes.

“It is because of these types of stats and the violence against women and children that we, as religious leaders, thought to unite with other stakeholders to speak with a united voice…”

He said the campaign launch had been timed for the week preceding Women’s Month.

The action plan of the campaign was to “roll it out” until the 16 days of activism in December and for each representative to do so during his/her spheres of influence to make the maximum impact.

The organisers will work together with government, the SAPS, faith-based organisations, civil society, sports and business people. There will also be a social media strategy to create “Thursdays in Black” – wearing black as a symbol of strength and courage in solidarity with victims and survivors in a campaign of advocacy against all forms of sexual and gender-based violence.

The faiths represented at the launch were Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim.

Giet Khoza, chief executive officer of Rhema Ministries, suggested that there be a weekend of prayers by all faith communities – Muslim and Jewish on Fridays; Hindu and other faiths on Saturdays; with the conclusion by Christian communities on Sunday.