GBV AT HIGHER INSTITUTION OF LEARNING NEEDS TO

BE ADDRESSED URGENTLY, WARN EXPERTS.

According to ResearchGate,” GBV can be defined as, any act that is likely to results in,
physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including, threats of such acts,
coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether. Occurring in public or private life.”

According to the article, Experts say GBV is an ongoing issue that is not given enough
attention at universities and these issues needs to be addressed urgently. There are lot of
women reporting sexual abuse at universities. A lot of protests regarding sexual violence at
HIEs has brought light. According to saferspaces, “numerous protests around the country,
many of which concerned sexual violence on campus, once again brought the issue of gender-
based violence at HIEs, to the media’s attention as well to the attention of the general South
African public. However, sexual violence on campuses in SA has been a long-standing
issue.”

Problems Of Sexual Violence And GBV On Campus

According to scielo page, “Gender-based violence has both academic and non-academic
effect on the well being of students though little attention has been given to this area of
concern. The common effects of GBV among students include low academic performances,
high numbers of student’s dropouts, stigma, mental and psychological effects.” I think with
dropouts, I have set with people who are inconsiderate about someone’s painful violation.
Some people also tend to say females are sexually violated because of the shot things they
wear and say they deserve what happened to them. These comments made by other students
can affect the victim leading to dropping outs.

According to Machisa, “She said the study showed that victims of sexual violence at HIEs
were more likely to suffer from mental health illnesses such as depression, post-traumatic
stress disorder, and substance abuse, and were also more likely to engage in risky sexual
behaviour such as having multiple partners and engaging in transactional sex.”

According to the article, the minister of higher education, Blade Ndimande said he would
launch a GBV awareness programme after the murder of Tshwane University Of Technology
student Ntokozo Xaba who was stabbed to death at TUT residence in February. The are many
more cases of GBV happening in universities, maybe the awareness programmes can help
reducing the GBV violation and every university should implement these awareness
programmes.

According to the article, “Universities and practitioners working in the field of GBV, sexual
victimization unfair discrimination and harassment have come together to form a community
of practice to exchange ideas, highlight challenges, raise awareness and find solution to
ongoing challenges to put and end to GBV sexual violence and harassment.”

So, How Do We Solve GBV At Higher Institutions?

“GBV matters may be dealt with by multiple on campus supports structures within PSET
institutions, include campus security, student’s representative’s councils, student affairs,
human resources/employee relations departments, transformation units and legal offices,”
saferspaces. It will also be good to promote women’s empowerment like in DUT, we have
‘Qhakaza network’ which involves women. We also have ‘Intshika network’ for men, I
believe these networks help a lot of students.

According to Machisa, ‘programmes that address GBV at higher education institutions must
be evidence based and proven to have worked through rigorous evaluation.’

As we know that GBV cases are very common cases these days and that is not a good thing,
when it occurs much on campuses where students are supposed to feel safe and enjoy
learning. Student can’t have stress over school work and worry about their safe space. There
should be programmes to help reduce this and for them to at least work effectively. As per
Machisa, “more research was needed to help identify prevention strategies to address GBV
and it’s associated drivers.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.https://www.researchgate.net

2.https://www.scielo.org.za

3.Safers spaces.org.za

4.Study guide: Mercilene Machisa