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Domestic Terror: Intimate partner violence in South Africa
Every day more than three women in South Africa, on average, are murdered by their male intimate partners. This book looks at the stories of South African women who were subjected to unimaginable periods of fear and terror, who endured sustained physical, emotional and psychological attacks, all at the hands of men. Dr Nechama Brodie explores decades of brutal domestic violence and coercive control and she examines women’s changing rights and current legal protections.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 11, 2023
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9 people want to read
About the author
Nechama Brodie
12 books19 followersAlso writes as NR Brodie.
South African journalist, author and academic.
South African journalist, author and academic.
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September 20, 2023
#DomesticTerror – Nechama Brodie
#Kwela
Roman Law, the initial foundation of most legal systems, crowned the paterfamilias with vitae necisque potestas over his subjects, literally having the power of life and death over his servants, wife, and children. Women were subjected to perpetual tutelage, regarded as suffering from a natural lack of judgement and mental stability. Centuries thereafter this patriarchy still echoes in modern misogyny, as is most aptly illustrated when intimate partner violence in South Africa is dissected.
Current statistics paint a grim local picture: Three women are murdered by male intimate partners daily. Investigation proves that the act of killing is very seldom the first act of violence; it is usually the final nail in the coffin that consists of extended periods of fear, terror, intimidation, and physical, emotional, financial, and psychological abuse. Murder by installment, of you will. (Disclaimer, the author never denies the fact that not only cisgender females are murdered by intimate cisgender male partners but follows the statistics in respect of prevalence for the purpose of this publication.)
A brief look at clips from the Rand Daily Mail shows men murdering their wives as far back as 1911. And, likely, much earlier. This has always happened. In the author’s own words: ‘This is what this book explores – not necessarily to offer easy answers or solutions, but to demonstrate, in quite disturbing terms, what domestic terror looks like in South Africa…’ (10)
The evolution of women’s rights and the available legal protection are explained in detail. The inclusion of marital power in marriages was a direct consequence of the Roman Law, confirming the concept of perpetual tutelage in respect of married women. Although technically abolished in 1984, the position of the man as head of the family was explicitly retained until 1993. Parallel to these absolute rights inferred on the husband, rape, as a crime, did not exist in marriage. The Domestic Violence Act (1998) only came into effect in December 1999, and the new Domestic Violence Amendment Act was introduced in September 2021.
With all the so-called amendments and improvements, the question can and should rightly be asked: Why are three women still murdered in these very circumstances every 24 hours? There is no single answer, but various factors are discussed.
Firstly, society is not blameless. We happily sing along with lyrics romanticizing domestic abuse such as Tom Jones’ ‘Delilah’, as if it is a love story. The Australian author, Jane Gilmore, ran a ‘fix-it’ project to investigate and reveal problematic headlines regarding gender-based violence. An example was taken from the Canberra Times, February 2022. The original headline read: ‘Devotion becomes danger for McDonald’s car attack victim’ whilst a more accurate wording would have been ‘Violent, controlling, abusive man became a danger to the woman he threatened to kill.’ (17-18)
Secondly, the system often fails the very people it has been created to protect due to human indifference and incompetence. In several cases mentioned in this publication the victims were shot and killed by husbands whose firearms should have been confiscated – but the officials involved chose to ignore the compulsory statutory instructions. Inadequate resources also make it next to impossible to comply with even the most well intended pieces of legislation. In contrast with gang violence, for example, there is no domestic violence unit in existence, and domestic violence is not regarded as a so-called priority crime.
Cases in point: Yvonne Ramontoedi was shot by her husband in the Maintenance Office in 1996. The acting judge held that ‘there must have been some provocation…’ (26) and, when Dimpho Mohau was raped by her former boyfriend on 8 January 2018, the police official failed to arrest him, in spite of having his address, and told the victim that he would be attending a course for two weeks and that she should, in the meantime, ‘try to locate Mjoli and, when she found him, call the police to come and arrest him.’ (43)
Thirdly, ending an abusive relationship is extremely problematic. Too often the male perpetrator is the sole breadwinner of the family. The female ends up withdrawing the case, fearing that she and her children would be left destitute if he were to be arrested and imprisoned. Experience has also shown that the termination of an abusive relationship is often a trigger for the escalation of violence due to the imminent loss of coercive control.
Other interesting subjects discussed and explained in this book include the evaluation of the effects of ‘battered woman syndrome’ (not a medical diagnosis but regarded as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder) on the cognitive ability of victims of abuse taking the law into their own hands, as well as the principles underlying self-defense, provocation, and non-pathological criminal incapacity (also known as sane automatism).
The book is the result of extensive research and data analysis. Uncomfortable, but essential.
NB-Uitgewers/Publishers
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#Uitdieperdsebek
#Kwela
Roman Law, the initial foundation of most legal systems, crowned the paterfamilias with vitae necisque potestas over his subjects, literally having the power of life and death over his servants, wife, and children. Women were subjected to perpetual tutelage, regarded as suffering from a natural lack of judgement and mental stability. Centuries thereafter this patriarchy still echoes in modern misogyny, as is most aptly illustrated when intimate partner violence in South Africa is dissected.
Current statistics paint a grim local picture: Three women are murdered by male intimate partners daily. Investigation proves that the act of killing is very seldom the first act of violence; it is usually the final nail in the coffin that consists of extended periods of fear, terror, intimidation, and physical, emotional, financial, and psychological abuse. Murder by installment, of you will. (Disclaimer, the author never denies the fact that not only cisgender females are murdered by intimate cisgender male partners but follows the statistics in respect of prevalence for the purpose of this publication.)
A brief look at clips from the Rand Daily Mail shows men murdering their wives as far back as 1911. And, likely, much earlier. This has always happened. In the author’s own words: ‘This is what this book explores – not necessarily to offer easy answers or solutions, but to demonstrate, in quite disturbing terms, what domestic terror looks like in South Africa…’ (10)
The evolution of women’s rights and the available legal protection are explained in detail. The inclusion of marital power in marriages was a direct consequence of the Roman Law, confirming the concept of perpetual tutelage in respect of married women. Although technically abolished in 1984, the position of the man as head of the family was explicitly retained until 1993. Parallel to these absolute rights inferred on the husband, rape, as a crime, did not exist in marriage. The Domestic Violence Act (1998) only came into effect in December 1999, and the new Domestic Violence Amendment Act was introduced in September 2021.
With all the so-called amendments and improvements, the question can and should rightly be asked: Why are three women still murdered in these very circumstances every 24 hours? There is no single answer, but various factors are discussed.
Firstly, society is not blameless. We happily sing along with lyrics romanticizing domestic abuse such as Tom Jones’ ‘Delilah’, as if it is a love story. The Australian author, Jane Gilmore, ran a ‘fix-it’ project to investigate and reveal problematic headlines regarding gender-based violence. An example was taken from the Canberra Times, February 2022. The original headline read: ‘Devotion becomes danger for McDonald’s car attack victim’ whilst a more accurate wording would have been ‘Violent, controlling, abusive man became a danger to the woman he threatened to kill.’ (17-18)
Secondly, the system often fails the very people it has been created to protect due to human indifference and incompetence. In several cases mentioned in this publication the victims were shot and killed by husbands whose firearms should have been confiscated – but the officials involved chose to ignore the compulsory statutory instructions. Inadequate resources also make it next to impossible to comply with even the most well intended pieces of legislation. In contrast with gang violence, for example, there is no domestic violence unit in existence, and domestic violence is not regarded as a so-called priority crime.
Cases in point: Yvonne Ramontoedi was shot by her husband in the Maintenance Office in 1996. The acting judge held that ‘there must have been some provocation…’ (26) and, when Dimpho Mohau was raped by her former boyfriend on 8 January 2018, the police official failed to arrest him, in spite of having his address, and told the victim that he would be attending a course for two weeks and that she should, in the meantime, ‘try to locate Mjoli and, when she found him, call the police to come and arrest him.’ (43)
Thirdly, ending an abusive relationship is extremely problematic. Too often the male perpetrator is the sole breadwinner of the family. The female ends up withdrawing the case, fearing that she and her children would be left destitute if he were to be arrested and imprisoned. Experience has also shown that the termination of an abusive relationship is often a trigger for the escalation of violence due to the imminent loss of coercive control.
Other interesting subjects discussed and explained in this book include the evaluation of the effects of ‘battered woman syndrome’ (not a medical diagnosis but regarded as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder) on the cognitive ability of victims of abuse taking the law into their own hands, as well as the principles underlying self-defense, provocation, and non-pathological criminal incapacity (also known as sane automatism).
The book is the result of extensive research and data analysis. Uncomfortable, but essential.
NB-Uitgewers/Publishers
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#Uitdieperdsebek
Displaying 1 of 1 review