Violence against Women and Southern African Advocacy on the SADC Gender Protocol

Abstract

Violence against women (VAW) manifests itself in different forms, many of them universal, such as wife abuse, marital rape, sexual assault and rape, sexual harassment in the workplace, trafficking, forced prostitution and rape in war. Other forms are geographically or culturally specific, such as dowry-related murder, honour killings and female infanticide (Watts and Zimmermann 2002; Heise et al. 2002). Issues of specific concern for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region are the high incidence of non-consensual sex, the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, and the link between sexual violence and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Economic dependence, which forces women to stay in abusive relationships, is also a concern in the region. Newly emerging issues which are demanding attention include sex trafficking and the so-called corrective rape of women who are having relationships with women (SARPN 2005).KeywordsCivil SocietyGender EqualityGender InequalitySouthern African Development CommunityAfrican UnionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.