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Stock image of violence against women.
The Human Sciences Research Council(HSRC) says there’s high number unreported incidents of Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) in the country, allowing perpetrators to walk free.
The HSRC has attributed this to the stigma that victims of the violence face.
The council’s statement comes during national Women’s Month as the country reflects on issues affecting women.
Celebrations during the month culminate on National Women’s Day on August 9th, commemorating the historic 1956 women’s march against apartheid pass laws.
The council’s senior research specialist, Dr Natisha Dukhi says there’s an urgent need to improve the current situation.
“We need to look at mechanisms of how we make this better, how we get people who are violated to come forward and report any form of violence, and so the figures are high. Which shows us that even in intimate partners’ violence are high as well as in non-partner violence and these continue to escalate on a daily basis, all because of the severe under-reporting,” Dukhi says.
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