Many rural women face an uphill battle

KAROO NUUS - A delegation of women from Graaff-Reinet, Willowmore, Rietbron, Middelburg and Murraysburg recently participated in the 11th Rural Women’s Platform in Mossel Bay hosted by the Support Centre for Land Change (SCLC).

The platform focuses on the challenges faced by rural women due to a lack of access to land, the effects of climate change on production and food availability and, of course, gender-based violence.

Rural women’s access to land for production purposes has become vitally important as successful food production by women has a ripple effect of wellness in their rural communities.

It improves food security within the entire community and promote women’s financial independence, reducing the risk of gender based violence, GBV, as they are not dependent on an abusive man to put food on the table.

GBV is devastating communities by perpetuating trauma and inequality, undermining social cohesion and hindering progress.

Therefore, Legally You - a George-based NGO advocating against GBV - was invited to co-facilitate this particular platform. Advocate Marilyn Olifant-Scheepers, founder of Legally You, initiated a process of raising awareness around the legal processes to escape GBV, thereby enabling women to institute legal proceedings in instances of abuse.

However, this process had to be halted when it came to light that most women who participated in the platform have experienced violations by the very system that was designed to protect them.

Legally You and SCLC revisited the programme and agreed on a process to take this matter forward.

As a point of departure, Olifant-Scheepers documented alarming concerns regarding the services and the apparent lack of support related to GBV and domestic violence provided by relevant roleplayers.

These concerns were escalated for urgent attention and will be followed up by both Legally You and SCLC.

Maida Sampson, Chrisna Jaftha and Marcha-Lee Vaaltyn from Rietbron completing the online survey aimed at establishing the challenges of rural women and the support needed to address these challenges.