Power imbalances and gender-based violence (GBV) have increasingly been cited as important determinants putting women at risk of HIV infections. Studies have shown that globally one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. The study explored working women’s perceptions of power, gender-based violence and HIV-infection risks. A qualitative, explorative study was conducted among female employees in an airline business in Namibia. Five women participated in in-depth, face-to-face interviews. The findings show that all of the participants experienced power imbalances and GBV in their intimate relationships. All of the women reported emotional or psychological abuse, whilst the majority were subjected to economic abuse, followed by physical abuse, and two alleged having been sexually abused. The study concludes with specific recommendations for the development and successful implementation of workplace policy and programmes to protect and promote women’s rights. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV/AIDS)

United Nation's (UN) millennium development goal number three is aimed at eliminating gender inequality and empowering women. Gender-based violence is recognised as a global public health and human rights problem that leads to high rates of morbidity and mortality, including sexually transmitted infections, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance dependence and suicide. In responding to this international public health and human rights concern, the South African government has adopted numerous public health communication strategies to highlight the plight of women and children. One of the campaigns that are conducted in South Africa is the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children (16 Days of Activism Campaign). This campaign was introduced in 1999 but the literature review reveals that to date, no studies have focused on its evaluation. As such, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the 16 Days of Activism Campaign with special reference to the Soshanguve community in Gauteng province. This study builds on two theories, namely the excellence theory and the diffusion of innovation theory. Mixed research methods (also called triangulation) was used whereby in-depth interviews were conducted with representatives from the Government Communication and Information System and the Department of Women, Children and People with Disability to establish the promotion strategies used in the campaign and the methods used to assess the effectiveness of the campaign. Furthermore, a self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted within the Soshanguve community to evaluate the promotion strategies and assess the impact of the campaign.This study revealed a high level of reliance on the television, radio and newspapers in the communication strategies. Both government departments acknowledged that they do not have a tool to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign from the receivers‟ perspective. The Soshanguve community felt that in essence the campaign is relevant but not on time. The residents viewed the study as an important part of creating awareness about the campaign and they believed the campaign helped them to know what to do when faced with gender-based violence so that they can assist those who are affected by it.

Power imbalances and gender-based violence (GBV) have increasingly been cited as important determinants putting women at risk of HIV infections. Studies have shown that globally one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. The study explored working women’s perceptions of power, gender-based violence and HIV-infection risks. A qualitative, explorative study was conducted among female employees in an airline business in Namibia. Five women participated in in-depth, face-to-face interviews. The findings show that all of the participants experienced power imbalances and GBV in their intimate relationships. All of the women reported emotional or psychological abuse, whilst the majority were subjected to economic abuse, followed by physical abuse, and two alleged having been sexually abused. The study concludes with specific recommendations for the development and successful implementation of workplace policy and programmes to protect and promote women’s rights. / Social Work / M.A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV/AIDS)

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Master of Technology in Public Administration- Peace Studies, Durban University of Technology, 2017. / South Africa has many issues around domestic violence resulting from culture, patriarchy and historical prejudices. It has been suggested that intimate partner violence is mainly perpetrated by men against women, and is an effort by men in a patriarchal society to dominate women. The purpose of this research is to build the capacity of young Zulu men to be non-violent intimate partners. The study utilised the Social Learning Theory and Feminist Theory. The study adopts an Action Research design, the goal of which is to solve concrete community problems by engaging community participants in the inquiry process. A mixed research methodology will be adopted for the study and will involve the use of both qualitative and quantitative data. 50 questionnaires will be administered to 50 Zulu young men between the ages of 18-35 in the Oakford Verulam area, while qualitative data will be obtained through focus group discussions, divided into three groups consisting of nonviolent, previously violent and currently violent men. The findings of this research suggest that there are several factors attributed to cause violence in an intimate relationship and these factors are deeply rooted in the background and upbringing of these men. The findings also suggest that in order to curb violence in the communities one would have to first address the underlying issues and for men to unlearn certain behaviours and traits they learnt during childhood. / M

This thesis analyzes rape coverage in a Grahamstown newspaper, Grocott’s Mail. Critical discourse analysis is used to discuss and analyze articles about rape that appear in Grocott’s Mail between October 14th 2008 and October 29th 2009. Drawing on existing literature on ‘rape myths’ in media coverage of rape, this thesis argues that Grocott’s Mail perpetuates racial and gender stereotypes through the way in which it reports on rape. While not all of the articles included in the analysis use rape myths, most use one or more when discussing rape incidents. Specifically, Grocott’s Mail tends to use rape myths that blame the victim for the rape and de-emphasize the role of the perpetrator in the rape. This is problematic as it sustains existing racial and gender inequalities.

Despite South Africa’s constitution being demonstrably one of the most progressive in the world, there remains a divide between legislation and women’s lived experiences of violence and inequality. In this context, marginalised women, in particular, are often wrongly perceived of as lacking in power and agency. In an attempt to understand how marginalised women articulate their agency under conditions of direct and structural violence, the aim of my study is to examine how women perform everyday resistance to violence at and between different sites, including the home, community and state-controlled institutions, and to examine the process of undertaking this research, using a critical reflexive approach. My research is structured around four studies. In Study I, I examine how a group of marginalised women perform everyday resistance in relation to state-controlled institutions. In Study II, I consider how a group of marginalised women do everyday resistance in relation to constructions of home. Study III offers an analysis of how the Thembelihle Women’s Forum functions as an invented space of resistance, and everyday resistance is a relational practice. Finally, in Study IV, I do a critical reflexive reading of psychosocial accompaniment as method, elucidating the complexities, tensions and trade-offs inherent to the method. When considered against my study’s broader theoretical framework (i.e., liberation psychology, feminist geopolitics and affective economies), the findings of these four studies present a complex examination of the enactment of everyday resistance. Each of the studies demonstrates a number of strategies for everyday resistance, including becoming a willful subject, refusal and withdrawal, quiet encroachment, collective storytelling, affective reimagining, collective conscientisation, de-ideologizing reality, social solidarity, coping mechanisms, tactics of survival and acts of reclamation. Methodologically, I demonstrate the messiness inherent to how power dynamics are reproduced and resisted during the research process. My research seeks to deepen our understandings of the flow of power within the research process, and the dynamic and shifting imperatives of our research practice. / Psychology / D. Phil. (Psychology)

The purpose of this research was to describe and explain crimes against women in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. It was conducted by means of a literature review, followed by empirical research, based on police dockets, against the background of Seligman's theory on learned helplessness. The literature review was used to design a research schedule. The schedule was used for data capturing from police dockets from the Crime Information Analysis Centre (QAQ at their Gauteng Regional office in Johannesburg. From this data, a convenience sample, consisting of 303 cases, was compiled. These cases were reported at the charge offices of Pretoria-Moot Villieria, Pretoria-North, Pretoria-West Eersterust and Hillbrow, for the period between 1 January 1997 and 1 March 1998. Finally, recommendations are made for the design of preventative strategies, and suggestions are made for possible future research. / Die doel van hierdie navorsing was om misdade teen vroue in die Gauteng Provinsie van Suid-Afrika te beskryf en te verklaar. Dit is gedoen aan die hand van literatuurstudie, en is uitgebrei met 'n empiriese ondersoek wat op polisiedossiere ebaseer is, teen die agtergrond van Seligman se teorie van aangeleerde hulpeloosheid. Die literatuurstudie is gebruik om 'n skedule te ontwerp. Die navorsingskedule is gebruik vir datavangs uit polisiedossiere. Die polisiedossiere van die Misdaadinligting-Analisesentrum (MIAS) van Gauteng se streekkantoor in Johannesburg is gebruik vir die samestelling van 'n gerieflikheidsteekproef bestaande uit 303 gevalle. Hierdie gevalle kom uit die aanmeldings by die aanklagkantore van Pretoria-Moot/ Villieria, Pretoria-Noord, Pretoria-Wes, Eersterust en Hillbrow, en wel tussen 1 Januarie 1997 en 1 Maart 1998. Ten slotte word aanbevelings vir die ontwerp van voorkomingstrategie gedoen en voorstelle vir moontlike toekomstige navorsing gemaak. / Criminology / M.A. (Criminology)

In this minithesis I conduct a critical discourse analysis to take on a double-pronged task. On the one hand I explore the social phenomenon of the contestation between supporters of then-ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma and supporters of his rape accuser. The trial, which took place in the Johannesburg High Court between mid-February and early May 2006, stirred intense public interest, both locally and internationally. The performance of thousands of Zuma’s supporters and a far smaller number of gender rights lobby groups, both of whom kept a presence outside the court building throughout the trial, received similar attention. Second, I examine how the Sowetan, a national daily tabloid with a black, middle-class readership, mediated the trial through pictures of the theatre outside the court and letters to the editor. The study is informed by post-Marxist and cultural studies perspectives, both approaches that are concerned with issues of power, ideology and the circulation of meaning within specific sociocultural contexts. A rudimentary thematic content analysis draws out some of the main themes from the material, while the critical discourse analysis is located within a theoretical framework based on concepts from Laclau & Mouffe’s theory of meaning, which assumes a power struggle between contesting positions seeking to invalidate one another and to either challenge or support existing hegemonies. This is further informed by, first, Laclau’s theorisation of populism, which assumes that diverse groupings can unite under a demagogue’s banner in shared antagonism towards existing power, and second, by concepts from Mamdani’s theorisation of power and resistance in colonial and post-colonial Africa, which explicates three overarching ideological discourses of human rights, social justice and traditional ethnic practices. The study, then, explores how these three discourses were operationalised by the localised contestations over the trial.

This study investigates Grocott’s Mail’s rape reporting through a participatory action research process. It draws on feminist cultural studies, sociology of news, and normative theories of the media to inform the research project. The participatory action research process explored three areas with the journalists at Grocott’s Mail: their understanding of the community they serve and their own professional identity as a community of practice, roles of the media in society which inform reporting, and rape as a social issue and problem. Through this process the study found that the pervasiveness of rape in the Grahamstown community, the complexities around rape reporting which include the significant legal challenges, the personal impact rape cases have on journalists, and the journalistic roles and approaches employed in rape reporting all influence how the paper covers rape. In analysing these matters the study found that the primary factor inhibiting a successful strategy for managing rape reporting was that Grocott’s Mail does not place gender-based violence on their news agenda as an issue requiring attention in order to develop the community they serve.

The purpose of this research was to describe and explain crimes against women in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. It was conducted by means of a literature review, followed by empirical research, based on police dockets, against the background of Seligman's theory on learned helplessness. The literature review was used to design a research schedule. The schedule was used for data capturing from police dockets from the Crime Information Analysis Centre (QAQ at their Gauteng Regional office in Johannesburg. From this data, a convenience sample, consisting of 303 cases, was compiled. These cases were reported at the charge offices of Pretoria-Moot Villieria, Pretoria-North, Pretoria-West Eersterust and Hillbrow, for the period between 1 January 1997 and 1 March 1998. Finally, recommendations are made for the design of preventative strategies, and suggestions are made for possible future research. / Die doel van hierdie navorsing was om misdade teen vroue in die Gauteng Provinsie van Suid-Afrika te beskryf en te verklaar. Dit is gedoen aan die hand van literatuurstudie, en is uitgebrei met 'n empiriese ondersoek wat op polisiedossiere ebaseer is, teen die agtergrond van Seligman se teorie van aangeleerde hulpeloosheid. Die literatuurstudie is gebruik om 'n skedule te ontwerp. Die navorsingskedule is gebruik vir datavangs uit polisiedossiere. Die polisiedossiere van die Misdaadinligting-Analisesentrum (MIAS) van Gauteng se streekkantoor in Johannesburg is gebruik vir die samestelling van 'n gerieflikheidsteekproef bestaande uit 303 gevalle. Hierdie gevalle kom uit die aanmeldings by die aanklagkantore van Pretoria-Moot/ Villieria, Pretoria-Noord, Pretoria-Wes, Eersterust en Hillbrow, en wel tussen 1 Januarie 1997 en 1 Maart 1998. Ten slotte word aanbevelings vir die ontwerp van voorkomingstrategie gedoen en voorstelle vir moontlike toekomstige navorsing gemaak. / Criminology and Security Science / M.A. (Criminology)