-Caveat Lector-
Most of SADC's population scratch a June 04, 1999
� Weekly Mail & Guardian
living from the soil
Ian Clayton
Out of a population of 180-million in the Southern Africa Development
Community (SADC), only one in 10 has a job in the formal sector and only
about 20% of the economically active population have jobs, a Norwegian
researcher, Liv Torres, has established.
This gives an unemployment rate of nearly 80% in the SADC countries,
excluding Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Seychelles - and
would be even higher if those countries were included.
Torres also found that only about 40% of those in formal sector employment
are organised. Those without formal sector jobs are "unemployed or struggle
to find means of survival in the informal sector of subsistence farming.
"To have a job or not has become a `to be or not to be', in countries with
few, or no, safety nets," she says. "At the same time, a large portion of
those within the formal sector labour market earn less than poverty wages.
Child labour, HIV, labour migration, low skills levels, tenant labour
systems and poverty within the labour market pose further political and
economic challenges for the SADC countries and for regional integration."
Torres reaches these conclusions in a study called Labour Markets in
Southern Africa, which has been published by the Oslo-based Fafo Institute
for Applied Social Science.
She says the poverty development trend in Southern Africa has to be reversed
and economic growth is without doubt the most powerful weapon in the fight
for higher living standards.
"Yet, as important for poverty eradication as well as economic development,
although often underestimated, is the distribution of income and wealth.
"The benefits of growth for the poor may be eroded if the distribution of
income worsens, which might also undermine the incentives for
growth-inducing economic reforms."
Southern Africa is challenged by a lack of growth in the formal sector, huge
wealth disparities and labour market segmentation reinforcing the social
cleavages in society at large. Large majorities are employed in subsistence
farming in the rural areas and in informal activities in the urban areas.
However, she warns that the level of existing statistics and updated
information about Southern Africa is very poor and this has to be improved
to be able to make informed policy decisions.
"Southern Africa needs to exit from the circle of low-paid labour,
unemployment/informal/subsistence sector survival strategies and low
education and skills levels.
"Lack of education and low skills levels are hereditary; illiterates are
thrown into survival strategies, which neither build further skills levels
for themselves nor for their children.
"In order to exit from these bad circles, regional strategies are needed,
but future regional strategies that are based on informed knowledge about
the characteristics, sector and occupational composition, skills levels, and
migration patterns of the current labour markets. A regional information and
resource centre is long overdue."
Torres says the economic problems of Southern Africa can to some extent be
attributed to the fact that the countries in the region have been locked
into roles as exporters of either raw materials or crops.
These countries have inherited from colonial times a low-skilled workforce
and extremely divided labour markets in which highly paid skills and
resources have to be imported from outside. Several of these countries have
also inherited, developed or got stuck in "enclave economics", in which they
remain fully dependent upon the production and export of raw materials
and/or raw crops.
Southern Africa became increasingly marginalised in the world economy
through the 1970s and 1980s, and the economies of the region became
progressively under greater control of and dependent upon the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund and their structural adjustment programmes.
By the mid-1990s, the region's debt was estimated at between $150-billion
and $180-billion - between R9 000-billion and R12 000-billion.
The overall growth rate for the African continent stood at 3,7% in 1995, up
from 1,9% in 1994, and during the 1990s, three Southern African countries
have exceeded 8%, namely Lesotho, Mauritius and Uganda.
However, poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa are increasing. Greater poverty
as well as Aids and unrest have also contributed to the worsening of human
development indicators. Already 44% of Mozambicans, 38% of Malawians and 39%
of Angolans do not expect to see the age of 40.
In the SADC countries, excluding Angola, Congo and the Seychelles, the
economically active population stands at 50 7272 610 but only 11 104 405
have formal employment.
Agriculture is clearly the most important sector of employment as well as
the most important contributor to the gross domestic product, with 70% to
75% of employment in Southern Africa being in agriculture.
Torres also says that since independence, the size and scope of governments
in Southern Africa have expanded enormously. The public sector continues to
increase and in some countries, such as Botswana, more rapidly than private
sector employment.
An urgent priority is to rebuild state effectiveness through an overhaul of
public institutions, a reassertion of the rule of law and credible checks on
the abuse of state power.
There are also an estimated 16-million children between 10 and 14 working in
sub- Saharan Africa. Most countries do not have data on the number of child
labourers but sectoral studies indicate that the number is high.
Torres concluded that for many millions of people in Southern Africa, the
lessons of unemployment are carried over into daily struggles for survival.
"The future of democracy depends upon economic growth and the distribution
of income and wealth, which is generated by the labour market. The future of
democracy depends upon the degree to which labour market institutions manage
to create and enforce legitimacy for the democratic institutions, to
moderate economic expectations and to build a co-operative rather than a
confrontational approach towards the government," she says.
http://www.sn.apc.org/wmail/issues/990604/NEWS59.html
Callous normality of rape in SA May 07, 1999
Shereen Usdin and Lebo Ramafoko
A Second Look
Try negotiating safer sex with someone who believes forced sex with your
girlfriend is not rape "because she's yours".
This attitude reflects the daily bread of many adolescents, according to
research undertaken by Soul City - the Institute for Health and Development
Communication. The research confirms a number of studies conducted
throughout South Africa which are all coming up with the same chilling
results - young girls are unable to negotiate sex in the face of violence
from their male partners and acquaintances.
This is a serious cause for concern. In a world in which condom use and
other forms of safer sex are the only weapons against Aids, it is little
wonder that the latest figures released by the Department of Health show the
epidemic is growing fastest among our youth and that young girls are the
group most at risk. The possibility of contracting Aids adds another
dimension to the human rights violations involved in rape.
Stranger rape is a very real problem. But women are more at risk of being
beaten up and raped by their boyfriends, husbands or relatives. South
African youth are growing up in a culture of sexual violence where a
frightening 60% of rape survivors know their assailants.
Soul City research conducted with men and women in urban and rural South
Africa shows that many young girls find themselves in a trap. If they
consent to sex, they are loose and "deserve" what they get, but if they turn
down a proposal, they are equally at risk: "If ... she refuses, and then you
see her with someone lower than you in standard, this causes you to be
physically violent and to take her to your home and forcefully have sex with
her." Gang rape by the young man and his friends as punishment is not
uncommon and the same "punishment" awaits many young girls whose boyfriends
suspect infidelity.
Young girls are expected to understand these sexual codes and abide by them.
According to the respondents, once consent is given to a relationship, girls
must expect whatever comes their way sexually. Thuli Shongwe, a Soul City
research officer, said many young people don't view forced sex within a
relationship as rape.
Medical Research Council researchers Wood, Jewkes and Maforah found that
penetrative sex is defined as the "purpose of love" among adolescents in the
Western Cape. Assault is described as a regular feature of sexual
relationships and some respondents said this is the main reason they
continue to have sex. Physical assault is so commonplace, women said, that
many of their peers actually see it as an expression of love.
Soul City found that a contributory factor to the rape statistics is the
belief that, once aroused, a man cannot control his sexual urges and is not
henceforth responsible for his actions. In fact, rape is blamed almost
entirely on the dress code of young girls who "ask for it" if they wear
tight clothing. When asked how this explains the rape of 80-year-old
grandmothers, again girls wearing tight clothes are responsible: "After
seeing her we are aroused. When you turn the corner and you see a granny,
then you just `shove it in'." Girls walking about late at night or going out
on their own are also perceived as "fair game".
Rape is spoken about with callous normality and interviews with male
respondents are peppered with a pervasive sense of sexual entitlement. Soul
City's research show women are consistently seen as subordinates who must
submit. This is supported by at least three other studies in which 30% of
young South African women report their first sexual experience was coerced.
The widely held belief that a man can tell if a woman has slept with other
men also contributes to women's vulnerability to HIV. One of the most unjust
corners a sexually aroused woman can find herself in stems from the belief
that vaginal lubrication signifies infidelity. To avoid the real threat of
violent punishment, which may well include rape, many women insert herbs and
other substances inside their vaginas to "dry up". Dry sex increases the
risk of trauma and, therefore, HIV transmission, if their partner is
positive.
CIETafrica, an NGO researching sexual violence, found that 12% of young
girls do not know they have a right to refuse sex in relationships and only
one out of every 10 boys interviewed in Gauteng schools opposed sexual
violence.
However, more men are speaking out against violence against women and a
number of organisations have been formed by men to challenge machismo and
violence. Popular culture needs to reflect the many male role models who
don't believe in, glorify or practice violence against women.
On the July 7 1999, Soul City, together with the National Network on
Violence against Women (NNVAW), launches a major campaign to challenge
attitudes which perpetuate gender violence. Debate will be raised, human
rights information and options for action conveyed through Soul City's prime
time television drama on SABC 1 and radio dramas on nine stations in nine
official languages.
This, together with Soul City information booklets, will reach millions.
Audiences will be connected to support from community-based organisations of
the NNVAW via a toll free hotline. The partnership will also produce
material for schools.
Shereen Usdin is a public health specialist and Lebo Ramafoko is a
lifeskills specialist for Soul City
http://www.sn.apc.org/wmail/issues/990507/NEWS49.html
When a brother rapes a white woman April 16, 1999
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How do you feel when a white woman looks at you and tightens the grip on her
sling-bag, sure that all you have on your mind are her possessions? Like an
African male, that's how.
This, to be sure, is how many white people think of you: a crime about to
happen. And that is how white ideology wants you to feel - like a criminal.
If you do not programme yourself against such representations, you can get
caught out.
But then, what do you feel when a brother rapes a white woman? And while
we're at it, what do you say when your neighbour's son suddenly pitches up
driving a Pajero and wants to sell your wife a leather sling-bag?
Do you think to yourself, "none of my business", or do you recycle some
stupid sentiment about people only trying to survive and whites having
robbed us blind for ages?
No, you don't. This is your bloody business. When you don't think beyond
your self-interest, it may be your turn next time around. It may be your
daughter or your wife next, and where will you turn to then? Do you really
want it to get to the personal?
Rape and hijacking should make you angry. When you experience anger, you are
close to feeling the pain of the "victim", you are sharing the
responsibility for the kind of society we live in.
It is at this point that you start writing, "I am sorry, Charlene Smith."
And when someone asks why should you apologise as you didn't rape the woman?
Smith herself wrote, "It's wrong to think rape is about men exerting power
over women."
This is how you respond: the struggle for freedom impels me to make it my
business. Rape is about power of one sort or another: heterosexual or racial
or about class.
However, it is not simply Smith's pain we empathise with. I felt the same
way when I learned that my cousin was raped in her dorm room at Medunsa. She
did not report the incident. She did not see how it would help.
I feel a similar kind of hurt when one too many of my friends is subjected
to rape by the same people who you would believe should take joy in strong
African women. I share my friends' pain and their strength.
Without detracting from the pain of the rape survivor, this is one thing I
and you, African men, must do: we must say to every woman in this country
who is raped, we are hurting and we are angry, and we will work to stop it.
The first people who should make us mad are the rapists - of Smith, of
Nomboniso Gasa, of friends and kin and so many women and children.
We are angry at any man who enacts his anger on others' bodies; angry at a
society that engenders and tolerates pervasive violence; at ourselves when
we don't get angry enough about rape because we believe it has nothing to do
with us.
Rape is part of the larger structural violence. If only for that, it
deserves our serious attention. Violence against any member of our society
has everything to do with us.
If we do not oppose rapists and robbers, we may be sliding into believing
that maybe some of our brothers are born bad and throwing our hands up in
despair. Not to speak out against these crimes is to help the racist
criminalisation of African manhood.
We should talk about this and hopefully fashion a humane future between us
and women in this country. We should refuse to be part of a present that
eroticises violence.
To talk thus would bring out some harsh truths perhaps. For instance, one
might confess and say, "I used to want to hurt white people real bad, where
it hurts deepest. I wanted to rape white women."
One might say, like many brothers, I got caught up in a perverted war game
with white women as spoils. I didn't give a second thought to African women.
They weren't going anywhere, I believed.
Hopefully, in that moment of truth-telling, one of us will recognise that
all along we have been helping perpetuate the wretched situation of
oppression of all these women. It was a lie that we wanted to do it to their
females because white males have been raping black women and getting off
scot- free for centuries.
But then a student in my department conducted a study and found white female
students said, if it happens, they would prefer to be raped by a white male
rather than a black male. They said being raped by black males is likely to
be more violent, and with black males one is afraid of contracting HIV/Aids.
The group of students also said white males may feel they are doing black
females a favour when they rape them, that this may not be viewed as rape.
It is at this point that we are called to do the kind of programming I
referred to earlier: to think principle. It is hard, I know. But we can't
allow ourselves to say, "Rape the white girl, cut her father's throat"; not
even to say, "Hear what whites say; how can we share anything?"
As we did for the struggle, perhaps we should put into a chant that if the
liberation project was meant to free us from oppression, it must have been
to free us all from all kinds of oppression.
If the struggle was truly for liberation, it was for all kinds of
liberation. When we are thinking clearly, it strikes us that liberation has
no plural. Being an indivisible whole, liberation cannot be partitioned. It
is radical. To opt for anything else is to endanger it.
Kopano Ratele lectures on the psychology of racism and gender in the
psychology department at the University of the Western Cape
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� Weekly Mail & Guardian
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