During the week of 3 March three women – Elizabeth Koue, Babes Wodumo and Karima Brown – provided us with a glimpse into the economy of public sympathy in South Africa. By that I mean the ways in which

Yesterday the National Shelter Movement and the Hlanganisa Institute for Development in South Africa launched the report 'What is Rightfully Due: Costing the operations of domestic violence shelters.'

In S v Baloyi the Constitutional Court placed a clear duty on the state to address domestic violence. As the form of violence most frequently experienced by women, this obligation is entirely necessary.

South Africa provides rape complainants with a 28-day course of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent infection with HIV. This course of anti-retrovirals is not easy to complete and adherence to PEP

Today's post looks at the role of prosecutors, who are also crucial to the creation of specialised court responses to rape. Directives issued by the National Prosecuting Authority in 2014 stated that

Justice is the colour of money and the weight of numbers – which is just another way of saying that justice depends as much on the mundane art of administration, as it does on law and rights. To understand

Yesterday's post looked at cross-examination as a set of tactics. Today's follow-up looks at the language and grammar of cross-examination, with grammar referring to the tightly-controlled way questions

Last week South Africans were transfixed by the cross-examination of Cheryl Zondi, one of the complainants in the trial of Timothy Omotoso, a pastor accused of rape and trafficking. The country's criminal

I have been trying to write again: Business Day, News24 and the Sunday Times. But too many years of writing horrible, pedestrian reports in the passive voice ((outputs were; participants said; the results

The first domestic violence shelter in South Africa was opened by People Opposing Women Abuse in 1984. A second shelter was opened by Rape Crisis Cape Town the following year. Shelters today differ quite

It's taken 14 months - yes, 14 months - to do something very simple: convert a csv. file to excel and then import it into SPSS. I almost cannot comprehend why I made this so difficult. First, I didn't

The paedophile did not always exist as a psychological type waiting to be discovered. The second part of this article provides an overview of some of the historical factors that allowed for the paedophile's

Late in September a 20 year-old man was caught raping a 7 year-old girl in a restaurant toilet. It was an extraordinarily brazen act which has outraged most South Africans. What made the incident even

Willpower, I have read, comes with the entrenchment of better habits. And if these habits are not made, well, habitual, then I am destined for a life of chaos and under-achievement. Worse, I could become

I last submitted my taxes in November of 2012 when I stopped working full-time and became a student. My income became more erratic and I more protective of what I had earned. I did not want to give over

Finally, after months of confusion, I woke up with the title to my PhD. This is 'War and Epidemic, or the Science of Rape.' The departure point will be the 2012 UN meeting in which participants declared

For the last two/three years I've been tracking what's happening to women's services in South Africa so know it's bad. Because we all believe in the gospel of prevention now, nobody thinks services need

What is a science of rape? It might be something like Frankenstein - a combination of hubris, an unwarranted faith in science, coupled to the belief that behaviour can be programmed and engineered; that

I started out writing in anger about today's Total Shutdown March, which I didn't attend - partly due to PhD deadlines and partly because I cannot bring myself to ask government for anything. The memorandum

Today's reading focused on the way we sort things out - how we constantly classify, categorise and order things, often using particular standards. I'm still reading the introduction because the book is