Being a Black Rural Woman in South Africa Today, 2017
Cécile PERROT2017, Alizés : Revue angliciste de La Réunion
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Abstract
South Africa boasts one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. Its Bill of Rights guarantees the rights of all citizens and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. But South Africa is also known to have one of the highest levels of violence against women and girls for a country not at war. As shown in a study published recently by the South African Medical Research Council, the female homicide rate is five times the global average 1 and a third of men admit to having raped (Abrahams et al., 3). Although this reality of violence cuts across all social, economic or racial divides, Black rural women are undoubtedly the most affected. In addition, the Rainbow nation counts among the most unequal countries in the world. Its Gini coefficient (a measure in which 0 is perfect equality and 1 perfect inequality) reaches a staggering 0.66. Disturbingly, inequality-especially intra racial inequality-has increased since the fall of Apartheid. A report entitled Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid and published by the OECD in 2010 actually underlined the necessity of policy initiatives going beyond inter-racial redistribution to address the issue of intraracial growing income gaps, a reality that is, there again, primarily detrimental to Black women (Leibbrandt et al., 4). This article aims at exploring the situation of Black women in rural areas and the specific difficulties they face due to the multi-layered challenges they have to confront, as women, as Blacks and as people living in a rural area. THE POOREST AMONG THE POOR A widespread policy of affirmative action has been put in place in South Africa. In its first phase (from 1998 to 2003), it was known under the name of Black Economic Empowerment (Republic of South Africa, 1 Two studies led by the Medical Research Council of South Africa in 1999 and 2009 show that there was an overall reduction (by 37.7%) in the number of femicides over the period due notably to legislative action. However, despite this positive evolution, the current rate remains five times higher than the global average.
