A psychology professor at the University of Cape Town says the media has an important role to play in fighting the scourge of gender based violence (GBV) in South Africa.
She was speaking during an online webinar to mark one year since the rape and murder of 19-year-old UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana.
Professor Floretta Boonzaaier has called on the media to run sustained campaigns aimed at raising awareness around GBV.
“We need sustained campaigns on gender based violence, not waiting for women’s month or 16 days of activism to put reporting of violence on the agenda or not waiting for another graphic story that will sell newspapers.”
“We need to steer clear of episodic reporting of violence, incident based reporting. We need thematic reporting that includes detailed contextualised grounded stories on gender based violence,” explains Boonzaaier.
Tears ran down Station Commander of Claremont police Col Maree Louw’s cheek at the memorial to Uyinene Mrwetyana. It also brought back the pain of her family member murdered and the murder of Anene Booysen while Louw was based in Bredasdorp. pic.twitter.com/tG6XPIjshQ
— Jenni Evans (@itchybyte) August 24, 2020
