By: Lucky Khanyile

The Durban University of Technology’s Gender Forum hosted its annual 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign in solidarity with the rest of the world.

The Gender Forum took initiative in the worldwide campaign in pursuit of raising awareness against women and children abuse at the ML Sultan on the 8^th December. President Jacob Zuma launched the campaign at Ekurhuleni last month as South Africa takes part for the 16^th time.

Rosalin Govender, the chairperson of the Gender Forum, said that they are aiming to get the collective statement across DUT and the rest of the community about women and children abuse.

Govender believes the government is all about ‘talk’ and has not been doing enough to fight abuse against women and children, which is rife in South Africa.

“Government has a lot to do to support women, a lot of structures to put in place because so many times women report abuse there is not much action being taken and there’s a long period of wait to solve these cases.

There are not enough shelters for women and children when they are abuse and I strongly feel it’s the governments’ responsibility to provide these shelters for the victims,” said Govender.

According to Govender, 16 days of activism starting on the 25^th of November to the 10^th of December is not enough. Govender said that there should be more empowerment programs throughout the year.

Zenande Hlubi, a third-year Public Management student, praised the event but yearned that there were more students to participate.

“The event was educative but the attendance could have been better if only more students were still around. These kinds of events bring change even though we can’t say it is enough.

If we could change from 16 days to 365 days of activisms and have programs like these to educate men on how treat women, there would be more change,” said Hlubi.