Cultural Terrorism: The War Against Women in South Africa and the Law's Limitations
Presented by: Professor Penelope Andrews
School of Law, LaTrobe University

The alarming statistics of violence against women in South Africa today have resulted in many women advocates referring to the situation in the country as "a war against women" or "a state of terrorism". My paper will examine the context of the violence, its persistence, levels and forms, and its ubiquity, to evaluate how a society with comprehensive formal legal protections against violence, including a constitutional mandate to eliminate all forms of violence against women, evinces such widespread and seemingly inevitable violence. My enquiry focuses on the cultural and institutional patterns [both historical and contemporary] that generate the violence, and law's constraints in the face of such cultural and institutional factors.

In addition, my paper will examine the failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to deal with the systemic violence against women under apartheid - and how that omission may have contributed to the continuing culture of violence against women in South Africa.