The spiritual experiences of women victims of gender-based violence: A case study of Thohoyandou

Abstract

This article reports on interviews conducted with 11 women at the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme (TVEP), a centre located in Sibasa, Thohoyandou, in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The centre provides support and advocacy to female survivors of domestic violence. The participants were victims of gender-based violence and the study aimed at exploring the spiritual experiences of women assaulted by their partners. Interviews were conducted over 4 days and were held on the TVEP premises. This article discusses how women of faith found meaning and support through their religious beliefs when experiencing violence in intimate spaces. Furthermore, the article drew insights from spiritual perceptions held by women that make them feel safer and assist them to find ways to cope with violence in intimate relationships. However, the study found that women prayed for divine intervention and change in their families and for God to help their husbands by removing all evil spirits from their lives. It was found that apart from prayer, the women do not have any other spiritual resources to combat gender-based violence. The authors suggest the deconstruction of harmful religious discourses (such as ‘God has made man to rule over woman’) towards healing religious discourses (such as ‘all people are equal in God’s eyes’) as a type of ‘intervention’ in the lives of the interviewees.Contribution: The article contributes towards understanding the harmful impact of religious discourses on the lives of women who are vulnerable towards domestic violence. Religious discourses that are either harmful or healing are here identified through the stories of women who have been violated in their intimate relationships, thus contributing to the body of knowledge in gender studies and to religious and social sciences in general.

A conceptual framework of gender-based violence and femicide drivers in South Africa

“…Religious leaders are sometimes unwilling to preach about abuse as it is a taboo topic, thus causing a stigma allowing perpetrators to abuse without retribution. Findings by Landman & Mudimeli (2022) obtained from GBV survivors' view about the church are that they do not see the church being a safe place to report GBV as men's violence and abusive behaviour are excused as it is perceived that the devil or evil spirit caused it. Thus, women are mostly unwilling to report the abuse and would rather pray that things improve as they regard a good woman as obedient and preserving.…”

The African Pastor as a Public Figure in Response to Gender-Based Violence in South Africa: A Public Pastoral Intervention

“…In contrast to more secular African countries such as Mozambique and Ethiopia (Michael et al 2024), South Africa continues to experience a significant prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) (Mpako and Ndoma 2023;South African Government 2023). Despite being characterized as a religious nation, with Christianity as the predominant faith (Landman and Mudimeli 2022), what accounts for the persistent increase in GBV rates in South Africa?…”