Cultural and Religious Discourses in Gender-Based Violence: An Analysis of Vhavenḓa Practices in South Africa
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/2663-6697/19851Keywords:
Gender-based violence, Vhavenḓa women, Customary law, Patriarchy, SpiritualityAbstract
Gender-based violence (GBV) remains one of South Africa’s crises, with rates among the highest globally despite numerous interventions. Its persistence reveals the inadequacy of legal and policy reforms, including the cultural and religious systems that legitimise and normalise violence against women. In the Vhavenḓa context, GBV must be understood as a form of structural and cultural violence that is embedded in social organisations, family life, and ritual practice. This article critically interrogates how Vhavenḓa cultural practices, particularly marriage customs and initiation rites, result in women’s subordination. To uphold these practices as markers of heritage without critique is to obscure their role in sustaining GBV. The study adopts a qualitative research design, using documentary analysis and a desktop literature review, employing interpretive engagement with ethnographic and legal texts. A purposive sampling strategy ensured that the analysis was anchored in scholarship and case studies directly addressing the intersection of culture, religion, and GBV. The findings reveal that while Vhavenḓa practices entrench women’s subordination, they also contain spaces where cultural logics can be reimagined to resist GBV. By framing GBV as a form of structural and cultural violence, this study challenges both scholarship and policy to move beyond surface-level reforms. It calls for interventions that interrogate and transform cultural practices from within, refusing both the uncritical preservation of tradition and its outright erasure. The aim is a culturally grounded reformation that advances justice, dignity, and equality for women, contributing to the broader project of decolonising GBV.
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