By Daanyaal Matthews
As we edge closer to the festive season, the Mother City braces itself for its annual period of reports relating to gender-based violence, accidents, and crime. While the reason behind this habitual chaos is multifaceted, a commonality is alcohol.
Alcohol is prevalent throughout South Africa, with a report in 2011 indicating that almost 42% of men drink with women averaging 17.1%, with the festive season being notorious for an increase in road accidents with deaths in the hundreds.
With Alcohol being such a greater cause for accidents, the majority of focus is given towards addressing the symptom rather than the origin with the larger conversation largely being ignored which is: how South Africa can curtail its issue of alcohol abuse. Speaking on VOC Breakfast, Dr. Simon Howell, Criminologist, proposes replicating or adapting alcohol legislation more in line with tobacco laws that are far more stringent.
‘I think Tobacco can provide a model. We tend to think it’s difficult to begin a discussion on how to moderate alcohol consumption. When we have done this before with tobacco, there has been a model and tobacco smoking has decreased substantially,’ says the criminologist.
Furthering on this point, Howell describes the shift in mindset necessary to properly deal with the issue of alcohol abuse by recognizing that alcohol is a drug, stating:
“The first thing to recognize that alcohol is a drug, and simply because it is legal: does not make it less dangerous and people need to recognize that. There is significant harm to them personally and to society if consumed in the wrong manner.”
This discussion comes more into play around discussions of Gender-Based Violence, an epidemic within South Africa. The correlation between Gender Based Violence and alcohol is concrete with a study conducted by the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance (SAAPA), and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), showcasing that an inebriated male is three times more likely to engage in physically abusive behaviour with women who have drinking partners are six times more likely to experience physical abuse.
These facts, coupled with the experiences of many, have led many social activists to call for the complete ban of alcohol such as Nuraan Osman, Director of the Ihata Shelter, who ‘wishes’ alcohol could be banned given her experience dealing with victims of GBV, arguing that she expects to see an increase in the number of women entering the shelter or seeking help.
‘Often a woman who come throughout the year come through with emotional abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse, but in November and December, we see more physically abused women, not excluding that these women do experience other abuse, but often it’s stab wounds or a broken limb such as a broken jaw,’ says the social activist.
