A generation of South African women has culturally suppressed memories of apartheid-era sexual violence through a process of unremembering.

New research has found that historic crimes committed against women in Black communities have been forgotten or suppressed by cultural forces, including prevailing attitudes that such attacks are either a modern crime or were solely perpetrated by agents of the apartheid state.

Remarkably, some women hold these views even though they were the victim of sexual violence during the era, or knew a family member who was.

The research by the University of Exeter is the first to explore women’s understandings and experiences from the apartheid era, compiling a series of oral histories from those living in two townships at the heart of violence and unrest in the run-up to the country’s 1994 election.

South Africa has become notorious for its high rates of domestic violence, rape and femicide,” says Dr Emily Bridger, of Exeter’s Department of Archaeology and History. “We know from past research that these issues are not new to the post-apartheid era but have deep roots stretching into the country’s colonial and apartheid past. Yet when asked to reflect on historic sexual violence in oral history interviews, Black women repeatedly told us that life in apartheid South Africa was devoid of rape – even when such statements contradicted their personal experience.

The study has been made possible by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship awarded to Dr Bridger in 2020. Over a period of four years, she and Kefuoe Makena, a Black South African research associate, conducted more than 70 interviews with women living in Thokoza and Katlehong. These are both townships located southeast of Johannesburg and were subject to intense political violence from 1990 to 1994 in the lead-up to South Africa’s first democratic elections.

Source: https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-humanities-arts-and-social-sciences/archaeology-and-history/new-research-reveals-how-apartheid-era-sexual-violence-has-been-collectively-unremembered-by-south-african-society/