“Women’s Sexuality Captured”: Another Form of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the Swati Patriarchal Space

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a phenomenon that is deeply rooted in gender inequalities which endure through social institutions like family and church. Women’s representation in patriarchal spaces tends to influence their identities, whilst also prescribing acceptable standards of behaviour and action. With reference to the religio-cultural dynamic which requires girls to preserve their purity until marriage, and is reinforced by virgin testing, the chapter labels this societal expectation a form of gender-based violence. However, the social control over women’s sexuality is exercised not through brute force, but through this religio-cultural construct, propagated by socialization. In a society where the woman’s self-concept is developed whilst couched in patriarchal language the young woman’s virginity becomes crucial in that she would attract a high premium of lobola, and also guarantee perpetual lineage. I, therefore, argue in this chapter that girls’ sexuality being captured or controlled is an affront to women’s and girls’ dignity, which results in physical and psychosocial distress and trauma. Hence, the need for girls to be empowered to realize that the practice of virginity tests is inhuman and unethical. Working within a critical feminist paradigm, I sought to challenge and critique prevailing gendered positions on girls’ purity before marriage, which social institutions promote in collaboration. This is commensurate with a critical research paradigm as it actively engages with and challenges dominant assumptions and “taken for granted” ways of knowing, whilst it promotes advocacy for social change.