South Africa is notorious for its high levels of gender-based violence By Opinion Amanda Gouws SOUTH Africa is a country that is notorious for its high levels of gender-based violence (GBV). The SAPS statistics for reported rape cases for 2019/2020 is 42 289 and for sexual assault 7 749 (Department of Police, 2020), amid huge under- reporting of rape. Intimate femicide is five times the global average. Of reported rape cases, only about 14% goes to trial and there are convictions in only about 7% of these cases. There is indeed a high attrition rate. The 2016 #EndRapeCulture and the 2017 #TotalShutdown campaigns were the push back from women against the normalisation of sexual violence.