Popular actor leads fight against intimate femicide

16 Days of Activism

There are many contributing factors to femicide with many women dying every year at the hands of people they know and love.

Patrick Shai, one of South Africa’s well-known actors, admits he used to physically abuse his wife.

A reformed Shai has joined hands with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ & CD) as an ambassador in the fight against intimate femicide.

Intimate femicide or intimate partner homicide is the killing of a woman by an intimate partner or any person who had an actual or perceived romantic, intimate or sexual relationship with the victim.

Shai beat his wife for 10 years and terrorised his children. For him, wife-beating was simply what men did.

Speaking at a recent event hosted by the DOJ & CD on raising awareness against femicide, Shai said his stepfather had done it, his uncle had done it, and so this was the way things were done.

He said he witnessed his stepfather brutally beating his mother while growing up in Meadowlands, Soweto.

“She bravely never cried out while she was being beaten. I used to believe that my stepfather did not do a good job because my mother did not scream," he said.

“So when I started to beat my wife, I would say I want to beat you so hard that you scream, that you cry louder than my mother. I still remember how my son begged me not to kill his mother,” Shai said.

After years of a toxic and bitter home life, Shai had a rude awakening when he played the role of a wife beater on the TV drama Soul City.

He was filming a domestic violence scene. “When ‘action’ was called, I saw not the set but my own house and my own family. For the first time, I saw the pain I was dishing out to my wife. For the first time, I heard the pleas of my son and I saw the pain on the face of my wife.” Shai walked off the set that day.

“I knew then that I needed to change,” he said.

When he arrived at his house later that day, he shared his experience with his wife.

Although he appreciates the efforts made by many sectors of society to confront intimate femicide, Shai strongly believes that more needs to be done on individual fronts.

“The slogan ‘Not in my name’ is good, but even better would be ‘In your name what you are willing to do in the fight against intimate femicide?’,” he said.

Shai said witnesses of domestic abuse should never keep silent in the name of respect for the privacy of the involved parties.

“Nothing is private when violence is involved in a relationship,” he said.

His decision to publicly join the femicide fight was underpinned by the murder of 30 women and girl children in the first five months of 2017.

The majority of the victims were allegedly killed by their partners or people they knew. The DOJ & CD then took a decision to establish Femicide Watch, which will be a data bank capturing the details of all victims of femicide.

He urges women who experience domestic violence to speak out and not to “surrender to family traditions of secrecy and prioritising family unity ahead of your life”.

“I want people to understand the reason I tell my story is because I believe men can change, despite being conditioned from childhood to regard women as objects. I’m not telling my story to glamourise myself  but to give people hope that if a guy like me can change, so can they.”

Shai is playing a critical role in mobilising men to prevent, support and amplify awareness campaigns against gender-based violence which often leads to femicide.

He is no stranger to active citizenry in community-based social movements. Since his rehabilitation, he has participated in movements including Brothers For Life and a men’s forum called “AmaGrootman against Women Abuse” which is a platform for men to share their stories.

Central to the programme is the need for men to equip boys for their rightful role in society, as protectors and not abusers. Shai said he disagrees with an old adage that says: “You cannot teach an old dog new tricks.” He insists that in order to curb the level of domestic violence “an old dog must be taught new tricks” to avoid a boy-child learning and repeating his father’s dark ways. 

* Solomon Kganyago works for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development