Bus Campaign

The bus, filled with printed materials on gender-based violence, left from Constitution Hill in Johannesburg on a journey throughout the country. The bus's final destination was Parliament in Cape Town - where petitions, messages and case studies collected on the tour were handed over to Parliamentarians.

As part of this advocacy effort, the bus carried three volunteers from the Gender Advocacy Project, Cape Town Rape Crisis, and Life Line in Soweto, and stopped at small towns in each of the nine provinces. Interpersonal communication was used here, in the form of workshops and information sessions conducted by the volunteers. Along the way, the volunteers collected stories to take to Parliament, so that the voices of women could be heard there. They also dropped materials and pamphlets off at churches, shopping centres, and community centres.

Participation was central to the effort, which intended to galvanise communities to take action in calling for improved implementation of existing legislation such as the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) and to call for the improvement and then enactment of the Sexual Offences Bill (SOB). A petition was circulated in support of the Sexual Offences Bill.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) were drawn upon to spread the word about the Bus Campaign and to foster dialogue: Volunteers kept an online diary (blog) on the project website(the blog is no longer active).

Rights, Women, Gender.

The campaign aimed to promote awareness of two pieces of law and their associated policies and protocols which, in one form or another, promote women's rights: the DVA and the SOB. The latter bill was first mooted in 1998; 8 years later the bill had still not been legislated. To that end, the campaign sought to:

The objectives of the campaign are to:

1. raise awareness on women's human rights and complaints mechanisms;
2. inform communities of DVA, the SOB, and other legislation which addresses gender-based violence.