“I Need to Hurt You More”: Namibia’s Fight to End Gender-Based Violence

F ollowing decades of civil conflict and antiapartheid struggle, Namibia held the first one-person, one-vote election in 1989. The country achieved electoral democracy in 1990 and committed itself to a process of national reconciliation. The early 1990s also saw the reconstitution of civil society organizations and an expansion of international organizations. It was a moment ripe for progressive social change and legislative transformation. This article examines one social movement that benefited from this rapidly changing political space—the campaign to end gender-based violence. Through an analysis of gender scripts that preceded and persisted long after the political conflict ended, we explore the gap between legislation and social transformation. At the end of the first decade of democracy, Namibia had cultivated a home-grown movement calling for stricter laws on rape. Women achieved notable electoral success during this decade through the use of gender quotas ðenforced by law at the local level and facilitated by voluntary political party quotas at the national levelÞ, pressure from regional and national women’s movements, and a closed-list proportional representation electoral system ða strategy recognized for improving election victories for women and minority groupsÞ, filling parliament with a small but critical mass of allies ðBauer 2004; Bauer and Britton 2006Þ.1 This period corresponded with the regional push for the advancement of women’s empowerment and development. The leaders of the Southern African Development Community made sweeping commitments to advance the status of women and to combat gender-based violence. This combination of forces, led most notably by the national movement to end gender-based violence, culminated in Namibia’s Combating Rape Act ðNo. 8 of 2000Þ. The act is known