Making silent voices heard: Using participatory video to address sexual violence

Sexual violence is a worldwide phenomenon; one that surpasses the confines of race, culture, colour, creed, and religion and touches practically every community in the world. Often sanctioned by custom, sexual violence survives and flourishes on gender disparities. Today, as in the past, violence against women still constitutes one of the most unpunished crimes of all. Sexual violence is increasingly recognised as a significant driver of the HIV epidemic, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where the frequency of HIV infection is growing at alarming rates among young women in particular. Youth's vulnerability to HIV is an important reason to focus on how they understand sexual violence in the age of AIDS in order to address it. This article focuses on Indian secondary school youth in Durban, South Africa - where the biggest Indian community outside of India is found - and explores how participatory video, as research as intervention', is used to not only understand but also address sexual violence in their community. The theory of Triadic Influence (TTI) provided a frame to make meaning of the findings of the study. The participants were 10 Indian boys and 10 Indian girls who were purposively selected from Grade 11 classes from a secondary school in Durban. The findings of the study suggest that Indian youths' understanding of sexual violence is underpinned by an Indian culture of concealment which perpetuates sexual violence and that the participatory video work - as intervention - opened up opportunities for them to engage critically with issues of Indian culture, peer pressure, and trauma, enabling them to be critically aware of the world around them. In this way, participatory video contributed to the participants empowering themselves in becoming agents of change.