Elisabet Le Roux

• BA, MPhil, M.Th, Ph.D.
• Research Director at Stellenbosch University

Researching violence, especially within homes, families or closed community spaces, is often challenging. PhotoVOICE 2.0 is an innovative technology-assisted adaptation of the participatory arts-based research (PABR) method, Photovoice. It was developed and piloted in 2018 by the authors to conduct research on the ways the Anglican Mothers’ Union i...

From 2018 – 2023, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women implemented a special funding window of US$9.5 million to support projects implemented by civil society organizations with the specific aim of preventing and ending violence against women and girls with disabilities. This report provides evidence of the key results of the Special Win...

This research report highlights key lessons learned from the United Nations Trust Fund's Special Window run from 2018-2022 which focused on ending violence against women and girls with disabilities. It draws closely on the practical experiences of twenty two civil society organisations around the world who received programmatic grants to identify f...

This article emphasises a gender-relational lens to reconciliation, post conflict and peacebuilding. While faith leaders can make important contributions here, they can also reiterate problematic gender norms and reinforce risks that the peace secured may perpetuate violence against women. It reflects critically on this gendered reality of peace-bu...

En este artículo se exploran etnográficamente las prácticas, discursos y experiencias de líderes de comunidades evangélicas en Colombia en relación con la identificación y atención de la violencia sexual en sus comunidades de influencia, principalmente poblaciones en situación de desplazamiento forzado y afectadas por el conflicto armado. La viole...

The most prominent perspective in terms of the intersection between culture and religion in the African context is the way in which cultural practices have been identified as harmful to women. While examples of the manner in which religion can play into the dominance and oppression of women within cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa are well documented,...

This synthesis review explores intersectional approaches to preventing violence against women and girls by analysing and drawing on practitioner-based knowledge drawn from ten diverse projects around the world. These work across a number of intersecting vulnerabilities - such as disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, conflict settings, oc...

Despite the demise of apartheid, economic inequality remains racially skewed in South Africa. For young people born either shortly before or after 1994, the official demise of apartheid-termed "born frees"-we must ask whether they are indeed "free" of the social and economic constraints of the past. How does ongoing inequality color notions of reco...

This synthesis review explores how to engage faith-based and traditional actors by drawing on the experiences of ten civil society organizations implementing projects to prevent violence against women and girls in different countries and contexts. It showcases the unique contributions of different types and sizes of organizations, from small locall...

The chapter explores sexual violence stigma within Christian faith communities, offering theological engagement with the concept of Jesus as a sexual violence survivor as a potentially effective intervention to address stigma within Christian faith communities. I draw on several studies I conducted with Christian survivors, exploring their experien...

This book addresses different challenges that endanger the lives of children in South Africa from an ethical perspective. The text is meant to position itself as a resource for specialists (and practitioners) in ethics and childhood studies. The content is systematically and intersectionally presented, based on scholarly analyses, insights, reasoni...

Background: An evaluation was conducted of a three-year intervention focused on violence against women and girls (VAWG) and implemented in the conflict-affected north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country with high rates of VAWG. The intervention addressed VAWG, and especially sexual violence, by specifically engaging with comm...

The authors identify a pervasive tendency, especially in the world of development and humanitarian response, to hierarchize or prioritize certain types of victims of sexual violence in armed conflict over others. Within this broader context, they focus on what a considered feminist acknowledgement of male victims of conflict-related sexual violence...

After over 50 years of warfare, Colombia has the largest internally displaced population in the world. Internally displaced women appear to be particularly at risk of sexual violence. Religious belief and affiliation can potentially impact the coping of internally displaced and sexual violence survivors in a country where 79% of the population self...

This evidence brief provides a short summary of quantative evidence collected from a three year project in the Democratic Republic of Congo carried out by Heal Africa in partnership with Tearfund UK. It was accompanied by longitudinal quantative and qualitative research to assess the impact of changes by the program which aimed to transform practic...

Women are oppressed and made to suffer violence by a patriarchal system that values them less than men. Yet, at times they are complicit in this system. Those advocating for gender equality and non-violence tend to interpret this based on a simplistic patriarchal resistance/compliance model. This is especially the case with the religious woman, who...

Contributors from various theological higher education institutions in South Africa and beyond come together to reflect on the best pedagogical practices to teach on often complex issues of gender, sexual orientation, race, and class, and on how they impact on health in our classrooms, in our churches, and in the communities where we live and work.

Myths of the ‘golden city’ have drawn many women. However, a critical gender lens highlights the diversity of women’s experiences in cities and their vulnerability to multiple forms of violence here. Interlinkages between public and private violences are often underpinned by harmful social norms about masculinity and a women’s ‘place’. Urban transf...

This article examines the work of ABAAD so as to explore the complexities of doing gender activism in a country ruled by both the state and religious law. The work of this non-faith, non-political organisation allows for such an exploration within postcolonial settings where religious law has tremendous influence. In keeping with the scholarly deba...

The divides within South African society remain stark, also for youth born after apartheid officially ended in 1994. At the same time, adherence to a faith tradition is statistically high among South Africans, and faith-based organisations (FBOs), an umbrella term including but not limited to churches, also have high levels of youth participation....

This report is the outcome of a research study to explore the reality of ongoing resistance by some religious leaders to the task of ending child marriage. It explores the possible roots of this resistance and suggests strategies by which it can be addressed. It draws on both global literature and qualitative data gathered across Christian, Hindu a...

Faith leaders who are working to promote justice and healing in Colombia might confront stressful circumstances that challenge their spiritual meaning systems and limit ministry-related quality of life. However, whether focusing on domestic or international samples, research has not examined potential effects of spiritual struggles on ministry-rela...

Most of the data available on faith-based HIV response focus on Africa, which is the heart of the pandemic. This article investigates faith-based community-level HIV responses within Eastern Europe, by studying the implementation of World Vision International’s “Channels of Hope” faith-based HIV intervention. The intervention approach was developed...

While progress has been made in creating conversations between the secular and faith actors involved in developmental issues, a distinct binary still exists. This could potentially be limiting a holistic response to gender-based violence, a global public health, development, humanitarian, and human rights issue. This article explores how perception...

There is much debate around whether gender-based violence (GBV) interventions should be framed within ‘women’ or ‘men’movements.While recognizing the gainsmade through both strategies, by drawing on data collected during a recent scoping study on the role of faith communities and organizations in the prevention and response to sexual and genderbase...

This paper looks at the role that faith plays in the motivation and activities of a Christian development organisation working globally to address poverty. In particular, we focus on settings where the organisation is active within Christian minority countries. Over the past three years the organisation being studied has been investigating its com...

For many Christian faith-based organisations involved in development, the issue of their Christian identity and how it should be embodied in what they do, is a contentious one. Especially where serving a multi-faith context, providing much-needed relief and developmental assistance, how their Christian identity should be included and prioritised in...

Faith is increasingly being recognised as important in developmental work in general, and specifically in addressing gender-based violence. However, this recognition does not mean that the potential of the faith sector for preventing and responding to GBV is effectively being harnessed. This article explores the potential of faith leaders and commu...

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a global public health, development and human rights issue with far-reaching consequences for those who have experienced SGBV, their families and communities. Recognising the ability of religion to promote stability and cohesion in times of upheaval, and the fact that faith groups are present globally at g...

Link to the presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkXJnNSGE-s

The paper, based on a masters’ thesis, explores the possibility of extending the traditional understanding of theology as fides quarens intellectum, with its emphasis on knowledge, to fides quares imaginem, with its emphasis on imagination. Therefore the important presupposition that, due to the aesthetic dimension of faith, care to people living w...

With the aim of providing a “definitive empirical account of the relationship between religion and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa” (p. 203), Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb explore AIDS and religion in Africa by drawing on a range of African studies, with a strong focus on Malawi and their own Malawi Religion Project. Using mixed methods and da...

Men in the pulpit, women in the pew? Addressing gender inequality in Africa is that rarest of gems – a work that takes a fresh look at familiar biblical teachings, and cause us to question what we have been accepting as a matter of course for so long.

A discrepancy between knowledge, values and sexual behaviour of Anglican youth aged 18 to 24 years was found in a baseline study in South Africa. This finding suggests that Anglican youth engage in sexual activities that run contrary to their supposed knowledge and values. They are seemingly not able to convert religious belief and factual knowledg...

The article investigates the availability of pornographic media to under-aged users, specifically the already marginalised under-aged sector of the South African population. It argues that the availability of pornography is just another illustration of the systemic discrimination against this section of the population. Theoretical, non-experimental...