'Driving Change in South Africa’ is a powerful 9-minute short film featuring Lebogang Seketama, one of eight drivers working in an MSF project in Rustenburg, the heart of South Africa’s Platinum Mining Belt which treats survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in a network of MSF-supported clinics.
Lebo knows first-hand the suffering and pain caused by sexual violence and it has changed his life. Each day, he collects survivors and transports them to the nearest clinic for mental, physical care and social support in MSF-supported clinics, often returning them home again. The majority of survivors collected by the drivers are women.
As they are often the first person a survivor meets following an incident, MSF’s all-male drivers have received psychological first aid training in how to support survivors from the start. Lebo shares his experience in supporting ‘clients’ and gives insights into his life growing up with violence and poverty in this mining region. Survivor Poppy shares her experience of interacting with MSF’s drivers, who made a difference in her treatment journey.
In 2015, an MSF survey in Rustenburg Municipality showed that one in four women had experienced rape in their lifetime, yet only 95% of women had ever reported their incident to a healthcare worker. While South Africa has some of the world’s highest rates of rape and femicide, access to immediate medical and psychological care for survivors remains limited, while the stigma surrounding sexual violence in communities means few survivors report the incident, let alone seek care.