{"id":115518,"date":"2026-03-08T16:00:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=115518"},"modified":"2026-03-08T16:00:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:00:49","slug":"115518","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=115518","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Women in South Africa take up guns and martial arts for protection against gender violence<\/a><\/p>\n

BRONKHORSTSPRUIT, South Africa (AP) \u2014 At the command of a female instructor, a line of girls and women, some wearing pink ear protectors, shoot five rounds at a target with 9 mm pistols as they undergo firearm training at a range in the agricultural town of Bronkhorstspruit just outside South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.<\/p>\n

The group, some as young as 13 and others up to 65, are looking for ways to protect themselves in a country where\u00a0gender-based violence<\/a>\u00a0is such a critical problem that it was declared a national disaster by the government in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cCheck your grip, check your line of sight,\u201d shouts Claire van der Westhuizen, the lead female instructor at Lone Operator shooting range, as women with well-manicured nails reload for another round.<\/p>\n

The training course is specifically designed for women and offers practice in real-world scenarios like self-defense firing while lying on their stomachs and backs.<\/p>\n

Femicide rates in South Africa are among the highest in the world, according to U.N. Women, the United Nations agency for gender equality. A South African study in 2022 found more than 35% of South African women aged 18 and older had experienced physical or sexual violence at some point. In most cases, the perpetrator was an intimate partner.<\/p>\n

Joining \u2018a family of support\u2019<\/h2>\n

Sunette du Toit, a working 51-year-old grandmother, was pushed to take up firearm training after surviving a home invasion by five men who tied her up and ransacked her house, she told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not in a position to defend myself at that point,\u201d du Toit said. \u201cI had to do this (firearm training) for myself to gain my confidence back to be able to move in public, and even in my own house, without feeling vulnerable.”<\/p>\n

She called the women’s firearm training group \u201ca family of support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Firearms in South Africa are heavily regulated. Anyone who wants to own a gun for self-defense must be over 21 and pass proficiency tests and background checks.<\/p>\n

Various self-defense trainings for women are popping up throughout the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women in South Africa take up guns and martial arts for protection against gender violence BRONKHORSTSPRUIT, South Africa (AP) \u2014 At the command of a female instructor, a line of girls and women, some wearing pink ear protectors, shoot five rounds at a target with 9 mm pistols as they undergo firearm training at a … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-safety","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115519,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115518\/revisions\/115519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}