A march in solidarity for more & better sexual offences courts

On Friday July, 09th I attended a demonstration organised by the One in Nine Campaign held outside the Johannesburg Magistrate Court. It was my very first appearance to an event as a Women’s Net employee. In fact it was my very first experience to a march. The march came about because the South African government created specialized 2010 World Cup courts aimed at delivering a speedy judicial process for foreign nationals. In doing so, they spent R45 million. While on the other hand, they claim lack of resources when asked to increase court for sexual offences.
Three main things were demanded from the State, these were:
• Increase the number of specialized sexual offences courts and ensure that these are in-line with minimum standards
• Extend the sexual offences court hours to deal with the case backlogs
• Arrest, prosecute and convict perpetrators of sexual violence

I got there at exactly three o’clock and found a group of about six ladies to a march that was suppose to start at three. I thought, Oh God, what am I doing here, is there even gone be a march? Just as those thoughts were going through my mind, I was acquitting myself with those who were there. I introduced myself to two ladies, who happened to be student from Wits University.

Minutes later, a quantum taxi arrived packed with more ladies and other people were arriving on their own cars. The women from One in Nine Campaign started hanging Panties, Bras, and T-shirt with statistics and messages on the fence of the Magistrate Court. Among other things, the messages that were printed on the T-shirts were “More than 15% of convicted rapists are eligible for life sentence”; “almost 50% of rapists rape multiple times.” The one that really made me want to drop a tear was the one that read “A woman is more likely to be raped, than learn how to read.” I just found it very sad that such a thing is happening right at our backyards and we hardly notice it. While they were busy hanging the T-shirts, some police officers came and asked if they had any letter to prove that they have the right to do that. Someone answered, “This is a public space, and as South African citizens, we have our rights to free speech.” The officers then just asked for pamphlets to see what that was all about and later asked for the purple T-shirts for their wives as well. I was very impressed, and I thought to myself, oh well, this is quite interesting; no one can harass you if you know your rights.

The excitement reach higher levels when the women started singing and chanting very controversial songs they created and struggle songs such as “wathinta abafazi, wathinta imbokodo,” which easily translates into “You strike a woman, you strike a rock.” Kwezi from One in Nine Campaign interrupted the singing for a moment to remind us of why we were there.

Everyone passing-by, men, women were all hooked and wanted to know what was happening. I helped by giving away the flyers that contained statistics and information of what the march was about. As the singing and chanting continued, I was glad I went. It was such a lovely experience to see women from different races, of all ages united; only this time, it wasn’t for the same reason as the women of the 1956 August march, but we were in one voice “solidarity for sexual violence against women”. Someone from Human Rights Watch who was present at the event told me to have a word with Ishtar from One in Nine Campaign who usually organised such campaigns and I did.

I look forward to many more to come, thanks to One in Nine Campaign.