Just before the start of Rhodes Anti Sex Crimes Week yesterday, a 19-year-old woman was gang raped by six men in Fitchat Street near Scotts Farm at around midnight on Friday.
Police said the knife wielding men had initially confronted the woman and had tried to mug her. But the victim recognised the man who had raped her first and was able to tell the police.
Just before the start of Rhodes Anti Sex Crimes Week yesterday, a 19-year-old woman was gang raped by six men in Fitchat Street near Scotts Farm at around midnight on Friday.
Police said the knife wielding men had initially confronted the woman and had tried to mug her. But the victim recognised the man who had raped her first and was able to tell the police.
She was admitted to hospital due to the injuries she suffered during the attack. One of the perpetrators was arrested over the weekend. He briefly appeared at the Grahamstown Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
One in Nine Campaign organiser and activist Larissa Klazinga told Grocott’s Mail that she received a call on Sunday night from a family member of the rape survivor, whom Klazinga believes is a Grade 12 learner at Mary Waters High School.
Klazinga was notified that a bail application hearing for the accused was scheduled for yesterday afternoon so she organised a demonstration outside the Hight Court involving Rhodes staff and students and Mary Waters learners to protest that the accused be denied bail.
Yesterday marked the first day of Rhodes Anti Sex Crimes Week which will include the Sexual Violence = Silence protest. An estimated 1 000 people, including 220 men will participate, a marked increase since the first protest of only 80 people in 1988.
The protest was led by the One In Nine Campaign which was established in 2006 to show solidarity with the woman who had laid a rape charge against Jacob Zuma.
Close to 600 silent participants, wearing t-shirts with the slogan “Sexual Violence = Silence” will be gagged all day and will not eat or drink anything. Government statistics report that 55 000 women are raped in South Africa annually.
Yet, only 4% of reported rape cases are successfully prosecuted. Klazinga says: “a Medical Research Council study in 2005 indicated that only 1 in 9 women raped in South African reported their rape to the SAPS, which means that nearly half a million women are raped annually in our country.
These statistics are unacceptable and highlight the serious need for reform of the institutional framework for responding to women who speak out and has been the motivating factor behind these protests.”
There will also be an ongoing Gender Action Project (GAP) exhibition in the Eden Grove Building, as well as a keynote address presented by Nomboniso Gasa, the former chair of South Africa’s Commission for Gender Equality.
Gasa has been a lifelong political activist and gender research analyst. She has tirelessly worked on human rights for women and feminism in Africa since the age of 14 when she was first detained after a student protest in the Western Cape during the years of apartheid.
She is famously remembered for her 21-day hunger strike that sought to draw international attention to Zimbabwe’s deteriorating humanitarian crisis and the detention of political prisoners.
On Thursday there will be a discussion with Dr Rebecca Hodes, the founder of the Students HIV/Aids Resistance Campaign (Sharc) about healthcare and HIV.
