Posted inGeneralNews/Politics

Why I will wear black next time

Since the murder of Anene Booysen, I, and I suspect many others in the gender-based violence sector, have felt completely overwhelmed by the multitude of opinions and approaches to gender-based violence articulated in the sector, the media, and in public and private conversations throughout the country. At the research unit where I work there have […]

Posted inGeneral

I am not wearing black today

By Lize Hartley Let me start by saying that wearing black today is an act with good intentions. It comes from a good place, and I am not pointing fingers at those who have chosen to wear black. But I won’t be wearing black today. To start with, wearing black is not “taking a stand” […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Rape, let’s end it

By Miranda Pyne Anene Booysen’s gruesome murder last week caused many of us to speculate about revenge. Yet again we sombrely witnessed another violation. Another woman’s life wasted. People online, and on the radio, called for castration, the death sentence, sentencing the murderers to life in the worst prison possible, in some overcrowded hellish place […]

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#StopRape alone won’t stop rape

A significant component of the national outcry following the horrific gang rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen highlighted the extent to which South Africans shift blame and culpability on the raped, and not the rapist. This manifests itself through the lazy recourse in our national dialogue to primitive and antiquated explanations for rape: broken […]

Posted inGeneral

Raped, again

By Fezisa Mdibi Walking out of the filthy house I realised my eyes were swelling when the tears started stinging. My lip was bleeding and ribs were on fire. I was angry. I stopped crying. I had been raped for the second time in my life before my 16th birthday. At 15 I was raped […]