I’m taking part in a silent protest today. It involves wearing a t-shirt with facts such as “only 1 in 9 women report rape in South Africa” on it and I also have my mouth taped up with industrial strength packing tape. The woman who taped me up joked that criminals use this exact to tape up their victims. I am not allowed to speak, eat or drink until 6pm today when we all meet again and talk about our experiences.
I have to say I’m feeling quite isolated. The moment that tape was on my mouth I felt like I lost my power. Walking past people who stare at you like you come from outer space doesn’t help - you become an “other”. A presence that doesn’t belong and shouldn’t be there.
When I told someone I was doing the protest today, they looked at me and said: “You’re quite the activist, aren’t you?” They didn’t say it in a friendly way either. They knew I had painted my hands red to protest the situation in Zimbabwe a few weeks ago - and now I was taping my mouth up in solidarity with rape victims. It’s not that this person thought I was wrong to be an activist. I think they didn’t expect me to be. Students at this university seem to think that the editor of a student newspaper shouldn’t have an agenda - shouldn’t support anything and definitely shouldn’t stand for anything.
My answer to that is: if you can’t stand against injustice, what can you stand for? It’s not like I’m publically protesting a controversial subject like abortion or stem cell research/ I’m in support of something that I believe everyone should care about and believe in. If that makes me a bad editor, so be it.
I am silent today because:
Government statistics report that 54,000 women were raped in SA in 2007.
Stats SA indicates that only 1 in 9 survivors go on to report the rape and of these, only 4% were successfully prosecuted in 2007.
These statistics translate to approximately 500,000 rapes in 2007.
There are approximately 24 million women in SA - which means that based on current statistics, if a woman lives to be 50 years old she has an almost 100% chance of being raped at least once.
These numbers are unacceptable to me - and they should be unacceptable to you too.
Rape limits human potential. It silences people, makes them less than human, keeps them afraid and isolated.
My silence today affirms my solidarity with the 8 in 9 women silenced by rape and sexual violence.
Freedom of Speech is denied to vitims of sexual violence.
I call on men and women to break the cycle of sexual violence. Stand up against sexual violence and help us create a world where women are truly equal, where they are free to walk where they want to, when they want to, wearing what they want to.
Until we achieve those goals - women will remain silenced.
We have a long way to go!
