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By Citizen Reporter

Journalist


Rhodes University accused of excluding rape activists

Feminist activists on campus claim they have been made to sign a document preventing them from protesting.


At a “Buang Basadi” women’s dialogue session held by the EFF at Johannesburg’s Constitution Hill, it was claimed by Rhodes University gender activists that the university has made students sign a document preventing them from protesting.

It was further alleged that some students have been excluded from the University for highlighting “rape culture on campus.”

At the event, it was also mentioned that there has been alleged sexual misconduct and rape within the Fees Must Fall movement.

The event, moderated by journalist Phindile Xaba, is a dialogue session in which issues “patriarchy, gender based violence and femicide” will be discussed, according to the party’s official Twitter account.

One of the speakers, Soul City executive director Lebogang Ramafoko, expressed her view that women were not liberated at the end of apartheid.

“Having worked in social justice for the past 25 years, I can say that 1994 has not happened for South African womens,” she said.

Earlier in August Khensani Maseko, a student and EFF member from Rhodes University who was allegedly raped by her then boyfriend in May, died at her family home in Johannesburg on Friday afternoon in an apparent suicide.

The Rhodes University SRC expressed their shock, while on social media tributes poured in, with many spreading the hashtag #RIPKhensani and voicing their outrage at Maseko’s suicide and at South African rape culture in general.

Maseko was an SRC alumnus, active in campus politics.

Nhlakanipho Mahlangu, a member of Rhodes SRC, said: “We know the amount of promise she had to offer us all, I mean to offer the entire country. We’re very shaken, it’s a very difficult time for us as the SRC, and we wish her family all the strength and support that we can.”

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