Falling victim to gender-based violence and rape is a violation of a person’s dignity, leaving them not only physically and mentally hurt, but ‘feeling dirty’ at the same time.
It is for this reason that over 200 care packs were delivered to the Randburg Police Station by Josina Machel of the Kuhluka Foundation to be distributed to victim support centres at the Randburg, Linden, Roodepoort, and Diepsloot police stations on 8 October.
Machel is a survivor of assault in Mozambique around four years ago.
She recounted, “The kind of treatment that I received was below standard. But I quickly learned that this is the same treatment throughout the world.
“As I started healing and trying to understand why something like this would happen to me, I also started thinking about the thousands of other women going through the same thing.
“My fight against gender-based violence stems from understanding my own experience and using it to make others a bit more dignified.”
The dignity packs are boxes filled with essential items like underwear, sanitary pads, flip-flops and toiletries that women need in their time of need.
Sergeant Diphuo Maphanga of the Randburg Police Station said that after a crime happens, women usually take the bare essentials to the victim support centre.
Sometimes there are not enough supplies on hand, and they can feel dirty for a long time. These packs contain everything necessary for them to take care of themselves.
“Sometimes the simple feeling of being clean after a crime is enough to start the healing process. When we receive victims of domestic, child and gender-based violence, they need to take a shower after a doctor’s assessment.
“We usually give toiletries to these victims, as well a teddy bears to children. We truly value support like this to help restore a bit of dignity to victims of this kind of violence,” said Maphanga.
Machel added, “Victims are often full of blood and dirt, with nothing to clean themselves up with, which is very undignified. Through the items and care information we provide, we hope that women can turn this painful experience around to something a bit more comfortable.”
Items in the packs are gathered from the generous donations of foreign civil societies and the local private sector.
Machel said, “This is the first time that we have distributed these packs, and with crime statistics, we hope to deliver a proper number of packs each month.”
Maphanga added, “We are in constant need of supplies in care packs and we encourage other groups to draw inspiration from the Kuhluka Foundation to do the same.”
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