Women urged to speak against abuse
During the protest, the women were asked to break the silence and report abuse.
LAST Thursday, women and men from all over the South Coast marched in the Port Shepstone central business district calling for South Africans to put a stop to violence against women and children.
This was following a spike in reports of women being raped and murdered by their partners over the past few months.
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Various organisations, political parties and gender activists took part in the march, organised by Ugu District Municipality, including all four local municipalities as well as Social Development MEC, Weziwe Thusi.
“Sekwanele manje!” (enough is enough) the women chanted, asking when they would stop suffering at the hands of men and when would the scourge of woman and child abuse end.
“We are being killed, burned and dumped like trash. Senzeni-na, (what have we done)?” asked a protester.
Speaking at the protest, MEC Thusi said women needed to stop protecting these perpetrators and report incidents of abuse to authorities.
“We need to break the silence and stand up against abuse. We can’t allow our children to grow in societies in which they are abused and ill treated.”
Almost every week, the Herald reports crime incidents in which women and children are abused. Last week’s Herald carried two stories involving children who had been brutally killed. A three-year-old boy had been found dead after he had last been seen with a sangoma in Louisiana, while a seven-month-old baby had been killed, allegedly by his mother, in Gcilima.
The Port Shepstone Child Welfare has urged communities to be aware of role players whom they can contact for assistance. These are Child Welfare SA, Port Shepstone and Margate; Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS), SAPS; Child Line, Life Line, Port Shepstone Regional Hospital and Give a Child a Family.
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