Post date: Feb 18, 2012 1:18:10 PM
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (FEBRUARY 17, 2012) (REUTERS) - The organisers called it the 'mini-skirt march', organised after two teenagers were groped and assaulted for wearing short skirts at a taxi rank last month. Hundred of people, mainly women, joined the protest in central Johannesburg on Friday (February 17).
Hundreds take to the streets of Johannesburg in a protest against the rape and sexual assault of women following recent, highly publicised attacks on teenage girls.
The rally, organised by the African National Congress (ANC) Women's League, was sparked by the assault by several taxi drivers at Johannesburg's Bree taxi rank last January which was captured on closed circuit television (CCTV). No one was arrested for the crime despite the visual evidence of the assault.
Three years ago, another woman, Nwabisa Ngcukana, was stripped and sexually assaulted at the same taxi rank. No one was arrested.
The march is intended to galvanise support for a future gender policy paper. The ANC Women's League also want to mobilise civil society and encourage men to join an active campaign to fight violence against women and foster a culture of respect.
"If you want to see women as sex objects whether they are wearing trousers or skirts, you will still see women as sex objects. It has nothing to do with what you are wearing. It has nothing to do with the mini skirt," said Miranda Komane of the ANC Women's League
The march started at the Noord Street taxi rank, where the assaults took place, and ended in the Johannesburg high court where organisers handed a 'memorandum of grievances" to the equality court.
South Africa's minister for women, children and people with disabilities, Lulu Xingwana, joined the march saying it was a means of reclaiming the streets from those who abuse and terrorise women and children.
Xingwana was quoted in local media as saying that women abuse threatens to erode many hard-earned gains of the liberation struggle in South Africa.
"Men dress the way they like, sometimes they go topless with their big tummies, some times they go with their short pants, nobody harasses them, nobody dictates to them what they should wear. They should respect women's rights because women's rights are human rights and therefore no one has the right to deny women the right to wear what they want and to walk where they want to," she said on Friday.
The January 'mini-skirt' attack has outraged a country where violent crime often hogs the headlines.
The miniskirt march, sparked by a violent local event, has received much more backing and support here in Johannesburg than 'Slutwalk' - a worldwide movement started in February last year which also came to South Africa and was started after a Canadian policewoman advised students to "avoid dressing like sluts".
Organisers say the skirts are as small as the message is big: South Africa's women want an end to violence against them and they want perpetrators to be dragged through the courts.
Nwabisa Ngcukana, who was assaulted at the Bree taxi rank three years ago, said she was hopeful that such a rally would push the authorities into doing more.
"I had hopes but my hopes were crashed when those kids were abused again. So I think this time we are going to see some results, we are going to see some arrests. We are going to go to court, we are going to make examples of these guys. They need to stop with this, it has been happening for far too long," Ngcukana said.
Police data released last September showed that the number of reported rapes went up between 2010 and 2011 when 181 people a day were raped or sexually assaulted.
The statistics are grim: The number of reported rapes in South Africa is amongst the highest in the world and the number of reported rapes is going up. This is made worse by the fact that South Africa also has one of the highest rates of HIV infection where, according to UNICEF, it is on average five times higher among girls than boys.
One website, Rape.co.za, put it succinctly saying it is estimated that "a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read".
It also quotes statistics from the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency in 2011 which says one in 4,000 women they questioned said they had been raped in the past year of 2011.
It said a quarter of school children interviewed in a Soweto school said 'jackrolling', a term used for gang rape, was fun.
Violent crime in South Africa dipped slightly over the past year but still remained at levels that has made the country one of the most dangerous states in the world outside of a war zone, police data released last September showed.