To mark International Women’s Day, a special Court of Women heard moving accounts of hardship from women displaced by war
Marianne Merten
‘My husband was an ex-soldier and in my country [with the coming to power of a new government] ex-soldiers were pursued [for political reasons],” explains refugee Susan Matata. Matata, who comes from a Central African country, used an assumed name for an interview with the Mail & Guardian, for fear of being tracked down.
It is the start of her account of how she and her three children, now aged between five and nine years, travelled thousands of kilometres to South Africa in the hope of safety. But today not knowing if her husband is still alive Matata is HIV-positive after months of sexual abuse, dependant on handouts and living in uncertainty in one of Cape Town’s shack settlements. Although she has been trying to telephone relatives back home, there has been no news.
“I wish I could get a job and a better place to live,” she says quietly with tears suddenly running down her face. “I have never told anybody except my friend. I know nobody is going to do anything about it. Even when I was sick there was no one to talk to.”
Matata is one of 40 women who testified at a special hearing of the Court of Women Against War for Peace held in Cape Town this week on International Women’s Day.
The hearing is at the heart of the nine-day programme of the “Court of Women” that entails round-table discussions by international academics, lawyers and women’s and human rights activists as well as a cultural and video programme dealing with women, war, poverty and justice. According to the organisers, the hearing in which women themselves relate their accounts is a “safe space for women to be heard so that they may move from victims to survivors”.
And on Friday participants and organisers will start preparing a Bill of Rights for women.
The last “court of women” was held in Nairobi in 1999 where the abduction and killing of women, female circumcision and poverty dominated the agenda. Other courts were held in Bosnia, Tokyo, Beirut, Banglador and Beijing. The event stems from a 1992 initiative by the Asian Women’s Human Rights Council and other women’s and human rights organisations.
Matata and her family’s search for safety was not an easy one. Officials in Tanzania refused to register them as asylum seekers when they arrived there more than a year ago. The family moved on to Malawi, but her husband was robbed of all the family’s cash. Leaving Matata behind, he attempted to get back to Tanzania and was never heard of again.
“According to the news I got he was captured. I don’t know his whereabouts,” she whispers.
In Malawi she met a South African truck driver. “He said: ‘I can help you if you are willing to come with me to South Africa,'” Matata says. She arrived in Johannesburg, but the relative safety was soon shattered. The truck driver demanded anal sex and beat her up if she refused. After a couple of months he brought home friends who paid him for sex with her.
“I asked some women [in the neighbourhood] for help with money. They told me to stand on the street.” Matata turned to prostitution while the truck driver was away on long journeys to save some cash to make her way to Cape Town, where she knew of a fellow refugee woman.
She arrived there in February last year and continued earning a living through prostitution. Soon afterwards she was told she was HIV-positive. “I wanted to take away my life. I don’t have help. My biggest worry is what will happen to me, what will happen to my children,” Matata says. “I feel sick. I don’t like it.”
Matata struggles to deal with the rumours about HIV/Aids. For example, on her way to the clinic one day she heard that the medicines issued were aimed at killing patients. There was no one to discuss her fears with.
Mary Magdalene Tal of the Cape Town Refugee Forum says there are many women in similar situations. Last week they helped to bury another woman who died of Aids- related illness. “It really makes my heart heavy,” Tal sighs.
Matata is one of a small number of women refugees in South Africa. According to the local office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the overwhelming majority of refugees are men. Women constitute only around 15% and minors just more than 3%.