This week saw two groups of activists square-up outside the Johannesburg High Court, where Jacob Zuma is on trial for allegedly raping an HIV-positive Aids activist.
Some of Zuma’s supporters set fire to posters of Zuma’s accuser, saying “burn this bitch”.
Around the corner, at least 10 anti-rape organisations had gathered in support of the woman, whom they dubbed “Khwezi, meaning “star” because she cannot be identified. They felt provoked by Zuma supporters who sang defamatory songs directed at them.
The organisations chose this week to launch their One in Nine campaign, which refers to a Medical Research Council report that eight out of every nine rape cases go unreported in South Africa.
The purpose of the campaign “is to ensure that the courage and action” of the woman who filed a rape charge against former deputy president Jacob Zuma, “is affirmed and supported through direct action”, according to the campaign
website.
The campaign was launched to strengthen the level of “debate and analysis in society of the gender dimensions of the case”, said the website.
Mohau Pheko, co-ordinator of the Gender and Trade Network in Africa, told the M&G Online that the incidence of rape in South Africa was high and she often asked herself, “Why does it happen and why is nobody speaking about it?”
The One in Nine campaign is “asking women to break their silence”, she said.
“We want to publicise that eight out of nine women are not talking about rape”.
She believes that the South African government can’t distinguish between intimacy and rape.
“They treat rape as a private matter. It is not a private issue, it is a public matter,” said Pheko.
“To me it’s taking away dignity. It strips me of the things that I believe of myself and turns me into somebody else’s idea of what I am … Something that they can use and discard. And there are no consequences for that person. I have to live with that consequence and it shatters everything that I believe in,” said Pheko.
Rape is “of the body, mind and spirit,” she said.
She calls the Zuma’s alleged rape court case a landmark and said, “We [NGO’s] have very little budget to do the work that we really want to do” and that the campaign is using Zuma’s accuser because “she’s the greatest vehicle” and an example for people who are still silent.
“She’s a young woman and she is an active woman. By using her, we are showing an example [of someone] who is going up against a very powerful man. We are saying, ‘You don’t have to be afraid’.
“She’s going up against an entire system called the ANC. That takes a lot of guts. People must speak out,” she said.
Pheko said women have to battle with many gatekeepers when they want to speak out because “there’s a culture that has developed”, and to unlock that gate and find the key “is a huge battle for women in this country”.
“There are issues which we hide. People don’t want to know the details [of rape]. The violence that women are experiencing are so atrocious.”
According to statistics on the People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa)
website, a woman is raped every 26 seconds in South Africa and one in two have a chance of being raped.
“More than 40% of perpetrators are known to the rape survivor. Less than 2% of reported rapes are false and a woman is killed every six days by her intimate male partner in South Africa.
“Women are more likely to be attacked by someone they know than by a stranger,” said the website.
Dumisani Rebombo (45), the co-ordinator of Engender Health of South Africa told the Mail & Guardian Online that he was adamant that the significance of the campaign launch “will not be a once-off thing from the Zuma trial”.
Rebombo admitted “it was perfect timing” to launch the campaign on Monday because of the media interest in the case.
However, he said the message of the campaign will not be lost during the “highly politicised” trial.
“We cannot shy away and say because we didn’t come out in the past [for one woman who was raped and is on trial], we shouldn’t do it now.”
Of the handful of supporters outside the court on Monday and Tuesday morning, Rebombo said: “Fewer people stand up and talk about violence on women especially sexual offences. It’s not surprising when people don’t come out in numbers to support.”