Plans to regenerate the inner city and to increase access to affordable housing for low-income families are being scuppered by corrupt landlords who exploit sectional title law to make quick profits. Landlords buy up flats and install tenants from whom they collect rent and payment for municipal services; but they do not pass these payments on to the municipality or the building’s body corporate.

We’re confused as we arrive. Our little team of protesters, totalling three, wanders around Constitution Hill trying to locate the start of the Take Back the Night march. The plan is to fearlessly walk through one of Jo’burg’s toughest neighbourhoods, to kick off the 16 Days of Activism campaign, reclaiming our right to move freely through any part of our country without fear of violence or abuse.

Anti-corruption activist Christian Mounzeo was arrested last week at the airport as he touched down in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, for allegedly defaming Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the Congo’s president. These events follow on the heels of Mounzeo’s criticisms at an international conference of the continued mismanagement of oil wealth in Congo-Brazzaville.

The Jali commission has shone a brutal light on violence and sexual abuse in South African prisons. But the investigation has largely focused on the experience of male inmates, while the battles females prisoner face ”on the inside” have been downplayed in the commission’s findings.