ON THE MOVE:

Latest victim is Khayelitsha mom, 25 children killed in W Cape this year

A group of women marched to Artscape yesterday as part of Women’s Day celebrations and the Women’s Humanity Arts Festival. The programme included drama, music and a fashion show. Artscape chief executive Marlene le Roux gave an empowering speech.

VIOLENCE against women and children was highlighted at the ninth annual Women’s Humanity Walk in Cape Town yesterday. The latest victims of this violence were Aviwe Jam Jam, a 26-year-old Khayelitsha mother whose body was found yesterday, and 5-year-old Kaithlyn Wilson, who was killed in Riebeek West last month.

Wilson was the 25th child killed in the Western Cape this year.

About 800 women walked from St George’s Mall to Artscape, where the Women’s Humanity Art Festival was launched. Marlene le Roux, chief executive of Artscape, said: “Present here today are women from Gugulethu, Manenberg, Khayelitsha, Hanover Park and Delft.

“It is about taking our humanity and communities back. There are still women who are abused and raped. Women should be treated with respect. But every day we are attending the funerals of our children.

“And in some cases the children were killed by the boyfriends of young women. This is a serious thing. As women we must be role models for our children. Today we remember all the women who lost children. An injury to one woman is an injury to all.”

Mathilda Cochrane from Women from Westlake said that they they attended the humanity walk and festival every year.

“It is important to have a day where women young and old can come together. We always enjoy it, because in the communities our kids face many social ills and bringing them here is great,” she said.

Janap Odendaal from Delft, added: “This is the only women’s festival where we don’t have to pay to enjoy Women’s Day.”

Meanwhile Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has called for harsher prison sentences for perpetrators of violence against women, saying that they should also not be considered for parole.

“The minimum sentence for women abusers is very low and that should change. Parole, we don’t understand what it is. That is why we always lose cases,” Dlamini said at the official Women’s Day celebrations in Galeshewe, Kimberly.

She spoke on behalf of the ANC Women’s League.