Massive turnout for 10th silent protest
A HUGE crowd of about 1 000 students, school pupils and people from around the Eastern Cape gathered at the 10th annual day-long silent protest against gender violence at Rhodes University yesterday.
The crowd came together to take a stand against gender violence, show solidarity with victims and survivors and to work towards breaking the silence around the pervasiveness of gender-based violence nationally and globally. While the silent protest at Rhodes entered its 10th year yesterday, one of the its founders, Aids Healthcare Foundation South Africa (AHF) advocacy manager Larissa Klazinga, said not enough had changed.
“We still have Jacob Zuma as president but the complainant in his rape trial has died.
“There is still inadequate access to justice and rape remains an epidemic in this country,” Klazinga said.
Gagged protesters dressed in purple T-shirts converged on the unive main administration block at dawn carrying posters declaring “Stop the war on women’s bodies”, “Disrupt rape culture” and “Break the silence! We believe you”.
Hundreds of pupils from Graeme College and Victoria Girls High School also joined the dawn march. Most remained gagged for the morning and then regrouped at lunchtime for a “die-in”.
Dozens of gagged people lay silently side by side holding aloft the names of victims of gender violence, including that of murder and rape teenage victim Anene Booysens.
At 1.30pm the protesters rose up, symbolically ripped off their gags and screamed to break the silence.
“It is a scream for justice,” said Klazinga.
While the protest was held at Rhodes, the Silent Protest is an independent movement and this year’s event was largely funded by AHF.