Freeing women to find justice they deserve

Lawyer Samantha Ngcolomba is bringing free legal services and knowledge to those in need

SAMANTHA Ngcolomba, 33, wanted to fly aircraft but training to be a pilot was out of her reach.

Instead she became a highflying lawyer, earning the salary and prestige that goes with working at a big firm. Yet it wasn’t enough for her. “I experienced the glamorous side of law, the gowns, the courts and the battles, but I still felt there was something missing.

“I hate injustice and we were not reaching the vulnerable people who needed our service,” she said.

That is why she came to the rescue herself, bringing free legal services in her VW Golf to people where they lived.

The mobile law clinic that she started with the support of lawyers working pro bono hours has helped more than 1 400 women, mainly those with no money for legal fees, and some men.

“When I worked at the law firm in Cape Town I also did nonprofit cases. I came across a woman who was abused and assaulted by her partner, stuffed in a dustbin and set alight. The abuse had accumulated and she did not know where to get help. I knew then what I needed to do,” she said.

And that’s how the awardwinning project Lady Liberty was born.

Ngcolomba, MD of the CSI Boutique consultancy for corporate social investment, flies Lady Liberty virtually solo, with only one wingman. When

IN the run-up to the DA’s motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma, members of the ANC were encouraged to vote with their consciences and “do the right thing”. Many were subsequently criticised for toeing the party line.

But 20 years ago, on October 31 1996, this tactic of voting along party lines rather than with MPs’ consciences gave South African women a vital piece of legislation, the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act.

Many ANC MPs did not want to cast their vote for access to safe, legal abortions on demand, because of their personal views. But the lobby to allow MPs to vote with their consciences failed, and in what might be seen as a precursor of some MPs being absent from the no-confidence vote last week, some MPs stayed home that day.

The legislation was viciously opposed by some political parties and religious and pro-life groups.

Even Mother Teresa, who by 1996 had lived through two world wars, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Gulf War and the Rwandan genocide, wrote to then president Nelson Mandela saying that “the greatest destroyer of world peace today is abortion”.

Not war, not crime, not drug trafficking or organised crime but abortion — the act of a woman taking a decision that pertains to her body.

Twenty years after Mandela’s parliament voted on that legislation, it still faces the massive hurdle of moral acceptance. Research on morality by the USbased Pew Research Center released in 2013 found that 61% of South Africans still view abortion as morally unacceptable.

After his death, pro-life groups accused Mandela of the “mass genocide of his own innocent people” because of his stance on abortion.

Turn up at the Marie Stopes clinic in Cape Town on any given day and you are likely to encounter we met at a community hall in Pimville, Soweto, Ngcolomba, in a crisp white shirt and jeans, was herself sweeping the floors to make sure the hall was tidy before the first women arrived. She offers them two services:

Advice on their rights across a range of issues including domestic violence, marriage (customary and civil), divorce, child maintenance, wills and labour disputes; and

An introduction to lawyers working in the hall alongside her who can assist with basic legal services for cases that have to go to court.

The head of the pro bono team from Norton Rose groups of protesters outside. In February, to mark the anniversary of the enactment of the law, pro-lifers parked a hearse outside to “welcome” women using the clinic’s services, which, other than abortions, include pap smears, HIV tests and pregnancy care.

This stigma and the silence around abortions are probably two of the main contributors to about half of the abortions in South Africa being performed illegally — 20 years after legislation making abortion free and safe was passed.

The reasons for the large number of illegal abortions are many: women don’t realise abortions can be legal, which is not surprising given that a search for the word “abortion” on the national Department of Health’s website turns up only one item, relating to family planning methods.

Conversely, the advertisements Fulbright, Liesl Williams, said she met Ngcolomba at the domestic violence help desk at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court during the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children.

“She chatted to me and said: ‘We are helping people here once they get to court but what about the people who don’t get to court?’ I loved her idea of a mobile clinic and asked our lawyers to volunteer.”

To reach women in townships who need her help, Ngcolomba finds partners like women’s stokvels or victim empowerment centres at police stations. In Pimville, her partner was the Uluntu Law Clinic.

The law clinic organised the venue and spread the word, enlisting community radio stations to inform women of the opportunity to access free legal services. By 9am dozens of women had registered and got cups of tea. Ngcolomba’s introductory speech was clear and brisk, much like her movements. She explained how the clinic would proceed, expressed thanks to the lawyers and a representative from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration for being present, and joined the women in a hymn.

After the last note they got down to business, dividing into five groups around the hall, each assigned a topic. Ngcolomba dealt with maintenance, explaining to the women gathered around her the rights and responsibilities of parents when it comes to for illegal abortions are plastered over street poles and dustbins and taxi ranks across the country. Evidence suggests many women think they are using safe, legal services when they respond to the adverts.

Over the 20 years that women have been having abortions in public hospitals, there have been countless anecdotal tales of them being treated badly by doctors or nursing staff who have moral problems with performing the service — tales of women being beaten or berated for their choice, or not being given pain medication afterwards to teach them a lesson.

In May, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said in response to a question from the African Christian Democratic Party (which used its pro-life stance as an election campaign platform in August) that more than 88 000 abortions had been performed in the previous year. WHITE KNIGHT: Samantha Ngcolomba at one of the legal clinics where she dispenses free legal advice children.

Rights come with responsibilities, she likes to emphasise, pointing out, for example: “Mothers have a right to maintenance but they also have a responsibility to make sure a father can access his child.”

In another group, women were engaged around the thorny issues of wills and inheritance. Nonkululeko Mpendu, 51, from Dobsonville, talked about why she had come to the workshop.

“My parents left a will when they died and my brother disputed it. I have all the documents but I am not working and have no money for legal fees. This service is really brilliant, especially that it is here for us,” she said.

The Western Cape provides more than any other province, with nearly 20 000 state abortions, followed by Gauteng (more than 15 000) and the Eastern Cape (nearly 13 000). Marie Stopes clinics provide an average of 40 000 abortions a year.

Statistics on illegal abortions are not readily available and the department has stopped providing specific statistics for septic abortions and abortion-related deaths.

The KwaZulu-Natal department of health, which is slightly more forthcoming with information, said in a press release in December last year that staff were undergoing “value clarification training” to teach them the difference between their personal values and “professional ethos”, and the department was considering adding education about the legislation to the four-year nurses’ qualification process.

The press release indicates that in the previous year, 12 031 women presented to hospitals in the province with incomplete abortions and 1 455 with septic abortions. That is 13 486 complications from illegal abortions in a province that, according to Motsoaledi’s statistics, provides about 12 000 legal abortions a year.

No doubt this is not the picture those sitting in parliament on that day in 1996 foresaw.

Up until that point, abortions had been legal only in very specific circumstances, in limited numbers and mostly to white women. MPs voting for the legislation hoped it would reduce the large numbers of women suffering as a result of illegal or back-street abortions.

They probably did not realise that, 20 years down the line, women would still be getting unsafe abortions. And they would not have thought women would still need to explain their choices to protesters outside clinics, to bigots on the internet who accuse them of murder, and to the very people who are supposed to provide the service to them.

“People are dying and houses are burning over wills. People fight over wills or not having wills and over houses.”

Ngcolomba, who was born in Bulawayo and attended a convent school, moved in 2001 with her family to South Africa. In 2007 she graduated with a law degree from the University of Cape Town and did her articles, also getting involved in a project around human trafficking for the International Organisation for Migration.

This made her even more aware of how vulnerable women were to exploitation and abuse, an impression that was reinforced when she worked for a year for the Family and Marriage Society of South Africa, being exposed to cases of domestic abuse.

“At the family and marriage society the fees are about a quarter of commercial fees but we were still not reaching the women you see here today,” Ngcolomba said.

“I wanted to reach everyone, like the woman outside the school selling pancakes, and the problem was that I was not.

“That is why the motto for Lady Liberty is ‘Access to justice for all’. It is my passion and started as the flagship project of my company, CSI Boutique, but is now functioning as a nonprofit company with its own identity and board.”

In June 2014 Ngcolomba was chosen to be on Vodacom’s Change the World programme. Under this programme, Vodacom supports a person financially for a year while they do volunteer work. That was when the Lady Liberty project started.

The first mobile law clinic she ran was in Diepsloot, followed by Alexandra (three times), Lenasia, Westbury, Orlando East, Yeoville, Tsakane and Pimville, which was her latest.

She is piloting the project in Gauteng but hopes to expand nationally if she can get wider support from lawyers to work pro bono and can raise funds to start a call centre.

Another priority is a mobile app to give more women the basic legal information they need easily, in vernacular languages and in a way they can afford to access. This is expected to launch in January.

Ngcolomba said: “Many of these women don’t know they have rights and, if they do, they do not have the money for taxi fare or the airtime to make a phone call to get legal services. The law is a tool and Lady Liberty gives them their shot at justice.”

I came across a woman who was abused and stuffed in a dustbin and set alight Many women think that they are accessing safe, legal services when they approach one of these services The motto for Lady Liberty is ‘Access to justice for all’. It is my passion

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