Vuvuzela’s buzz buoys women’s safety

JOHANNESBURG: During the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the vuvuzela gained international fame for the way it filled stadiums with a loud, buzzing sound of fan support.

Nearly a decade later, the instrument has taken on a new purpose in a country rife with violent crime.

It is being used to alert women in Soweto that their local patrol group is ready to safely escort them to public transport.

“I wake up feeling safe when I hear the vuvuzela outside,” said Zanele Thusi, a domestic worker, walking towards the train station at 4.30am for her hour-long journey to the Johannesburg suburb of Bosmont.

“We could not walk safely in the streets before these patrollers. We would have our cellphones stolen, we would hear of stabbings and daily incidences of crime,” Thusi said.

Female commuters living in Mofolo North and Dobsonville, two neighbourhoods in Soweto, said a walk in the dark to the bus, train or taxi station was seen as taking a necessary risk. But on a recent morning, before the sun had even risen over Soweto, a symphony of vuvuzelas was heard echoing between different neighbourhoods as people began to trickle out of their homes.

The patrollers, who said there are thousands of them working in groups ranging from three to 15 members across Soweto, meet women at their homes to walk them to their train or bus station, blowing their vuvuzelas to announce their arrival.

To prevent perpetrators abusing the service by tricking women into thinking they are part of the patrol, the real patrollers schedule their pick-up times with the women they are escorting.

Some carry golf clubs, tasers, batons and whips for added protection.

Starting as early at 2.30am until about 7am, the men patrol until the women have safely begun their commutes and then return to collect them in the early evening. “These patrollers, we love them!,” said Jane Chabangu of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration. | Thomson Reuters Foundation