Survivors using their pain to help others

WHEN she was just nine years old, Gloria Veale was a victim of gang rape, which left her filled with rebellion and rage.

Today, she sees herself as a survivor, helping women across the Western Cape in her ministry and upliftment organisations, working alongside people

such as Solomon Staggie of Voice of the Voiceless.

Like Veale, hundreds of women are not finding justice against the perpetrators of sexual crimes.

This week, during a parliamentary response, it was revealed that the Western Cape Court Watching Brief had monitored and recorded 181 gender-based violence cases involving sexual assaults between December and August.

Earlier this month, it was made public that 37 647 sexual offence cases were backlogged by the South African Forensic Science Laboratory.

Veale, of Abbas Restoration House Ministry, and who also founded the Balls Not Guns initiative, speaks out against violent and sexual crimes against women with the aim of bringing peace and hope.

Staggie, who founded Voice of the Voiceless, runs after-school programmes with children in his community and works with Veale on her Balls Not Guns initiative.

She runs programmes such as feeding schemes and restoration in areas such as Eerste River, Bonteheuwel, Valhalla Park, Wesbank and Lotus River – including with mothers left “broken” after losing a child to crime.

“Our initiatives are about peace. We look at restoration,” she said.

“God chose me to be a voice. Rape is not about sex. It’s about power. I grew up in Bonteheuwel and Mitchells Plain and had six children. I was a very angry person after the rape, and I didn’t want to be a girl.

“I then got involved with anti-apartheid struggles and went to prison three times for the Struggle.”

After that, Veale’s life changed for the better. She took back her power by helping others who suffered the same pain.

“I was called into the ministry 12 years ago,” she said. “I broke away from the norm and began taking the ministry to the people and to the streets, and with Balls Not Guns, it was about bringing children together via team-building – kicking a ball rather than picking up a gun,” she said.

“I told myself I needed to use my pain for guidance of life, because if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”

Veale said now that lockdown restrictions had been relaxed, they wanted to revive the Balls Not Guns initiative.

Staggie spoke of his involvement with Veale’s projects and how she had assisted him during the programmes.

He is the brother of former Hard Livings gang bosses Rashied and Rashaad Staggie, who were murdered.

Staggie, who was imprisoned for 17 years, turned his life around inside prison by educating inmates. He was released in 2014. Since then, he has become a born-again

Christian.

“The aim is that NGOs must work together,” he said.

“I work with Gloria on her Balls Not Guns initiatives because I see what changes it can bring in areas.

“I run after-school programmes with children and help them with their homework and projects.

Social development standing committee chairperson Gillion Bosman said they had written to the provincial police commissioner about the sexual offences cases backlog.

“Earlier this month, we made public that 37647 of these cases are backlogged at the SAPS Forensic Science Laboratory, and I submitted a dossier to the president’s National Council on

Gender-Based Violence on this.

“This highlighted that DNA specimens are backlogged as a result of SAPS mismanagement in Pretoria.”

| SUPPLIED GLORIA Veale.