The reported rape and murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a 19-year-old UCT student, has rocked the country and once again focused attention on how unsafe it is to a woman or girl growing up in South Africa. Uyinene Mrwetyana was allegedly attacked by a SA Post Office employee when she went to collect a parcel. This shocking violent attack and murder hit the news with numerous other reports of gender-based violence, and came ironically at the end of August, set aside to celebrate women in South Africa.
Through reader responses and writing submitted, we know that many of its beneficiary readers and writers have firsthand experience of gender-based violence. This is not surprising for a country in which every day a hundred women report rapes, and 10 women and children are killed. Every day, three men kill their partners.
FunDza’s staff have felt compelled to respond in the way that we know how – by publishing a collection of stories, essays, blogs and poems that foreground the theme of gender-based violence through personal narratives and responses. The collection has been called #AmINext.
Am I the next woman to be raped?
Am I the next woman to be murdered?
Am I the next child to be attacked?
Am I the next man to turn a blind eye to abuse?
Am I the next man to hit my girlfriend?
Am I the next man to rape a girl?
The #AmINext collection page (found here) contains stories of despair, and hope and redemption. Let us join the movement of ordinary South Africans, men and women, who are standing up and saying, “Enough”.