AIDS, WOMEN, HEALTH AND EMPOWERMENT

I was presenting this topic at a Youth dialogue in our university which included a ZAZI launch- a programme  dedicated to young women encouraging them to know and understand their individual strength and building confidence from within, and was later interviewed by Creselda Kananda on her show at Metro.fm,.  I thought  to myself I want to share it with my wonderful audience and will not add or remove  words, I want to state it exactly the way I presented it .

We were three story tellers and the other women reflected on poverty and the challenges young women face due to poverty and society’s view on the matter, and my story’s main focus was on homosexual women and society. “Ithi ndikuxelele ngeSociety, its history has strapped out the independence and freedom of women to peruse their dreams and seek knowledge in the economical and political world.

 I started on the Socio-economic conditions for SA women

The majority of South Africans are women (51.3%/26, 57 million). Stats SA July 2013 report highlights the fragile position of SA women. They are less likely to be able to read (than SA men), less likely to have tertiary education, to live below the poverty line (of R305 per person per month), more likely to die in their 30’s/40’s than male counterparts. The reason why women are not succeeding  more than men they follow a pattern that has been set in the past by the native women and this norm has binded  generation to generation like a chain that a women’s place is at home not in society.  Because of that most young women never saw a necessity to improve themselves academically because they saw their parents do it, and because our parents become our closest role models when growing up, every woman growing in their individual home saw it as normal. The question remains; how can women liberate themselves from these chains, which make them to be dependent on men or vulnerable in a sexual, emotional and financial way? Because it seems to set a platform for men to commit domestic violence against them. According to a survey made, 16% of young women who have been abused are infected with HIV and some of the injuries are suffered are due to violence that occurs during rape. Can the patriarchy of Religion and culture still play a role in addressing this issue?

Sexual equality

Lesbian women, more in some than other communities, are frequently subjected to ‘corrective ‘rape’ by a single or multiple male perpetrators, done with the object to ‘fix’ the women’s sexual orientation and punish her for ‘anti-social/unacceptable’ behavior. Survivors of the ‘punishment’ fear to report rape to avoid secondary victimization by policemen. Lesbian women have become aliens in their own communities and have become subject of exclusion due to their sexual preference. Homosexual women have been crucified  alive, and killed by society  but they still stand strong, hate crimes have found their place in our public spheres and disguise themselves under drug and alcohol influence, meaning as long as perpetrators have an excuse and our law grants this excuse thereby indirectly condoning these cruel activities. “An incident took place in our institution where young lesbian students were victims of corrective rape by other male students from the same institution, the matter though reported has not been attended either by the student movements and the management of the institution or the SAPS . The victims only received help from the compass clinic in order to prevent the outcomes that are resulted by rape cases.  Their emotions remain under the shadow of fear as they deal with the pain of having to face these perpetrators that run free around the compass still physically and verbally assaulting them as if nothing has happened. If the incident could have happened to a heterosexual woman could there have been a positive response? I believed in an institution filled by intellectuals, academics and those perusing to be, great attention should be given to this matter whether a lesbian or heterosexual students rights should be exercised equally.

If not because of the bible, people should be allowed to live and be free and the spirit of ‘UBUNTU’ can speak for its self creating a society of equal rights. Where the labeling and hate crimes towards women and children is not acceptable.  A society where we can look at one another with love and kindness.  And our country must not be focused on criticizing the justifiable horrific sexual violence but look deeper and below the number and how they can be combated.