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Not just another murder: International Women's Day, March 8th
Bev Clark
March 06, 2006

http://firepussy.gnn.tv/blogs/13487/Not_just_another_murder_International_Women_s_Day_March_8th

I got a notice from my local post office last week notifying me that I had received a parcel. Origin: Kenya. Because of lack of business, the post office called Kamfinsa, has transformed itself into a kind of art gallery. These days it costs about Z$40 000 to post a letter so its not as if people are queuing up to write home. Many of the counters people once used for postal chores are now used as sculpture stands. If the cost of posting letters is out of the reach of most Zimbabweans then I-m not sure how many sculptures get sold. But they do brighten up the place.

Turns out that my parcel from Kenya was a book, Broken bodies, broken dreams: violence against women exposed from the Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN). It seemed a very timely arrival seeing as 8th March is International Women-s Day. That night I started reading it in bed and any chance of sleep was swiftly snuffed out.

Broken bodies, broken dreams covers all kinds of violence against women from the sexual abuse of children, female genital mutilation (FGM), dowry crimes and bride-price abuse, the abuse of older women and intimate-partner violence. It illustrates the violence through personal testimonies as well as very vivid and evocative photographs, mostly in black and white.

Some statistics jumped out:

• On average five Indian women a day are killed in "accidental" kitchen fires because dowry payments have not been met. Although India outlawed the modern dowry system in 1961, the practice has escalated among the expanding middle class, crossing religious, socio-economic and ethnic boundaries.
• 25% of girls and 8% of boys around the world have been subjected to child sex abuse.
• The United Nations estimates that one in three females will be beaten, or raped in her lifetime.

The stories, the statistics, the photographs obviously don-t make for pleasant bedtime reading but Broken bodies, broken dreams: violence against women exposed, got me thinking about violence against women closer to home.

Many years ago I visited a small Mozambican town called Vilancoulos. It-s a kind of a lazy, laid back place with not a whole lot going on - at least back then. Some friends and I were looking for a place to stay and ended up spending the night at a little guesthouse run by a South African woman. We had a good night even if it was interrupted with us fending off a couple of tsotsis (thieves) who tried to break into our car. Our host was very much a part of life in Vilancoulos contributing to the town through her tourism venture. She also started informal house discussions with local women to talk about HIV/AIDS, condoms and sexual health.

Turned out that some of the men about town didn-t take kindly to women taking their sexual health seriously. One night she got a visit from a gang of men who had come to teach her a lesson. She was gang raped, she had cigarettes put out on her body, and if that wasn-t enough, they tied her to the back of a car, front first, and dragged her through the streets of Vilancoulos.

She survived, as so many women do, but the scars, both external and internal must be raw, and deep and painful.

Last week I was reading the Mail and Guardian, a weekly South African newspaper. One particular headline caught my eye:

Not just another murder

The article discussed the rising number of hate crimes directed at the gay and lesbian community, especially in the townships (ghettos) in South Africa. Zoliswa Nkonyana, a young 19-year-old lesbian, was clubbed, kicked and beaten to death by a mob of about 20 men on February 4th. They chased her, pelted her with bricks and then finished her off with a golf club. When I read this article I was reminded of the outrage and the enormous media coverage of the murder of Matthew Shepard in the US. And I wondered to myself why Nkonyana-s vicious assault took over two weeks to filter from the streets to the media, finally ending up as a page 7 story in a weekly newspaper. Would it have been different if Nkonyana had been middle class, middle aged or a visiting foreigner like Amy Bhiel, instead of just a queer girl from the ghetto?

And even closer to home, here in Zimbabwe, I know so many, too many, women who have experienced sexual abuse and violence, most often perpetrated by a close family member or friend. Yes, those UN statistics that I mentioned earlier aren-t a thumb suck. The million-dollar question is What Are We Going To Do About It? Immediately a quote from Broken bodies, broken dreams: violence against women exposed comes to mind: -

We need to voice the violence, to hear the stories of all those affected by violence . . . Spreading the word, breaking down the taboos and exposing the violence that takes place among us is the first step towards effective action to reduce violence in our own societies." - Gro Harlem Brundtland

It starts with all of us voicing the violence, telling our stories.

As fellow blogger Sokari says:

Silence is not an option.

For other writing by Bev Clark, visit: http://firepussy.gnn.tv/

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