First was a loud cry. Then a gun shot that was followed by desperate screams that seemed from a woman begging for mercy but in a language I don’t understand. Time check, 4:10 am. The voices of the men then grew louder and louder also speaking a language I don’t understand. Just then, I remembered, a-woman-is-raped-every-twenty-six-seconds-in-South Africa statistics. If this was another addition to those statistics, I didn’t want to hear it.
The sound was so close. Since I live on the top floor, I imagined it could be downstairs. I froze in my bed. The men’s voices grew louder and louder as is always the case when a women stands up for their rights whether to life, water or health. I listened and listened hard that I could hear blood flow through my veins. I discovered the screams are coming from the block next to mine.
Soon after everyone else in the neighbourhood was awake and as expected, peeping from their windows to see who the next victim might be or the story behind it all. I was too scared. Three more gunshots in the air and I thought I was dying in a foreign country. The police finally arrived towards 5:00am. It was more than 60 minutes of agony.
Still freaked out, I narrated the ordeal to one of my workmates at Idasa who plainly told me “Welcome to South Africa.” But whether I stay here forever or not, don’t South Africans have a right to safety and security? Should neighbourhoods be insecure because “that is how South Africa is?” Should we permit the crime rate to be one of the highest in the world because “that is South Africa?”
Why can’t we always strive to change the status quo?How can a young woman keep safe in South Africa? I would like to know. Certainly I don’t want to be another number in the WHO statistics and no other woman should.
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