Enuf is enuf

“I was raped, but I didn’t even know I’d been raped because it was my boyfriend …”

The words of Zethu chilled me to the bone. Here was an educated young women sharing a personal experience and in doing so, inadvertently captured the horrifying extent of violence-as-the-norm in South Africa.

Raised in a rural environment, Zethu is one of thousands of women for whom violence was part and parcel of everyday life but who is a now champion for the newly-launched Kwanele Enuf campaign against gender-based violence.

This national campaign was launched at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University yesterday by a woman who is dedicating her life to the cause of ending gender-based violence in South Africa.

Both Zethu, a third-year education student, and Andy Kawa, the Johannesburg businesswomen behind the national initiative, are just two of the one in three women who are raped in South Africa.

The hard, cold statistics of the extent of violence in our country is one thing, but the reality of the impact that it has on the everyday lives of individuals is entirely another …

Its stuff that chills us to the bone, and hopefully serves as the shove we need to “be the change we wish to see in the world”, to quote Ghandi.

Yesterday’s launch was the shove I needed to be a voice for the voiceless – for those women who are too terrified, too dependent, too trapped in a violence-as-the-norm scenario – to speak out.

The near-death experience of Andy Kawa, 52, who was raped from 15 hours at Kings Beach on 9 December 2009, was what drove her to commit herself to making a difference.

“I made a pact with God that should I survive I would dedicate my life to ending violence in South Africa,” Andy told dozens of NMMU staff and students who turned out in support of the campaign’s launch in the South Campus Auditorium.

“Our vision is change South Africa from the rape capital of the world to the safest country in the world,” she shared.

It’s a vision, she believes, that can be fulfilled, but only if we all get involved adopting an attitude of zero-tolerance towards violence.

“Ending Apartheid seemed impossible but justice prevailed.”

The campaign starts with you. It starts with accepting and recognising the depth and depravity of the violence …

“I didn’t even know I’d been raped because it was my boyfriend …”

Add your voice of support by visiting the Kwanele Enuf website: http://www.kwanele-enuf.co.za/

Come on NMMU, let’s lead the way!