Hundreds march against gender violence ‘scourge’

Fed-up with gender-based violence, hundreds of men, women and children took to the streets on Friday in Mthatha and East London, demanding an end to the scourge.

Chants of “no means no"; “my body is a home, not a hotel for you to come and go” and “am I next?” rang out in Mthatha while calls to bring back the death penalty were made in East London. Calls to drum it into boys from an early age how to treat girls were also made.

The marches come as SA reels from gender-based violence that has plagued the country in recent weeks, with boxing and karate champion Leighandre “Baby Lee” Jegels, UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana, and East London’s Angelique Clark-Abrahams, to name a few, raped and/or killed by men.

Mthatha came to a standstill as hundreds of women, men and school pupils clad in black marched from the old Savoy Hotel on the R61 via Leeds Street before ending their march at Savoy Gardens.

The Mthatha residents marched without handing over a petition, because “petitions stay stacked in government offices” without demands being met.