As some gently hummed hymns, others wept quietly, holding each other as they acknowledged the pain and anger that had brought them to the Port Elizabeth leg of the national #TotalShutDown march.
The emotions of the about 300 women who marched from the magistrate’s court in North End to City Hall – a 3km walk starting at 11am – ranged from sadness to anger, with mayor Athol Trollip receiving a tongue-lashing for not being sensitive to their pain.
Dressed in black and red and carrying placards saying “I don’t want to die with my legs open” and “Stop raping our children”‚ they reached their destination – where they handed over a petition to Trollip – at about 1pm.
Before arriving at City Hall, they marched down Strand Street past the taxi ranks, singing struggle songs and hymns.
The singing bounced off the concrete freeway overpasses, echoing through the streets.
Many women broke down in tears at City Hall when the organisers called for those who wanted to “break the silence” to share their stories.
One woman‚ who was a virgin when she was raped at just 13, said she’d had enough.
“We are being murdered and we are keeping quiet about it,” she said.
“I refuse to keep silent about it. This is enough.
“I’m not keeping silent about the perpetrator who took something from me that didn’t belong to him.”The woman said that students were often not safe on campus as the perpetrators of violence against women believed they could do what they wanted.
“Today we are here‚ saying enough is enough. We’ve had enough of this. We are the new generation.
“We are going to start this and we’re not going to finish it until we are satisfied that our demands are met,” she said.
One of the organisers, Kwazakhele resident Nolitha January, 21, was dressed in black with her hands chained together, and red and white crime scene tape wrapped her body.
“These chains signify that I am not free as a woman in this country,” she said.
“I have no voice when it comes to my own body and the tape signifies that my body is a walking crime scene – anything could happen to me right now.
“With this march, women are standing up for themselves and finally finding their voices, a voice that says no to abuse, a voice that is tired of being a statistic, a voice that says we are tired of being crime scenes of men.”
As the women told their stories, others started to cry silently, some bowing their heads, while others nodded as they listened.
Two young women clung to each other as one sobbed, the other gently kissing her on the head and stroking her hair.
The women told harrowing stories of rape and abuse, with one speaking of a family whose daughter had been murdered, with no arrests ever made.
The Bay women joined thousands of others around the country, marching in protest against gender-based violence and femicide.
Receiving the petition‚ Trollip said he accepted responsibility for the behaviour of every man.
“Not because all men do this. I’m a proud man that says that I want all men to be proud of every single thing they do‚” he said.
“So all the issues you just mentioned about cat-calling‚ taking advantage‚ we have to say as men ‘not in our name’.
“I’m here to accept responsibility for that and to pay respect to all the women that came out here today to say ‘enough is enough’.”Trollip said he was accepting the memorandum in solidarity with the women of Nelson Mandela Bay.
“I attended a conference last week on femicide in society and the figures are staggering – every four hours one woman is killed, never mind all the other abuse,” he said.
“[At the conference], it struck me that it was full with mostly women and it should have been filled with men.”
Trollip, however, raised the ire of some protesters over his choice of words, with one march co-ordinator – Lucy Nomhle Bowles, 35, of Uitenhage – stopping him and saying: “You shouldn’t say ‘never mind all the other abuse’.
“With respect, honourable mayor, it cannot be ‘never mind, you need to retract that comment and apologise to all of us.”
Trollip then apologised to the women.
“I retract it and certainly did not mean any disrespect,” he said.
Bowles responded: “That’s what men say, they say they don’t mean to and then they end up hurting us.
“You lead the city, sir, and you need to lead by example.”
Trollip assured the women he would hand the memorandum over to police as well “and to every single person who needs to deal with it with the respect and due attention that it deserves”.
Tensions were high in East London, where more than 100 women marched to the city hall to hand over their memorandum to Buffalo City mayor Xola Pakati.
Initially filled with the sense of camaraderie, the mood changed when one of Pakati’s bodyguards allegedly shoved the campaign’s East London spokesperson, Aphiwe Ntlemeza, aside while she walked behind the mayor.
After handing over the memorandum, Ntlemeza addressed the crowd‚ expressing her disappointment at the bodyguard’s alleged actions.
“This is a typical example of what we came here for,” she said.
“This shows that even our political figures do not care about this.”
Pakati accepted the memorandum without comment.
In Johannesburg, ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini‚ rural development & land reform minister Maite Nkoane-Mashabane‚ Gauteng sports, arts‚ culture & recreation MEC Faith Mazibuko and ANC deputy secretary-general Jesse Duarte led scores of women in a march.
Meanwhile, in Durban‚ about 800 women called for the dismantling of patriarchy as they made their way to the city hall, while in Pretoria women marched to the Union Buildings.
In Cape Town, women marched to parliament.
With regard to the women’s 24 demands, the organisers said in a statement: “This document sets out our list of demands to the state.
“It’s an initial set of 24 demands that represent each year since the establishment of our constitutional democracy that the state has failed to ensure our right to be free from violence.”