Special Hearings — Women's Hearings — 1997-07-29

CHAIRPERSON: We have, I would just like to - Zina, are you calling in the cultural group.  Please call them in.  While the cultural group is coming forward I would like to thank all of you, the interpreters, the media and, especially, women who really came forward to break the silence.  This, for us as a Commission, has confirmed what we saw coming.  When we started as a Commission it became clear that women needed a special platform which can make them feel safe and which they can, enable them to explore gender specific experiences of human rights violations and we are really honoured that here we have had women who had the courage of talking about the most difficult experiences for women.
 I mean women have shared about rape, women have shared about torture, women have shared about psychological torture and, especially, the moral degration that they have experienced and I see this as a beginning of a long journey in this country whereby women in all categories will realise that besides being members of families or political parties, also they have a, and also that they have a double burden of knowing that as women, sometimes they will be treated differently.  Today, in particular, we appreciated the submission from a woman who gave a perspective as a woman activist, but also as a person who experienced not only one, I mean we started with Deborah Mashoba, who shared, at length, about her life as a woman activist, her strengths also.  She had the courage of saying she had to be creative and decided to grab the warden, beat her up so that she can get an opportunity of appearing before the Magistrate and they were smart enough not to yield to her strategy, but again, it shows us the courage that woman had.  I mean, she did that knowing very well that her torturers could use that and actually beat her up to death.
 And also you heard how Joyce Sikhakhane shared, at length, representing, giving a voice to all other whom we have heard by the end of the day.  I mean she looked very critically even at her profession and all those voices have really been an encouragement.  Even to other women who later on shared about their own specific experiences.  So, we are grateful for all those women and we are hoping that the public at large, especially the media, that they will report women's stories with all sensitivity, but also just civil society at large, that they will not use women's stories against them.  As some of them were saying that often if you are a woman whatever you do at the end of the day, you should expect that it is used against you.  So that is our wish as a Commission, that people will co-operate with us.
 And also what did not emerge here, but which we have in our stories is that often women are easily punished more than male counterparts.  So we hope that women who have said whatever they have said here, they will not be doubly victimised for whatever reasons.  We thank you very much.  
 Okay, we are told that the women have set up, on the first floor, where we are all invited by the Mayoress for, I should think it is a finger lunch or a finger cocktail, it is a cocktail, it is a reception.  So, we will really invite all of you who are still here to go to the first floor where there is that cultural event which is combined with the cocktail reception which has been thrown by the Mayoress of the Greater Johannesburg, Mrs Nete Mogase.  That is what the invitation is saying.  So we invite you all to join us quickly to the first floor.