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

CHAIRPERSON: ... awaiting us.  This is very, very important.  His presence is highly appreciated in view of the fact that we have created a space for women to look at themselves, look at their own experiences and the role they play in the past.  So, for any leader to come forward and to pledge solidarity with women is of great importance.  I would not like to say it is appreciated, but it is of value in terms of the liberation of women.  So, to you, Mr Premier, we would like to give you this opportunity just to express your word of support to all the people who are in this house, particularly women who have shared about their experiences of human rights violations.  Over to you.

MR SEXWALE: Chairperson, I came as a friend and I have not come to make any statement.  I have not even warned you that I was coming here.  I therefore feel compelled, by your instructions, for me to speak whereas it is the voices of the women, the cries of those who are the majority of this country that rightly should be listened to here.  It has been said in the past and, of course, that remains true for now.  It will also remain true for a long time to come as, long as the struggle of womankind constitutes part of the international agenda for change.  It has been said that a nation that does not accord a human status to its womenfolk is a nation that lacks integrity and that does not belong to a future.
 Such an assertion can never be more true than in a country such as South Africa where the pain that has been felt by a whole nation has been felt even more by our mothers, our sisters, our aunts, our daughters, our women.  When they resisted in the form that they did in 1956, when they decided to approach the powers that be in the memorable march of the 20000 and more, that was one of the most significant milestones in our history, but then the toll of pain that was inflicted upon the body of womankind in South Africa is one that, over the last few days, has also echoed in the halls of this chamber.  
 Names such as Mama Sisulu are names to associate with that kind of pain as well as resistance to that pain.  Names such as Winnie Mandela, names such Limpho Hani, Helen Josephs, but most importantly, names of the countless and scores of women, millions of them it is, who have suffered away from the glare of publicity, from the public limelight, are the names we should all epitomise, their endeavours that this Commission today, this sitting is about.
 I was on trial in 1977, 1978.  It was 12 of us.  One of us was a woman.  She is hardly known by many people.  We were tortured, we were electrified, we were beaten with Joe Xabi, who later was assassinated in Harare, Zimbabwe.  With Njabie Leng who became the President of the UDF in the then Northern Transvaal.  These were ex-political prisoners with Ntete Diale, today a member of our National Parliament, but amongst those people, when all of us resumed the trial from detention, we learnt with horror what one of us, Paulina Mohalie, went through.  It will be difficult for me here to speak for her, but the kind of pain that even we, as men, could not withstand, was doubly inflicted upon her.
 She was humiliated, her dignity was violated, her values were questioned, alone resisting, nevertheless and when the whole Pretoria 12 as we were known at the time, resumed, Paulina Mohalie stood tall.  She nearly lost her mind, but she stood tall.  To us that represented a focal point of admiration.  We often thought that it is only the men who were supposed to withstand the kind of pain.  Many were able to withstand with their lives and many without their lives, but that name, Paulina Mohalie, I thought I should invoke here to indicate that in the chambers of torture, many such unsung heroines also stand to be counted, but I think one of the pains that epitomises the courage of our womenfolk is what happened to the daughter of Chris Hani.  
 Nobody, no adult, certainly no child, in any part of the world must ever witness what Nomakwezi Hani saw.  Through the intercom of the home she heard the shots that felled her father.  That child is carrying emotional scars that for many generations will stay with her, but when she went out with the hope that Chris was alive, she found him wasted.  Our children, our young girls, our young boys went through many of these experiences over and over and over again.  Here in Gauteng, and I am happy to see this Commission sitting here, not only the headquarters, the wealth of the country, a large GDP of the economy, the commercial services, the financial services, but Gauteng also headquarters a lot of the pain that many of us went through here.  
 Sharpeville, ask the women what happened there.  They were there to be counted, there when the saracens came and their bodies are counted among those who fell.  Soweto, June 1976, many young girls were caught up in the throes of that episode, a sad one for our country.  Many were never found, many were buried secretly.  A lot of them were young girls.  Boipatong, in the very recent part of our history, shortly before we held an election, many women were disembowelled, carrying children in their bellies and the pangas and spears rained upon them by a group of people whose minds were twisted by a system that had divided this country, this family.  Tokoza, Katlahong, Vosloorus, in that violence that visited this county when it was known that a birth was taking place, the birth of democracy.  Ask the women of Gauteng, but then listen to the voices of the women of South Africa.
 But I am sure this Commission is here not to make us shed tears and we have seen one too many.  We have seen not just rivers, but oceans.  I am sure it is the purpose of this Commission, certainly of this sitting, to point us in the direction that says there is hope, there is less fear ahead, there is integrity, there are morals now to hold onto, there are certain basic fundamental values to keep in mind.  This Commission shall have done its task if only it could give all of us back our dignity, especially those from whose wombs nations are born.  I thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Mr Premier.  It is amazing how the voices of women which you have lived with over the past two days are easily confirmed.  I mean if you just listen to the Premier talking about Paulina Mohalie's experiences, that pain was doubly inflicted upon her, her dignity was violated, her values were questioned, she nearly  lost her mind.  I mean, those words have come from many women.  Deborah Matshoba this morning spoke to that where she said they referred to her as a mad person and many other women.  Joyce was talking about how a persons values and moral integrity was challenged by virtue of being a woman.  So, Mr Premier, we thank you very much for giving weight, sometimes, to difficult experiences which women are struggling to articulate here in this hall.  We thank you.
 We will call upon the representative of FEDTRAW who will make a submission which, I am told, is going to be done by our sister over there, Nomvula.  In welcoming you I will ask you to give your full name, the position you hold at the moment and then to tell the audience about the organisation you represent, FEDTRAW, as to what it stood for and then talk to your submission.  Because we have not looked at it we are not going to ask you questions.  We will write them down and send them over to you if, to fill in all the gaps that we might pick up in the process of your presentation.  Thank you.