African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) members demonstrated outside the Greytown Magistrate’s Court in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, where a man appeared in court on a charge of raping an ANC volunteer last week.
The rape allegedly took place at the mayoral residence.
The ANCWL is demanding that the alleged rapist of a 23-year old woman be denied bail.
The League’s chairperson in the Inkosi Bhambatha region, Ntombi Ngubane, has demanded that the accused be denied bail.
“We can see that our country is in serious crisis, women are being killed everyday. So, we took the decision that we need to stand firm against gender based violence. We will go out and encourage women to talk about these things so that we assist them in whatever way.”
One of the marchers, Ntombi Mokoena, says no form of abuse can be tolerated.
“We will always support the victims and we are tired of being raped all the time.”
While the ANC Women League was demonstrating outside court, the NFP also took to the streets to protest about violence against women and the rape of children.
“We are having a lot of problems in the municipality and we are spending a lot of money on what is not the core business of the municipality. Since November last year until this year we spent over R15 million on security guards to guard the officials of the municipality. And here a woman was raped by the relative of the mayor and we are against that, we are against all forms of abuse against women and children,”says NFP councillor, Philani Mavundla.
The case was postponed to the 8th of October because the accused’s legal representative was not at court.
