The demands of the courageous 1956 women's rights march on Pretoria led by the Federation of South African Women will come to the fore again when the Uyinene Mrwetyana Foundation submits letters and a petition against gender-based violence to parliament this month.
The foundation has set up a task team to run its Post Office-to-Parliament project, and has called on women and young people to write letters demanding an end to the scourge of gender-based violence in the country.
These letters will form an addendum to a petition addressed to President Cyril Ramaphosa and minister of women, youth and persons with disabilities, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to take immediate action and roll out the national strategic plan against gender-based violence.
In 1956, anti-apartheid and women's rights activists Helen Joseph, Sophia Williams de Bruyn, Lillian Ngoyi and Amina Cachalia brought more than 20,000 women together at the Union Buildings simply by putting ink to paper.
Sixty-five years later, the Uyinene Mrwetyana Foundation wants to do the same, but because of Covid-19 only foundation members and leaders will be at the forefront of the handover.
Project manager Emily O'Ryan was frank about the severity of gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa.
“There is nothing to celebrate this women's month. Recently SA was named as the most dangerous country in the world for solo female travellers,” O'Ryan said.
“This project is for all the women who have been affected by gender-based violence and femicide. It is two-pronged in that it will give us the opportunity to act through awareness and reconciliation.
“We would like to see the national strategic plan against gender-based violence take effect by December 2021.”
Women are urged to submit their letters through the foundation's website.
O'Ryan said the team was working on accessibility for rural women who did not have access to digital platforms.
“We want the project to have as far-reaching effects as possible,” she said.
Speaking to the Dispatch on behalf of the family on Wednesday, Thembelani Mrwetyana, Uyinene’s uncle, said the family welcomed the project as it showed “our daughter did not die in vain”.
“This campaign speaks to who Uyinene was. She stood up against all social forms of injustice.
“As the family we are humbled and honoured. It means that her legacy lives on,” Mrwetyana said.
Uyinene was brutally raped and murdered by Luthando Botya in August 2019 at the Clareinch Post Office in Claremont, Cape Town.
Botya confessed to luring the then 19-year-old student to the post office during lunchtime, knowing it would be closed at that time.
He had told her that her parcel, which she had gone to collect, would be ready then.
Mrwetyana said it was disheartening to learn of more similar cases of brutality against women.
The letters and petition will prod the government into answering how far it had gone in implementing the gender-based violence aspect of the national strategic plan.
The petitioners want to hold government accountable for its promises on these issues.
“Our government are the leaders of society and we must see work being done to diminish the scourge of gender-based violence against women,” Mrwetyana said.
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