UCT will fly its flag at half-mast on Women’s Day and will have its website blacked out to protest against violence against women and children.
|||Western Cape -
UCT will fly its flag at half-mast on Women’s Day on Friday and will have its website blacked out to protest against violence against women and children.
A number of other events are planned in the province to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the women’s march to the Union Buildings to protest against pass laws.
The 1956 march was led by anti-apartheid activists Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophie Williams.
On Thursday the university website’s homepage had a black background with the message: “We say enough, stop violence and crime.”
Vice-chancellor Max Price said recent cases of violence, including those of the seven-year-old boy and four-month-old girl who were sexually assaulted in Ceres, had shown that more needed to be done.
He said the university rarely made gestures, but it believed violent crime against women and children “threatens our existence as a healthy, progressive nation”.
“By lowering the flag, UCT is calling on our own students to dismantle the so-called culture of violence and sexual entitlement and patriarchy that allows men to feel they have rights over women’s bodies. Speak out when you hear your friends objectifying members of the opposite sex. Talk seriously and honestly with your partner about what you each expect, about what is negotiable and what is not,” Price said.
He said by lowering the flag the university had signalled that the government was “failing us”. People expected the state to protect them through efficient and well-resourced policing and the whole criminal justice system, he said.
The Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster, which includes the police, Department of Justice, the National Prosecuting Authority and Department of Social Development, has a month-long programme during which they will teach residents about the justice system as part of Women’s Month celebrations.
Provincial police Commissioner Arno Lamoer will be at an imbizo in the Salvation Church Hall in Makaza where he will speak to residents about the role of the criminal justice system.
On Sunday, Lamoer and national police commissioner Riah Phiyega will deliver keynote speeches at a Women’s Day event at the Methodist Church, Langa Society.
The City of Cape Town will host a spa day at a Stellenbosch resort for children and widows of police officers killed on duty.
In Hout Bay, the Civic Association is planning a protest today, decrying the lack of access to land and decent housing. Association secretary Roscoe Jacobs said they supported women in protesting against Temporary Relocation Areas under construction in Hangberg. They had invited mayor Patricia de Lille to accept their memorandum. - Cape Times
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