Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Freedom Day indeed .......

Tuesday 27th April was a day of celebrations, in South Africa as most South African celebrated their hard earned freedom from slavery. Those who did not feel like celebrating stayed home and just had a day off from work.

This was not the case with a group of foreign national doing business in the taxi rank of the Wynberg suburb of Cape Town. Close to twenty five foreign national most of them women selling African food items, and operating roadside hair dressing salons, were brutally attacked by a group of local women supported by the taxi drivers of the Wynberg taxi rank.

The women were accused of covering for some foreign men who use them as a cover to sale drugs to the public. The local women came out in full war gear ready to kill and destroy their fellow women; they sang war path songs demanding the foreign women to take their things and go back home where ever that was. They destroyed every thing belonging to the women, what could not be destroyed was taken away.
The women who have been coming into our offices since last week are very traumatized and afraid, but grateful that they are alive.

The Wynberg police who were called in to intervene did nothing to help the foreigners, but encouraged their fellow South Africans to chase the makwerekweres,
We have been informed that in the course of this commotion a pregnant women fainted and a police man who stood by was about to call the ambulance but when he noticed that the lady was not of the South African origin he changed his mind and walked away.

It is with pity that black African from other countries continues to face discrimination from their fellow South African brothers and sister most especially of the African origin. We noted with pity that out of the eighteen women forcibly removed from the taxi rank market, less than four of them have another bread winner in their families; most of these women are single mothers with no other source of income with children to feed rents to pay and just put body and soul together, it is a pity that all of these women have legal papers to live in South Africa as refugees, and these documents allows them to work and enjoy other freedoms in this country .
We also noted that this event was well organized and executed and not even the private media has mentioned it. Unfortunately those women do not have any where else to go and no means of survival.
WHOLE WORLD WOMEN ASSOCIATION, continues to struggle to support women in an environment where women are abused and mistreated even after they have fled to so call safety zones, most refugee women in this country are exposed to all forms of abuse, this is visible in the trauma in their lives, women amazingly overcome the situation in the best ways that they can and continue to forge a way forward in life.
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It is again a situation of do or die for them as most of the countries from where these women have come has nothing better to offer them. they can not run away from the realities in South Africa, WWWA supports dialogue and reconciliation in solving any kind of misunderstanding .MOST ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO ISSUES AMONGST WOMEN . As we move on into the future hope is our only weapon . Survival for all is our motto.
SHALOM

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