IT WAS an eerie, hushed and sombre day at Rhodes University on Friday when about 20% of the student population donned purple T- shirts, taped their mouths shut and spent the day demonstrating against the horror of sexual violence in South Africa.
More than 1 450 people signed up for the sixth annual silent protest to highlight sexual violence in South Africa and which aimed to show solidarity with rape survivors who had been silenced by it, said one of the organisers Larissa Klazinga.
Purple T-shirts with the slogans "Sexual violence = Silence" or "Men in Solidarity" emblazoned across them were worn by hundreds of people as they went about their business on the university campus or in the Grahamstown CBD. This year, more than 100 women who had survived rape broke their silence by wearing T-shirts that proclaimed them as "rape survivors".
Former Rhodes students as well as staff and students from the nearby College of the Transfiguration also joined in the daylong protest. Gaffer tape cut a black slash across their faces.
Klazinga said the taped mouths represented survivors being rendered voiceless by sexual violence and this protest aimed to "make the silence visible".
"The majority of rape survivors don't report it," she said. Blaming survivors and secondary victimisation by the criminal justice system all had a silencing effect.
Klazinga said the issue of rape could not be addressed without a shift in attitudes towards rape along with a functioning justice system and effective law enforcement.
Several unpleasant incidents marred an otherwise potent protest filled with powerful symbolism, harrowing personal stories, and triumph over adversity.
Spokeswoman and chair of the Gender Action Project (Gap), Michelle Solomon, said in one particularly unpleasant incident a grey-bearded man driving a yellow Mercedes Benz had tried to force his way through protest marshals - almost running them down. She said they had laid a complaint of dangerous and reckless driving against the driver.
Other students had also reported being harassed. A man had grabbed the breast of one rape survivor and told her: "If you survived it once you can survive it again".
In another incident, a man had whispered into the ear of a protester with gaffer tape across her mouth that if he chose to rape her she would not be able to scream. These incidents highlighted the need for society to protest and express its contempt and intolerance for sexual violence and close to 400 Rhodes University men did just that.
Solomon said it had been decided the men would not tape their mouths shut so they were free to verbally challenge other men who believed masculinity was "animalistic or predatory".
"Real okes don't remain silent when other men make misogynistic comments,"
Solomon told protestors.
"Good okes hold other okes accountable for shit they say that encourages sexual violence."
Protesters also staged a "diein" where almost 500 women lay absolutely still across the quadrangle in front of the main administration block at Rhodes to represent the loss of life that happens in many sexual violence cases.
Most protestors did not eat, drink or speak for the day. Their fast was broken after the late evening march down High Street to the Cathedral of St George and St Michael.
An emotional "Breaking the Silence" debriefing followed.
The women ripped the tape off their mouths and the cathedral reverberated to the loud chant: "Stop the war on women's bodies".
Solomon spoke passionately against sexual violence and said rape culture sought to silence survivors.
She spoke angrily of her own rape by a trusted friend and warned rape survivors not to let their ordeal define them.
"Don't let rape identify who you are. It happened to you, it does not define you. The only person at fault in a rape is the rapist."
She said people were shamed into silence by society's stigma and myths about rape.
"I broke my silence and I will never be silenced again."
By Adrienne Carlisle
Photo: Ettione Ferreira
Source: Daily Dispatch