05/09/2019
Greetings students!
We are in the midst of a volatile situation wherein our very existance as women is called into question in spaces that ought to shield us from the dehumanizing violence of r**e and GBV. Although we know the solutions must be structural in nature we still need to take the individual manifestation of violence as an urgent matter. R**e always has an identified perpetrator. But at UWC it seems the perpetrator of harm and r**e is shielded using institution legislation to even the absurd, like blaming the r**e survivor.
All these problems will solved by an engaged and committed student population that must create model of accountability from the perpetrators to our deaf management on these issues. For example the issue of institution support and preventative measures to deal with safety properly teaching males on r**e has been neglected by management to concentrate on exclusions and profit maximisation. All these missed opportunities and sheer neglect of important issues end up harming black students and change and new ways of being are never institutionalised.
Taking all these problems in mind we believe as the SRC we need commitment and will on the part of management not empty responses, and sloganeering on issues that are about the precarious lived reality of black women in particular and black students generally! We thus alongside other academics who have postponed their tests and tutorials deem it fit, to declare therefore, that campus as not normal.
With this in mind we call for a complete shutdown of the academic programme till we find each other on the table around how is it that the demands of 2016 on among others uprooting r**e culture on campus and issues of safety in our residences as well as the general lack of accommodation. No student must be in class must be in class while others are sweating and screaming while they suffer r**e and its attendant psychological effects.
In order to deepen our understanding r**e and r**e culture we need to all invest ourselves into understanding the complexity of these issues. We can I'll afford another "phela sonwabe" method of dealing with issue again. We need permanent solutions sourced from a deep seated commitment to dialogue that will find agreed upon ground up institution accredited solution. As leadership that is concerned, with the lived experience of students at the university, and that violently rejects GBV, homophobia, and Afrophobia, call upon student to be in solidarity in these trying times.
We must dealt with institutionalized, sexism and patriarchy. Not another womyn , in our name and watch, we refuse to be part of statistic, and silent policies and justice that is anti balck womyn, consequently we pledge solidarity we all womyn, whom are yet to call the souls and bodies their own. We have attached the memorandum of 2016, alongside the sexual violence policy of the institution, so that the memorandum to be submitted is also informed by loopholes that exist within this policy. We also pledge students to report these cases, with the proctor, so that we can reflect at look, at the back lock of cases that lie in the proctor’s office. Remember “The silence is not about r**e. R**e is there present, but we need to break the silence on who the ra**st is” Prof Gqola.
The womyn and gender equity unity, borrowing From Bell Hooks, must start assuming its role within feminists movement, and the university, this will assist in reshaping the psych of black man, for these incidents are but a reflection of the mental state of black man.
Isikolo makasime sisiphule nengcambu ubudwengu apha eUWC.
