A Johannesburg-based businesswoman who was gang-raped on Kings Beach in Port Elizabeth in December 2010, has spoken publicly about her ordeal.
Andy Kawa, formerly of Port Elizabeth, was the guest speaker at a briefing by the Nelson Mandela Bay Development Agency on the progress being made on the upgrading of the Kings Beach precinct, where public safety is a key aspect.
Speaking to Algoa FM News, Kawa said she is using her experience to launch a national campaign, titled Enough Is Enough.
The full transcript follows below:
"From the very time I was released on the 10th of December (2010) I told myself that I would not be silent about what happened because I was very lucky to be alive. Because the whole night I was being raped I was praying and asking God, not why it happened to me, but what meaning should I take as an interpretation of this," she said.
"I said to God, if you save my life what do You want me to do with the knowledge and experience because I think that it opened a world I had never, never imagined existed where you get assaulted, where you get beaten up, I've never been beaten up by a man before. So I realised that when people talk about these things I couldn't comprehend them before because I had never lived it," she added.
"With me being save I decided I would talk of the plight of rape victims and survivors."
Q: What is your campaign Enough is Enough all about?
"The elements of the campaign is addressing all citizens of South Africa, starting from the family to communities to organisations, to churches, ministers and police, to say Enough Is Enough to rape and violent crimes. It saying enough is enough of silence because a lot time we know that somebody was raped but there's somehow a taboo not to talk about it."
"So it is piercing the veil of that silence, in every constituency, from the family to the mother to the church leader, the business director, to the police and the investigator must ask themselves how does enough is enough of silence relate to them and what they need to do," she said.
"The second is Enough Is Enough of apathy, of not doing anything. In families children are raped and other members do nothing. I think it happens in communities and it happens in the outer space (sic). So, we are saying Enough Is Enough of apathy, let's take action and every individual needs to aske themselves if they encouter this what action can they take."
"The third one is Enough Is Enough of tolerance - We have tolerated sexual perpetrators and rapists, they live in our homes, in our families, in our communities, in our board-rooms and in our government. And, I think that we need to say this cannot be tolerated, the perpetrators have impunity, they need to be punished because rape is a violent crime," she said.
Q: Its taken a long time bring your case to a close and in fact no one has been arrested yet. What is your message to those in the police and justice department?
"Well, I have not seen the work that is being done. For the past 14 months I feel like I've been trying to investigate my case. I have been going around trying to see what I can do. The message to them is that as a victim it is so hard to feel helpless and hopeless when you know that your hands are tied, when you know that you are dependent on investigators to actually investigate and bring a case that would be admissable before the courts. So, you feel very tied because there is nothing that you can do, so I plead with them to take action and act on the cases because all those women and children become wounded mentally, physically and psychologically."
