Sibonisile Tshabalala

In celebration of women’s month locals came out in numbers at the Gandhi-Luthuli Peace Hall in Durban to engage in topics such as women abuse and gender-based violence.

The event was open to everyone as men were also in attendance speaking against gender-based violence. Women based organisations, LifeLine and Agenda Feminist Media attended the event advertising how the help abuse victims.

LifeLine representative, Felicity Brown outlined how they have ways that help abuse victims.

“We help provide free counseling for the victims and assist rape victims medically,” said Brown.

Women were also given the platform to speak about their experiences of rape and many of them opened up.

Nontobeko Mkhwanazi also spoke about how her friend was continuously raped by someone she called a friend.

“For me, the most shocking rape story has been the fact that I had a friend who was raped by someone whom she trusted very well, but was unaware of it because she did not understand the full concept of rape,” she said.

Women were encouraged to learn to stand for themselves and be independent because most women that face abuse, especially physical tend to hide behind their partners.