It's Personal
By Lala Steyn, walking 31 days to the Blockhouse in October
On one of my daily walks up to the Blockhouse against gender based violence, this month, someone asked me why I was walking everyday of October to the Blockhouse. I told her one of my stories.
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| Sunset over Cape Town from the Blockhouse |
Back in the late 1980s I was a young student and an anti-apartheid activist. I rented a home on a farm outside Kylemore with my partner. As he was to be away for a few nights, and it wasn't safe for a woman to stay there on her own, I asked one of my United Democratic Front (UDF) comrades to come and sleep over until my partner was back. I thought this would make me safer.
The first night he went out and came home drunk. He sexually assaulted me but I got away. I recall the shock as he was suddenly groping at my body and forcing me into the wall. Then I recall bright lights and flowing water. What happened between the wall and the water is what I put together after being helped by a friend, Jean du Plessis, the co-founder of Blocktober.
When I escaped the grasp of "my comrade" I ran in the dark to a small holding about a kilometre away where Jean was living. He drove me back home and on our arrival we found that all the lights of the house were on, and the geyser had bursted, with water everywhere. My assailant was lying drunk on the ground. We dragged him into a room, locked the door and Jean slept that night in front of the door.
In the morning when I told the perpetrator what he had done, he said nothing. I drove him away to his house. I didn't report him. I took no action to confront him. After all, was the struggle not more important than my body? I avoided him and ensured I saw him as little as possible. I pushed this to the back of my mind and got on with life.
As the years rolled by I came to acknowledge this as the source of my fear of being alone, of dark lonely spaces, and of my acute antennae to pick up potential (maybe imagined) dangerous situations. In later years when I asked various people why I couldn't remember the time between the initial shock of being sexually assaulted and the return to my home, they all said that this is a common response to trauma.
Unfortunately this was not the first or last time I would experience such danger. We all know that gender based violence is a scourge on our humanity. One in three women worldwide has experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. 146 sexual offence cases are reported on average daily in SA, most of these being rape.
There is hope as we can all act to change this:
- We can change our behaviour and teach our children.
- We can share our stories.
- We can call out those who talk and act in ways that can lead to gender based violence.
- We can support survivors of GBV.
- We can walk together for "our Saartjies" throughout October.
- We can donate to empower the survivors of GBV to build their economic independence. Click Donate via BackaBuddy (note: the BackaBuddy tip can be set to R0).
Why not read the blogs you have missed?
- Next Date: 15 October 15.30 pm
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Duration: 2 / 2.5hrs, 7.5km
- Tabelberg Rd route to Blockhouse: Click this PIN for starting point.
- Click here to join future walks.
- Record your walk, run, cycle or swim in support of Blocktober on Strava.
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