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29 October 2018 Photo Thabo Kessah
Qwaqwa Campus students march for safety and improved social services
Phuthaditjhaba Station Commander,Brigadier Matsoso Mohloare; Department of Justice and Constitutional Development’s Advocate Frans Dlamini; and Lerato Seekane from the Private Accommodation Providers Association signing a memorandum from Sakhile Mnguni.
Hundreds of students and staff from the University of the Free State’s Qwaqwa Campus recently marched to the Phuthaditjhaba South African Police Service to highlight their unhappiness about lack of safety and other services provided by various stakeholders in Qwaqwa.

“Our students have experienced continuous harassment, rape, burglaries, assaults, intimidation, and related unacceptable behaviours from criminal elements in the community and in government departments,” said SRC President, Sakhile Mnguni, reading from the memorandum of demands. “The SAPS, Departments of Health and Justice and Constitutional Development, as well as Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality are the biggest perpetrators. We demand visible policing where most of our commuter students reside, and on the main road. We also demand that the SAPS will take previously reported cases seriously and investigate them thoroughly. From the Department of Health, we demand abolishment of tribalism in the offering of services and that staff must acknowledge that they serve the entire community.”

Mnguni said the students demanded that the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development should work closely with the SAPS to ensure that all cases are quickly resolved. “Cases take forever to be resolved and all we get is a case number, but no progress,” he said. “From Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality, we demand basics such as water and electricity. The municipality must cater for the needs of students who reside within the municipality; for example, we need street and high-mast lights and maintenance thereof, as it is very dark, especially between campus and Phuthaditjhaba.”

Private accommodation service providers were not spared the rod. “Landlords must be held accountable for the goods stolen and damaged within their premises. They must put the necessary safety measures in place and meet the standards for accreditation by the university’s Housing and Residence Affairs (HRA). They must also reduce unreasonable rental amounts,” he added.

Representatives from the relevant institutions and departments signed and received the memorandum and were given seven days to respond.

The march was the highlight of the Safety Week activities which included the distribution of whistles and talks on criminality and the consequences thereof. It was a collaborative effort by the SRC, Protection Services, and Student Affairs. 

News Archive

#Women’sMonth: Men should help change narrative on violence against women – Prof Solomon
2017-08-23

 Description: Issues affecting women Tags: Prof Hussein Solomon, Department of Political Studies, violence against women, Gender and Sexual Equity Office, Women’s Month, Embrace a Sister, Boko Haram 

The panellists at a discussion on Issues
Affecting Women at the UFS Sasol library were
Zane Thela, Head of the Gender and Sexual
Equity Office Programme, Pumla Mgobhozi, founding
member of Embrace a Sister, and
Prof Prof Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor in the
Department of Political Studies.
From the left, are: Thela, Mgobhozi, Prof Solomon,
and Betsy Eister, Director: Library and
Information Services.
Photo: Jóhann Thormählen

The fight to eradicate violence against women is one which men should be involved in. According to Prof Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS), men have to help change the narrative of physical abuse and sexual violence which they perpetrate against women and children.
“Let them (men who might be offended by the #men are trash) reject violent masculinities, and in the process let them redefine what being a man is about. Let fathers teach their sons that no means no.”

Panel discussion on Issues Affecting Women
Prof Solomon was part of a panel discussion on Issues Affecting Women, organised by the UFS library, in collaboration with the Gender and Sexual Equity Office and Embrace a Sister, as part of Women’s Month in the UFS Sasol library on 3 August 2017.
The other panellists were Zane Thela, Head of the Gender and Sexual Equity Office Programme at the UFS, and Pumla Mgobhozi, founding member of Embrace a Sister. Prof Solomon’s book Understanding Boko Haram, focusing on the kidnapping of 200 young women in Nigeria was also launched.

Don’t accept things as they are
Prof Solomon says that responses by the SA government have no credibility and a lot more could be done. “What is clear is that outrage alone will not end this violence.”
Even at SA universities there are many examples of how women are mistreated. “We need to ask: What more can we do as a university to assist these (female) students.”

According to Thela, it is sad that these issues are only talked about seasonally (like during Women’s Month).
Thela says people should raise their children differently in order to change the narrative. “Then men won’t think they have to prove themselves to women.”
And we shouldn’t accept things as they are: “The most dangerous statement in society is to say: ‘It has always been done this way."

Role of women in their fate
Mgobhozi emphasised that women have a hand in the way they are being seen and treated in society. She therefore asked: “What is the role of women in making sure that we dismantle patriarchy”.
According to her women, especially black women, should dismantle the status quo. She added that cultures and parents often influence the way women are seen.
“Women should fight these social problems together,” Mgobhozi says.

 

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