Dear Friends

The case of Zoliswa Nkonyana was postponed for the 26th time today. It will continue on the 23rd of September 2010. Zoliswa's mother will wait for at least 6 more months and Zoliswa's friend (a survivor of the brutal attack) will wait for at least 6 more months before Khayelitsha Regional Court acknowledges the wrong that was committed on the 4th of February 2006.

Scarcely two years before Zoliswa was tortured to death by 20 men, another young woman Leigh Matthews was kidnapped for ransom and eventually murdered. Our nation was shocked, indignant, supportive, retributive, frenzied - rightly so. We had been robbed of Leigh's potential. We did not take this lying down. We wrote, and called and talked. We watched every development of the case. Leigh's murderer was sentenced about 1 year after her death.

It is an indictment on us, that we have allowed our courts and our police to postpone Zoliswa's justice for 4 years. We were robbed of a girl who at the tender age of 19 lived with more bravery, more defiance than many of us will ever need. Where is the shock and indignance that attended Leigh's case? Where is the sense of loss?

We need to find these emotions quickly - many women like Zoliswa are in danger. The lethargy of the courts and our silence help to legitimate the twisted beliefs that have men raping children to "teach them how to be women". A support group in Cape Town reported earlier this year, that it deals with 10 new cases of hate crimes against queer women EACH WEEK. Most of these are not reported. To those women, the fact that our constitution protects our sexuality means nothing. We must make it mean something.

Occasionally, we must step down from Devil's Peak; We must speak, and we must act.

The CoED Committee