TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 10

Subsection 5

28 One can, however, overstate the case. The hearings provided ample evidence that women fulfilled all roles in the struggle and suffered the full range of human rights violations. There were stories of women active – and abused — in all three decades covered by the Commission. There were stories of and by women of all races and of all ages. In terms of educational level, the women ranged from those with limited formal education to others with tertiary degrees. Ms Lita Nombango Mazibuko emphasised the fact that, despite her lack of (formal) education, “the contribution that I've put in within the ANC structures is quite massive”. Elsewhere, there is plenty of documentary and other evidence⁷ that women were active before the 1960s – in particular in the memorable 1956 anti-pass march that is today celebrated each year on Women’s Day. There is also plenty of evidence in documents⁸ that women were severely punished – through detention, torture and other means – for their involvement.

29 Further, in South Africa, as elsewhere, women’s ‘private’ roles have often been a strong motivating factor in their political engagement. Ms Thandi Modise of MK, for example, has stated emphatically that she was a guerrilla “because I am a mother”. During the women’s hearing, Ms Zodwa Lephina Thobela said that it was when her son was arrested in 1976 that she and her husband became involved in politics and “started being enemies with the security police”. Also at the hearings, Ms Noncebo Zokwe recalled how the security police named her a “Communist mother”. She used her role as mother and protector of the home when a policeman came to her home, telling him: “On these premises I am the government”. When he threatened to kill her, she said: “The only pain I know is the pain of giving birth”. She said: “It is womanhood which brought me this strength”.⁹

30 Women’s socialisation and roles could also mean that certain experiences, although seemingly similar, might bear more heavily on women than on men. For example, women’s socialisation, more than that of men, focuses on intimate relationships. Without negating the pain felt by men in solitary confinement, this could make the experience even more painful for women. During the hearings, many women spoke in particular about what it meant to be separated from their children. Ms Evelyn de Bruin of Upington who, together with her husband, spent many long months on death row after being convicted of common purpose simply because they were present at a killing, told how she had to leave her two young children behind. On the basis both of the unfair judgement and the cruelty of separation, she was certain that “Judge Basson will never see the heavens”.

31 Some women spoke about how their torturers used the strength of the mother-child bond against them. Ms Albertina Sisulu was told that her child was in intensive care with pneumonia and that, if she did not give a statement, “you won’t bury the child”. Ms Joyce Sikhakhane Ranken feared that she herself would be killed in detention, leaving her three-year-old child an orphan.

To crown it all, during a torturous interrogation session … a three year old Afrikaner toddler was brought in to remind me of Nkosinathi.

32 Ms Zubeida Jaffer, in an early stage of pregnancy, was told that she would be assaulted until she lost her baby.

33 Some of the women who had been threatened in this way went on to describe their reasons for resisting. Ms Albertina Sisulu felt “let the child die if the nation is saved”. Ms Joyce Sikhakhane Ranken felt “the price to pay … was worth our cruel separation.” Ms Zubeida Jaffer, didn't want my child to grow up with that burden on her, because … if she is brought into this world thinking that her mother gave this information so that she could live, that's a heavy burden for a child to carry.

34 There were also many stories about how previously ‘apolitical’ women became activists because of the abuses suffered by themselves and their families. For example, Ms Nozizwe Madlala told the story of Ms Kubeka. Ms Kubeka’s home was twice burnt down during the KwaZulu-Natal violence, while police looked on without intervening. On the second occasion, Ms Madlala was in detention when the arson attack took place. The security police broke the news to her and:

boasted about this evil attack on a woman whose only crime was that she had given birth to children who did not want to stand by and watch while their people were brutalised.

Ms Kubeka … had no particular interest in politics. Her hands were already full anyway with the burden of scratching a living for herself and her children. It was the brutal experience that turned her into one of the strongest and (most) resilient fighters of our movement.

35 Finally, one can argue that the centrality of women in the struggle depended on the nature of that struggle and the chief protagonists at a particular point. In the 1980s, for example, when much of the activity was undertaken by scholars and students, these young women did not have the same social constraints against engaging in the struggle that might have been felt by slightly older women or those with more family responsibilities. In terms of the public/private distinction, women scholars and students were more firmly located in the public sphere, the sphere in which political action is most explicit, and where it was most likely to provoke state retaliation.