Hundreds of men and women joined the ‘Barefoot in Black’ march against gender based violence and femicide on Saturday, 4 March. The peaceful march started at the King Dinizulu Park and ended at the Durban City Hall.
Executive director of the KZN Network on Violence Against Women, Cookie Edwards said they chose to wear black because they are mourning the high number of gender based violence, femicide, suicide and family murders of vulnerable groups such as women, children, LGBTQIA+, persons with disabilities and senior citizens.
“We want an end to gender based violence and femicide. We cannot tolerate the pain of losing any more of our children and women who are being abused, raped or murdered. As communities and service providers, we have to be moved from a sense of inaction to one of action to protect our vulnerable groups. We cannot let the abuse and deaths of our young girls and women, be in vain. It’s time to finally take a united stand as one community no matter where you live, it affects all of us. We have strong leaders in our communities who can publicly condemn GBV and femicide but they chose to stay silent. Why? Is it a normal practice? If actions or lack of action speaks louder than words, it is obvious that we do not value the worth of women and children’s lives and their dignity,” she said.
Edwards added that it is important to realise that a lot of work has been done to try and end gender based violence over the years.
“The work mainly focused on treatment, care and support but we need to add prevention programmes and strategies with effective activism and advocacy to include both men and women as this is not only a women’s problem. We need to have the backbone to lift other women out of the misery of abuse and violence and value them for their worth. My action, your action and our action is the answer, let’s do the right thing,” said Edwards.
