As the trial of athlete Oscar Pistorius – who is accused of intentionally murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp – continues, the scrum of journalists and self-confessed ‘Pistorians’ supporting the athlete congregate daily outside the courthouse in Pretoria. Facing them, members of the African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League sing, ‘Uyaya Ejele Oscar [Oscar is going to jail],’ and hold aloft banners reading, ‘Oscar Must Die In Jail’; the tragic death of Reeva has galvanised protesters determined to wage a war of domestic violence against women in South Africa.
They object to the huge levels of support for the Paralympian and Olympian, who remains a national hero across South Africa despite the accusations and the mounting evidence about the details of Reeva’s death. South Africa’s record of violence against women is poor: three women are killed by their partners every day in South Africa, according to the Medical Research Council at the University of Cape Town, and the country has one of the highest rape rates in the world. However, only one in nine victims of sexual abuse file complaints, scared of reprisals, fearful of not being taken seriously, or too scared to go to the police.
‘The class system makes a huge difference,’ women’s rights advocate Nokykhanya Jele tells NBC News. ‘If you’re poor, you just don’t go for help, and only partly because it's a half day’s walk for many women to even get to one of the 120 police districts set up to deal with such complaints.’ Protesters hope that a guilty verdict for Pistorious will send a message out to abusive men across South Africa, that things are different now.
‘It shows that [the court system] is not playing, that they mean business, that everyone should pay for what they do,’ explained Rejoice – a young mother who is staying at a women’s shelter in Johannesburg – to NBC when asked why the Pistorius case matters so much. ‘I am Reeva,’ she added, words that have become a mantra for survivors of abuse, declaring their solidarity with the young model and TV presenter. ‘But thank God I got saved. Thank God I didn’t have to go down six feet under. I still have my breath, and I can stand up and get out of that situation.’
It is against this political backdrop that the African National Congress Women’s League have camped out outside the Pistorius trial every day. Reeva’s story strikes a chord with many women, and the South African system is under more international scrutiny than ever before. There’s a widespread sense that this case isn’t simply an isolated trial of one individual, but a precedent-setting, public announcement of how the South African court system deals with domestic violence. It is too late for Reeva Steenkamp, but the hope is that the attention this high profile murder trial is receiving might just change the lives of many other South African women in future.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.