Enough is enough, say students

WAVING placards and chanting slogans protesting violence against women, Polytechnic students and school children from five Windhoek high schools drew maximum attention to their campaign by taking it to the launch of this year’s State of the World Population Report.

Accompanied by family members of Juanita Mabula, the 21-year-old woman whose body was found naked and decapitated in Windhoek almost three weeks ago, the students, wearing giant cardboard cut-outs of white ribbons, waited for Prime Minister Nahas Angula to hand over a petition calling for more stringent action against perpetrators of violence. Wearing a white ribbon is a personal pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women.’Why are you hiding if you are strong enough to kill?’; ‘Wanted: Men who believe that women and children are not for beating and killing’; and ‘Be a man and come out, we need to make an example of you’ were among the messages penned on placards.This year’s State of World Population report singled out gender violence as a major worldwide obstacle to attaining the Millennium Development goals on gender equality and reproductive health by 2015.In a petition handed to Angula, the Polytechnic’s Student Representative for Gender Affairs, Cynthia Kazombiaze, called for life imprisonment with hard labour for perpetrators of gender violence.The students called on Government to do more to guarantee the right to human life and asked that the privacy of victims’ remains be respected.This plea was in response to pictures of Mabula’s corpse printed in a weekly newspaper.Polytechnic Rector Tjama Tjivikua said his institution had found it necessary to speak out against crime as it undermined everything the country was trying to achieve.”We have very sick people in our society,” he said, adding that the country had to deal with habitual offenders who appeared undeterred by the law.The demonstration then moved to the site where Mabula’s body was found by a passer-by near the Western Bypass on September 25.Students laid a wreath where a cross had been erected recently.Mabula was buried at Mariental last weekend, without her head, which has still not been found.The Polytechnic students called on Government to strengthen policing for the protection of communities and a more efficient judicial system to deal with criminals.Wearing a white ribbon is a personal pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women.’Why are you hiding if you are strong enough to kill?’; ‘Wanted: Men who believe that women and children are not for beating and killing’; and ‘Be a man and come out, we need to make an example of you’ were among the messages penned on placards.This year’s State of World Population report singled out gender violence as a major worldwide obstacle to attaining the Millennium Development goals on gender equality and reproductive health by 2015.In a petition handed to Angula, the Polytechnic’s Student Representative for Gender Affairs, Cynthia Kazombiaze, called for life imprisonment with hard labour for perpetrators of gender violence.The students called on Government to do more to guarantee the right to human life and asked that the privacy of victims’ remains be respected.This plea was in response to pictures of Mabula’s corpse printed in a weekly newspaper.Polytechnic Rector Tjama Tjivikua said his institution had found it necessary to speak out against crime as it undermined everything the country was trying to achieve.”We have very sick people in our society,” he said, adding that the country had to deal with habitual offenders who appeared undeterred by the law.The demonstration then moved to the site where Mabula’s body was found by a passer-by near the Western Bypass on September 25.Students laid a wreath where a cross had been erected recently.Mabula was buried at Mariental last weekend, without her head, which has still not been found.The Polytechnic students called on Government to strengthen policing for the protection of communities and a more efficient judicial system to deal with criminals.