Woman torched for missing cellphone

From news reports, we don’t know a whole lot about Monique Martin, a 19-year-old woman who was set alight by four men nearly two years ago all for a missing cell phone.

The suspects, Ashwin Hammers, 20, Myron Daniels, 28, Ashley Lategan, 24, and a youth who may not be named, are pleading not guilty in the case, which the Cape High Court is hearing this week. The killing happened in a Strand home near Cape Town.

A witness told the court yesterday that Martin would not have been attacked if she had spoken up and said the missing cell phone was with her boyfriend, Myron Daniels.

The witness also said Martin begged for her life.

Another Assault at Noord Street

There’s reportedly been another assault on a woman by taxi drivers at the Noord Street taxi rank in Johannesburg, but this woman wasn’t targeted for wearing a miniskirt, instead she was “talking too much.”

The 23-year-old woman was “allegedly dragged out of a taxi and slapped on the face — because she questioned why she was given her R96.30 change in coins. She had apparently paid her R3.50 fare with a R100 note,” according to The Times.

The suspects, Muzi Madide, 34, and Mtoliki Nkomo, 43, were arrested on Monday and later released without bail. They were charged with common assault and are expected back in court on April 15.

Tshishonga’s assault comes after women were indecently assaulted by being stripped naked for wearing miniskirts by Noord Street Taxi Rank operators.

Nwabisa Ngcukana, 25, was indecently assaulted after her miniskirt was torn by taxi drivers in February.

Taxi organisations and the police promised to arrest the perpetrators after protests by women rights groups but no one has been arrested. [Sowetan]

Unsafe Schools — New report details school-based violence

Neither teachers nor students feel safe in school, according to a new report on school-based violence released this week by the South African Human Rights Commission. Some schoolgirls are exchanging sexual favors for good grades, or “sexually transmitted marks.” The school system is losing thousands of teachers a year due to psychological and physical abuse by students, the report says.

Children’s games have taken on a whole new dimension, with some 7-year-olds playing “hit me, hit me” and “rape me, rape me”, games in which schoolchildren chased and pretended to hit or rape one another.

Rape Victims Face Further Injustice in the Courts

A new report by the Gender, Health and Justice Research Unit at the University of Cape Town says that many judges fail to impose minimum mandatory sentences against rapists and use “flimsy excuses” to avoid handing down harsher sentences.

Legally, rapists should be sentenced to at least 25 years in prison when the victim is raped more than once or is younger than 16.

- Judge Jeremy Pickering sentenced a man to 15 years last year for raping his six-year-old daughter. The judge said the man acted “on the spur of the moment”.

-Judge AJ Visser sentenced Joseph Ntuli to eight years, with four years suspended, for raping a 14-year-old girl twice. In the 2003 sentencing, Judge Visser said the victim, “being the pretty girl she is, might have brought out the animal in the accused”.

-Judge Hendrick Musi sentenced a man to an effective 13 years for raping five girls under the age of 16. He said the rapist “intended no harm other than to satisfy his sexual lust”. [Sunday Times]

Protesters wear miniskirts to rally against assault

The taxi drivers allegedly poured alcohol over her head, stripped her naked, and sexually assaulted her, all because she was wearing a miniskirt, according to media reports. But yesterday, hundreds of people rallied on behalf of 25-year-old Nwabisa Ngcukana and in support of those who have received similar treatment at the Noord Street taxi rank in Johannesburg.

Students Threaten Rainbow Image

The video invokes painful historical imagery — older and larger black women dressed in maids uniforms, sitting on their knees before several 20-something white men. Speaking in Afrikaans, the men call the women whores, and the women call the men master, a term blacks were forced to use during apartheid when addressing whites. Duped into thinking that they are competing in a South African take on “Fear Factor,” the women play rugby, a popular Afrikaner sport, dance, and eat stew laced with urine — all on tape.