The washington Post reports on this story of an African woman leading resistance to brutalization and subjegation of women in Swaziland.
Full story here (requires free registration):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4589-2004Oct3.html?nav=rss_world
"A Brutal Sexual Assault Galvanizes Swazi Women
Activists Behind Rare Protest March in Kingdom Link Men's Attitudes, World's Highest HIV Rate
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 4, 2004; Page A20
MANZINI, Swaziland -- Gugu Pungwayo couldn't bear to read the newspaper article. She recalled that she glanced at the headline, then put the paper down. Picked it up again. Put it down. Again. And again.
An 18-year-old woman had been sexually assaulted last month, brutally and repeatedly, by a gang of young men who worked at the chaotic, fume-choked taxi depot a couple of blocks from Pungwayo's office. The reason the men gave for the attack: The young woman was wearing a miniskirt.
Pressed by her 18-year-old daughter, Gugu Pungwayo helped organize a protest at the taxi depot in Manzini, Swaziland, where another 18-year-old was assaulted for wearing a miniskirt. (Craig Timberg -- The Washington Post)
By the time Pungwayo finished reading the article in the Times of Swaziland, she was crying, she later recalled. Her daughter -- age 18 like the victim -- demanded: "Mama, what are you going to do about this?" Pungwayo said.
Over the next few weeks, Pungwayo answered that question by helping to organize the first-ever women's march in Swaziland, a mountain kingdom of 1.2 million people. She also successfully lobbied for police and other authorities to take action. Three men have been arrested, but the activists are pressing for dozens more to be charged.
Fueling the outrage of activists such as Pungwayo is their conviction that the traditional subjugation of women is one reason that Swaziland has an HIV infection rate of nearly 40 percent, the highest in the world. Their protests of the assault have initiated uncommonly passionate public debate over what it means to be Swazi in the age of AIDS.
"We are losing the battle against HIV if we sit and allow this," said Pungwayo, 40, a union activist with a bright smile and sleek tortoise-shell glasses. "It's not a matter of short skirts."..........."
Go Gugu!!!!