EFF statement on the Rhodes University student protests against campus rape culture
20 April 2016
The EFF condemns the brutal police response to the ongoing student protests against campus rape culture at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. The police have attacked non-violent and unarmed students with rubber bullets and teargas. We call on the police to restrain themselves and also release the arrested students with immediate effect.
The students are raising a legitimate concern about the failures of our society, in particular the very police, university management and the entire justice system in dealing with rape and rape culture. The police, before arresting these protestors, or pulling any trigger to shoot at students, must first ask themselves what have they ever done to make Grahamstown and Rhodes University a safer place against rapists and sexual offenders. The police must hang their heads in shame because they have done absolutely nothing, expect to silence students with violence.
We call on the university to call for an open assembly attended by all in the university community, from the Council to all students bodies and amend the current policy around sexual assault and rape. It is useless to continue making the process of amending this policy a matter of a small committee of experts sitting in some air-conditioned offices. The university must allow an open process, in an open assembly which will not only concede to students’ demands, but also be educational in the process.
The EFF commends all the student protestors for raising and elevating the matter of rape and all its associated cultures through a protest action with non-negotiable demands. We commend them for putting their bodies at risk to ensure that society listens and does something urgent about the levels of rape in our society.
There is no doubt that in our country all systems in place have not succeeded to uproot sexual violence and rape. The constant requirement that rape victims must prove that those who rapes them intended to do so exposes the very moral bankruptcy of bourgeois law, and perpetrates rape and sexual violence. The students have also raised the crucial matter of the rudeness of those to whom rape must be reported, which is consistent with many experiences in police stations across the country.
Rape and sexual assault are not a crimes like another. The victims of rape, unlike victims of other crimes, experience humiliation and are reduced to shame. Rape and sexual assault is a direct violence on their dignity, person, emotions and confidence. To expect such a crime to be reported, proven and tested in the same way as other crimes signifies that ours remains a backward, uncreative, insensitive and heartless criminal justice system. All our criminal justice system achieves is the protection and reproduction of rapists, sexual assaults and associated cultures.
The EFF believes that the most important challenge by the students is on the whole society, not just Rhodes University and until a complete transvaluation of our criminal justice system is achieved, we are doomed. We also believe that there is no economic freedom, without a rape free society, which is why we fully support the protest.
Issued by Mbuyiseni Quintin Ndlozi, National Spokesperson, EFF, 20 April 2016
