South Africans Join Anti-Rape Protest Over Atrocity in India

South Africans Join Anti-Rape Protest Over Atrocity in India

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from GIN

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – A petition  drive is underway, organized by India-origin South Africans outraged by the  gang-rape and brutal murder in India of a 23-year-old girl.

“Watching the huge crowds on satellite TV channels, my friend Jitu  Patel and I felt that we could not just stand by and watch and felt that there  must be many more local and expatriate Indians who would want to show some kind  of solidarity with the tens of thousands protesting in Delhi”, businessman  Hitesh Bhakta said.

The  anti-rape mantra has drawn support from all corners. Zenande Mfenyana, who plays  Noluntu Memela in Generations, a daytime soap, joined the ranks of other celebs  saying ‘enough is enough’ to the scourge of rape. She was joined by the former  Miss SA Teen, Zizo Beda; PR guru Farah Fortune and hip hop star Zuluboy in  videos posted on SowetanLIVE, an online newspaper initiative.

South Africa has been under the spotlight for the ‘normality’ and  inevitability of the male use of force in relationships involving people of all  ages, writes A. Hawes in the online paper The Root. A study from the Medical  Research Council found that more than 1 in 4 South African men have admitted to  raping a girl or woman. More than 56,000 rapes were reported to police in a  year, but the government group suspects that the actual incidence of rape is 25  times that number. Numbers in the U.S. are also shockingly high. The U.S. Census  Bureau said in 2012 there were some 81,000 rapes or attempted rapes in the U.S.  in 2009, the last year for which the bureau gives figures.

Meanwhile, at the global level, a coalition of 100 human rights,  women’s organizations and others are calling on the U.S. to ratify the  landmark U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination  Against Women (CEDAW).

Spearheading the ratification effort is the Leadership Conference  on Civil and Human Rights and GlobalSolutions.org.