At 9am on Monday September 9, men around South Africa will stand together – wherever they are – to voice their objection to gender-based violence.
International non-profit, The Mankind Project, challenges all men to go out into the streets and stand in silence for nine minutes as a symbol of solidarity for all men standing together in peace.
Mankind Project’s Kholekile Dlakiya said: “Let us show our wives, our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our girlfriends, our lovers, our friends, our colleagues, our country, that we stand together in grief, sadness, shame and anger at the current state of our nation.”
Mr Dlakiya called on men to take accountability for the fact that the current crisis of violence against womxn was due to their action and inaction.
This follows the recent killings of women and children throughout the country.Â
Over the past month, five other young women were murdered in the Cape: Janika Mallo,14, from Heinz Park was found dead in her grandmother’s yard on Sunday September 1 with her head bashed in and possibly raped; Jesse Hess, 19, a University of the Western Cape student from Parow was raped and killed in her flat last Friday August 30 where her 85-year-old grandfather was also killed; 30-year-old Meghan Cremer’s body was found at a sand mine on a Philippi farm on the morning of Thursday August 8 after being missing from August 3; the dismembered body of Lynette Volschenk, 32, was found stashed in plastic bags in her Bellville flat on Thursday August 22 and eight-month pregnant Sadiqah Newman, 26, was shot multiple times while on her way to a shop in Tambo Village near Manenberg on Thursday August 8.