Womenability Khayelitsha

On Saturday 17 September 2016, Sonke together with Womenability, a Paris-based collective dedicated to the promotion of gender equality in cities around the world, and Social Justice Coalition conducted an exploratory walk in Khayelitsha to raise awareness around issues of gender-based violence as well as the lack of sanitation and other basic services.

Together with forty residents of Khayelitsha, we conducted a two hour walk, which stopped at four designated points along the route, to discuss issues affecting women in the informal settlement and fill in questionnaires. Included in the stopping points was the area in which 19 year-old Sinoxolo Mafevuka was brutally raped and murdered in 2016. Mafevuka’s naked body was found in a communal toilet about 200m from her home in SST block on 2 March 2016.

The goal of the walk was to propose community-driven solutions to improve public space for women in Khayelitsha.

These are the findings.