STATEMENT (6TH March 2010)

ANOTHER WOMAN RAPED AND MURDERED LAST NIGHT IN KLIPTOWN

OVERGROWN AREAS AND TOTAL LACK OF ELECTRICITY CONTINUE TO RENDER COMMUNITY UNSAFE

THE CITY OF JOHANNESBURG HAS FAILED KLIPTOWN

Early this morning, several young boys walking through the mass of tall grass that surrounds large parts of Kliptown, stumbled on the battered body of Nombulelo, a 25 year-old female resident and mother of two. She had been brutally raped and then strangled. Nombulelo is the third woman in the last several months to be raped and murdered in the same area.

Despite years of engaging the City of Johannesburg, many memorandums being handed over about lack of development and several community protests demanding the provision of electricity, other basic services and the cutting down of the tall grass areas, the community of Kliptown has been ignored. As a result, Kliptown remains a haven for rapists and murderers and the women of Kliptown in particular, continue to live in fear.

Residents are asking how is it that the City of Johannesburg can find billions for the nearby ‘world class’ Soccer City stadium, and more millions to build ‘Freedom Park’ monuments and squares on the outskirts of their community, but cannot provide the meagre funds nor the political will to deliver the most basics of development such as electricity and cutting of the tall grass. These continued failures are not simply about ‘a lack of service delivery’ but about a cynical arrogance and heartlessness concerning the very lives of the poor, and more especially, women.

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For more info and/or comment, please call Sipho Jantjie in Kliptown on 073 896-1353.

Anti Privatisation Forum
123 Pritchard Street (cnr Mooi)
6th floor Vogas House, Johannesburg
Tel: (011) 333-8334 Fax: (011) 333-8335
Website: www.apf.org.za