1/5/12 Update: “The two teenagers who were harassed and groped by a group of men near the Noord Street taxi rank last week laid charges of harassment and intimidation at the Johannesburg central police station yesterday.
“The girls said they could remember some of the men who attacked them, so we are hopeful of their prosecution. We don’t need to arrest all the men, we only need a few to make an example,” Matshidiso Mfikoe, a member of the mayoral committee for public safety, said.”
“Two teenagers were harassed and groped in public on Friday because one of them wore a miniskirt. The Sowetan newspaper reported on Tuesday that a 17-minute long clip of CCTV footage shows one girl, wearing a black miniskirt, emerging from a shop where a crowd of between 50 and 60 men had gathered. They follow her, groped her and took photos with their cellphones, the Sowetan reported.
She screamed at her tormentors and occasionally tried to punch them as they groped her. When her friend tried to help her she was also abused.
Johannesburg metro police intervened and accompanied the girl in the miniskirt home. A nearby businessman pulled the other into his shop. Metro police arrived a few minutes later and escorted her away.
Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane also condemned the incident.
“We learned with a deep sense of sadness and anger about the abuse of two young women on December 30 last year, because of their clothing,” she said in a statement.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the animal-like behaviour of those men involved – some old enough to be the young women’s fathers – where some males went as far as groping the young women.”
Look at this similar story, via a 2008 BBC article:
“Hundreds of South African women have marched to a Johannesburg taxi rank, where a woman was sexually assaulted for wearing a miniskirt. Nwabisa Ngcukana, 25, returned to where she was allegedly attacked by a group of taxi-drivers and street hawkers, who said she was indecently dressed.
“I came here to show the guys that I’m not scared of them – to face my demons,” she told the BBC.
The taxi drivers shouted insults at the women, some of whom wore miniskirts. Some shouted that South African women were being given too many rights….
The authorities have appealed to the taxi-drivers’ association to help find those who allegedly assaulted Ms Ngcukana and other women in recent weeks.
While some South Africans have said it is against local culture for women to wear miniskirts, the National House of Traditional Leaders last week said that women often wore short skirts in traditional ceremonies.”
What chilling behavior and what scary experiences for the young women. The silver lining is the police actually reacted and intervened in the most recent incident, as did a bystander businessman. But what will happen to the harassers and gropers? Do they just get to go on their merry way, ready to harass and grope another young woman the next day? Until there are more prevention efforts and punishments in place, what will change?
And is it time for another miniskirt march?
