EASTERN CAPE (King Williams Town): The Rural Women Assembly (RWA) in the Eastern Cape hosted a One Woman-One Hectare campaign workshop on 14 of September in King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape. The campaign advocates for women’s access to land, with water, and promotes agroecology as a farming practise to grow food for their families and local markets.

Thabisa Mhlahlo, one of RWA Eastern Cape organisers, shared how important it is to have women voicing the challenges that they face in day-to-day life in their homes and communities. The One Woman-One Hectare campaign also has a strong focus on organising women against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) by providing support structures. Securing access to at least one hectare of land for women is a mitigation measure against GBV, since it can help women with place to stay as well as to grow their own food to eat or sell in the advent that they need to escape from a violent domestic context.

A woman from Berlin who was in attendance at the workshop shared how she was ill-treated when she went to Berlin police station to report her missing child. It was late on a Saturday and the police officer on duty told the mother that she couldn’t open for her to come inside since the police officer was alone on duty at the time and scared of crime as well. Unfortunately for the mother, she had to go back home without any assistance from the police. In the absence of any help from the police, she had to use social media to trace the whereabouts of her child and thankfully, the child is now safely home.

Dimpho Zantsi explained how RWA members often have to step in to assist women when reporting GBV crimes.  Dimpho shared how women can form WhatsApp groups to form networks in their communities to support each other when facing GBV and reporting GBV crimes. Sadly, too many women are very often without a support structures and need to form solidarity networks to make sure that justice is served.  RWA believes that when women unite and stand together they can achieve anything!