From the window on the fourth floor of the Roodepoort police station, Durban Deep can be clearly made out; it is just a short hop over Randfontein road.
But for the women who had gathered outside the station commander’s office on the fourth floor, on Wednesday morning, Durban Deep might as well be a couple of hundred kilometres away.
That would explain why the station’s vehicles take so long to respond to crime incidents in Durban Deep, if at all.
What it didn’t explain was why Brigadier Sam Manala was keeping them waiting.
As minutes became hours, duct tape began to hang from cheeks like pieces of confetti. Earlier that same duct tape had covered mouths in protest, but now had to be partially peeled off so the protesters could chat and pass the time.
Meanwhile, outside the police station the rest of the protesters downed their placards and sat on them in the shade and waited.
A police constable did come out and tell them that her boss was in a meeting. She didn’t know when it would end.
The 20-odd women had began their protest march from a park on nearby Paul Kruger Street. Marching were old women, a couple of community activists and several mothers who brought along their toddlers. What they all had in common was that they live in Durban Deep and have been touched by violent crime.
“It is assaults, robberies and rapes,” is how one woman, who didn’t want give her name, summed up the purpose of the march.
Durban Deep has been lawless for a long time now, ever since the formal mine abandoned the site in 2001.
But many in the community believe crime has recently become worse.
The chief concern was a recent spate of gang rapes, allegedly committed by Basothos. It was not clear if the perpetrators belonged to a single gang, as often the rapists hide their identities by wearing balaclavas.
But in an area where Zulu and Ndebele are dominant, their language gives them away.
Basotho gangs are blamed for a lot of the crime in Durban Deep. They are accused of robbing and killing the illegal miners who now work the old gold mine.
The stories are gruesome, but the one gang rape that everyone knew about was one of the most recent.
This rape happened early last month and on Wednesday, when the women were marching to the police station, the rape survivor was at a clinic receiving some bad news.
Doris (not her real name) discovered on Wednesday that she was HIV positive, three weeks after she was allegedly raped by three men. On November 4, the 31-year-old was moving house from Matholesville to Durban Deep when a minibus taxi drew up and three men climbed out.
They led her into an open piece of veld where they raped her. During the ordeal, her 3-and-a-half-year-old child began crying. One of the men then slapped the girl to keep her quiet.
“One took out a gun and wanted to shoot me and they started arguing,” she said.
Eventually she was told to run with her child. As an illegal immigrant Doris feared if she reported the rape, the police might deport her. Her illegal status also prevented her from going to a clinic for treatment.
It was only through the help of sympathetic health-care and community workers that Doris was able to attend a medical centre.
This is how she came to learn of her HIV status. She now has access to ARVs.
In the same week Doris learnt of her HIV status and the march on the Roodepoort police station, the Department of Women once again launched its 16 Days of Activism for Non Violence against Women and Children campaign.
This year the theme of the campaign, which runs from November 25 to December 10, is “Count Me in: Together Moving a Non-Violent South Africa Forward”.
The campaign includes community dialogues and mass mobilisation of all communities in the fight to eradicate violence against women and children. Few of the women in Durban Deep have heard of it.
There have been other recent rapes in Durban Deep. During one, a woman was gang raped for hours one Sunday morning. No one wanted to help her, out of fear.
“If you go out they will kill you,” said a man who lived opposite where the rape occurred.
As the protesters waited, some told of their own experiences of crime in Durban Deep. One woman’s ordeal happened last month.
“My neighbour came into my room and asked me to take off my clothes, said one woman, who wanted to remain anonymous. “He grabbed me by the throat and I had to fight.”
She said she had been able to break free and get help. Later her landlady talked her out of pressing charges. “I am still afraid when I see him, I see him in the streets, I see him when I go to the shops. I am afraid even for my girl,” she said.
Another woman described a robbery in her spaza shop last July where two of her customers were shot and injured. She hadn’t heard anything from the police.
After two hours of waiting, the station commander was free to meet the protesters.
Later, back at the park where the march had started, community activist Cora Bailey gave feedback.
She told them the station commander had said that this was not the way to approach the problem.
“He told us we have no right to be in Durban Deep,” said Bailey.
“We are not second-class citizens, we have a right to be protected by the police,” she added.
But the station commander did agree to meet them on Monday to listen to their concerns. He also told them to bring case numbers from crimes that hadn’t been solved.
Provincial police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said the police were aware of criminal activity at Durban Deep informal settlement.
“These involve robberies of personal items including cellphones and recently, several incidents of rape have been reported,” he said
While some were unhappy with the meeting, others saw it as a start.
“I am happy and I will be attending,” said a woman who also didn’t want to be identified.