GRAHAMSTOWN - ‘A rapist walked here!” So reads one of the many posters strewn across the Rhodes University campus this week.
The institution faces a serious reputational crisis as questions are being asked about the safety of women students on its campus.
Many of them are outraged and worried about their personal safety following the suicide death of fellow student Khensani Maseko, 23, a former Student Representative Council (SRC) president last Friday, who was reportedly raped by her former boyfriend, also a Rhodes student, in May.
On Monday morning, vice-chancellor Sizwe Mabizela and student leaders addressed students amid the gloom and grief in the troubled air.
Mabizela called for calm and dignity, and agreed to a day of mourning and lowering the university flag to half-mast.
Several protest actions unfolded and heated speeches were delivered.
Students wore black in shock and rage following her death.
“There is nothing that has not been said,” said one donning an EFF beret.
23-year-old Rhodes student Khensani Maseko's heart-wrenching posts on social media before dhe took her own life. Photo: Instagram
Standing with a group of female friends, she refused to be quoted on record, maintaining it was “too soon” after the incident to comment to the media.
A male student leader, who is vying for a senior position on the SRC, initially agrees to be interviewed, provided he remained anonymous, but then recused himself citing time constraints.
Fear of victimisation for speaking out has become a feature of the campus in recent years.
“Female students aren’t safe at all,” said a third-year Ugandan student, Esona Rosani, 23.
“From the lack of visible and competent security to poor lighting infrastructure, Rhodes leaves a lot to be desired regarding student safety in general,” Rosani said.
Rosani believed management had done “nothing to address the issues around rape culture from 2016 (and possibly long before that)”.
She cited the “continuing expulsion of Yolanda Dyantyi and others who protested over “ineffective disciplinary policies and care for victims”.
This week Dyantyi, whose Twitter handle is #RhodesWar @YoliShade, tweeted: “I was raped in my first year at Rhodes in 2015 by two male students. I got drugged & awoke to semen all over my clothes. In 2016 I protested against rape culture; in 2017 I was criminalised for things I didn’t even do, and then had my degree stripped from me by Rhodes.”
There was a sense that recent incidents of gender-based violence at Rhodes reflect a horrendous national crisis - a deep scar on the psyche of several male students who behave as if women’s bodies are “easy meat” for their taking as they please.
“When talking about the issue of safety concerning females, it is difficult to just focus on Rhodes, (and not the) country we’re living in,” said 21-year-old Louie Tshelane, a second-year student from Pretoria.
“Nonetheless, females are not safe in this environment: you see it in them asking their male friend to accompany them from the library back home.
“You see it in them walking in large groups even for the simplest of trips.
“You see it in the stares males give the girl in gym tights walking in front of you,” Tshelane said.
Tshelane wasn ’t happy that Rhodes remained unfenced.
“An open campus makes it easier for perpetrators to waltz on to and out of campus unnoticed”.
She said, “all (rape) survivors deserve justice” instead of victimisation.
Rhodes University students protesting outside university premises after a list of alleged rapists on campus was shared on social media. Students protested topless to raise awareness of the rape culture at the university
Durban-born lecturer and visual artist Dr Sharlene Khan said Rhodes was a microcosm of our society.
“If there is an acute sense that women, even in a small town like this are unsafe, and they are, it is indicative of what is happening in the rest of South Africa.”
Khan said she wished that the university had embraced the genuine demands of the Rhodes University Reference group which raised similar issues three years ago.
Khan said the group “demanded greater responsibility and accountability from the university in the first instance, and the Grahamstown community secondly”.
She admitted that the university had to reconsider its policies but believed “these need to be tested as real responses to the abuse crisis that faces this community as more individuals come forward and speak out”.
Overall she called on the institution to identify and stamp out “patriarchal behaviour which is a fundamental part of the culture on this campus”. Even the curriculum had to respond to this crisis.
Rhodes has to introduce “critical gender and race studies as part of a campus-wide programme that all students have to engage in as they go through the university system”. Khan called for “a zero-tolerance response to abuse that is reported”.
Although some students blamed the untoward behaviour on the loneliness and extreme boredom from being stuck in a small town, Khan said while this may be true, it was no excuse for violence against women.
“It is not just about excessive behaviour, but changing cultural norms around the accessibility of women’s bodies that are simply no longer acceptable in a progressive culture.”