"Stop killing our women and children."

The Rinae Sengani Foundation, a non-profit organisation which speaks out against violence against women and children, sends a public message to all people in Vhembe district and even beyond to refrain from all acts of violence against women and children.

This is in line with the 16 Days of Activism for no violence against women and children, where the organisation is currently running campaigns on women and children abuse.

“We attended the provincial launch and the Makhado Municipality launch and we are currently running campaigns with the SAPS Victim Empowerment Programmes. We go to local clinics, misanda (chiefs' kraals) and community halls to address our women about violence,” said the foundation's director, Ms Rinae Sengani.

The foundation is also busy with court cases where four women, Portia Rasilavhi, Tiny Musundwa, Glenda Radzilani and Susan Mabala, were allegedly viciously murdered. “The above-mentioned names are not statistics, but are human beings who had the right to live. Their lives were cut short by their partners,” Sengani said.

She stated that the foundation had been supporting these families in and out of the court. “I'm proud to say that we can see progress in all these cases. The accused were either denied bail or they refused to be granted bail, because of the pressure of the cases,” she said. “We mobilise and go to support the families. We want to see justice taking place in all cases where women have been abused.”

She said that the foundation was not limited in celebrating women and children's worth and their rights to safe lives only during the 16 Days of Activism. “It should be every single day of the year,” she said.

“We as the foundation say ‘count us in, spare a life’, and we need everyone to also count themselves in that we fight this demon of violence that is spreading so fast.”

Rinae Sengani Foundation is available on Facebook.

News - Date: 10 December 2017

Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

Email: [email protected]