Staging Reverberations of Past Events: A Documentation and Analysis of the Poetics and Politics of Sibikwa Theatre’s Chapter 2, Section 9

Appendix 1: The list of names of murdered women. Compiled by Janneke Strijdonk, Sibikwa

LUCIA NAIDOO (19), Katlehong, March 2016 Stabbed to death, meters from her home, on the night of her birthday. Her body was found by her mother.

MATSHIDISO PASCALINA MELAMU (19), Everton, December 2015 Kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered. Her burnt body was found in the veld two days later, her eyes had been cut out and her genitals were mutilated.

PHOEBE TITUS (30), Wellesley, December 2015 Stabbed to death in broad daylight by a 15-year old boy. After being verbally abused by the teenager, she was killed with a knife handed to the boy by a bystander. Phoebe tried to get away but bleeding profusely, she collapsed and died about 500 metres down the road.

THEMBELIHLE SOKHELA, Daveyton, September 2014 Lihle was raped and killed by someone she knew and trusted as a brother in her own home. The smell of her decomposing body led to the discovery of her remains which were found under the bed.

PATRICIA MASHIGO (36), Daveyton, April 2014 The body of Patricia, the mother of two children, was discovered in the veld. She was raped and appeared to have been stoned to death.

SIHLE SKOTSHI (19), Phillipi, November 2012 Murdered on her way to a friend’s home when five or more men from the Amavura gang confronted her and started cursing her; she was brutally attacked by all of them, while one pulled out a mini spear and stabbed Sihle in the chest. She died shortly after the attack.

SANNA SUPA (28), Soweto, July 2013 Shot three times while opening the gate to the driveway of her home in Braamfischerville.

PHUMEZA NKOLONZI (22), Nyanga, June 2012 Shot three times in front of her mother and niece, the gunman broke down the door and started firing at Phumeza without saying a word, leaving her dead and her family traumatised.

ZOLISWA NKONYANA (19), Khayelitsha, 2011 Brutally clubbed, kicked and beaten to death by a mob of twenty young men who chased her through the streets, pelted her with bricks, and finally killed her with a golf club a few metres from her home.

EUDY SIMELANE (31), Kwa-Thema, April 2008 Was killed on her way home. The forensic report showed she was raped and stabbed 25 times in the face, chest, and legs. The sentencing of her killers was central to bringing attention to attacks against the LGBTI community, however Judge Ratha Mokgoatleng did not establish sexual orientation as a motive for her death.

SIZAKELA SIGASA (34) & SALOME MASOOA (23), Soweto, December 2007 Brutally raped and murdered in Meadowlands, Soweto. They were first tortured and then killed, Sizakele was found with her hands tied behind her neck, with her underpants, her ankles tied together with her shoelaces, with three bullet holes in her head and three in her collarbone. Salome had been shot through the back of her head.

SIMANGELE NHLAPO (26), Soweto, June 2007 Simangele and her two-year old daughter were both raped and murdered; the little girl’s legs had also been broken.

Appendix 2: Extracts from the Proposal document. Received by e-mail 7/052016

While some 38 of Africa’s 55 countries criminalise homosexuality, South Africa by way of contrast became the first country in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation when introducing its new Constitution in 1996. Under the apartheid regime, homosexuality had been a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison for men, although not for women whose sexuality, in line with other former British colonies, was not even recognised.

Among the countries for which statistics are available, South Africa has the highest rates of reported sexual violence against women in a country not at war. According to a survey conducted by the South African Government in 2009, one in four men admit to having sex with a woman who did not consent and nearly half of these men admitted to raping more than once. The inclusion of the equality act in the Constitution was globally seen as a victory for the LGBTIQ people. Laws protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and intersex citizens from employment discrimination followed in 1998, while legislation permitting same-sex marriage and civil unions entered the statue books eight years later.

Despite these progressive laws, LGBTIQ persons are unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their gender, gender identity, sex, and/or sexual orientation which too often manifests itself in the form of violent crimes including assault, often with grievous bodily harm, rape, murder, or any combination of these. Lesbian and transgender women face double marginalisation, both as women and as women who have sex with women; more than ten lesbians are raped or gang-raped weekly, as estimated by Lulekisizwe NPO, and it is estimated that at least five hundred 500 lesbians become victims of ‘corrective rape,’ so-coined in an attempt to evoke rapists’ justification for attacks on women who defy socially prescribed gender codes.