{"id":2866,"date":"2022-02-21T15:58:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T15:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel"},"modified":"2022-02-21T19:10:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T19:10:38","slug":"women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel","title":{"rendered":"Women live in fear and despair in South African hostel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Seychelles. <\/strong><\/span>In one of South Africa’s roughest townships, an overcrowded and dilapidated housing complex has maintained one rule for decades: No men allowed.<\/p>\n

Sitting in a concrete hallway, Brenda fumes. The electricity went off the night before, with no sign of when it might return. She had nothing for supper. Breakfast was water and bread.<\/p>\n

“There’s nothing good here,” said the 62-year-old, who declined to give her last name.<\/p>\n

“No electricity, no water. Nothing is good here.”<\/p>\n

A nearby puddle gives off a nauseating smell, overflow from the communal toilets.<\/p>\n

She first stepped into this complex, which South Africans call a hostel, more than 40 years ago when she moved from her village to the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, hoping to find a better life.<\/p>\n

Since then, democracy arrived. Her hair turned grey, she gained some weight. Her dreams for life in Johannesburg disappeared.<\/p>\n

Sparkling high-rises rose up across the highway in Sandton, the city’s financial hub known as the richest square mile in Africa.<\/p>\n

But she’s spent all those decades living at the hostel: Eight blocks of flats, five floors each, designed like a prison. Laundry hangs in the hallways. Litter covers the yard.<\/p>\n

Her neighbours in this hostel are 8,000 other women, plus 3,000 children. Many were born here. On this morning, many were playing outside, during school hours.<\/p>\n

– ‘Hostel wars’ –<\/b><\/p>\n

Each flats comprises a single room, with a single mattress, but lots of inhabitants.<\/p>\n

The rent is cheap, about 100 rand ($6) a month, but it’s rarely paid.<\/p>\n

Originally these hostels were built by the white supremacist apartheid government to house black men on the edge of South Africa’s cities.<\/p>\n

The men often worked in the mines. Women weren’t allowed, so their families had to stay behind.<\/p>\n

After apartheid, the hostels became popular with Zulus who came to seek their fortunes in the country’s economic heart.<\/p>\n

The hostels are glaring reminders of both South Africa’s dark past and its current troubles. They are so synonymous with crime that police will not always go in.<\/p>\n

Successive governments have promised to overhaul the hostels, but there’s no sign of the promised money.<\/p>\n

And unemployment in South Africa is at record highs, hitting black women the hardest.<\/p>\n

The overall rate is 34.9 percent, but it is 41.5 percent for black women. For white women, the rate is 9.9 percent.<\/p>\n

In the early 1990s, South Africa suffered through the “hostel wars”, when the residences became the scene of deadly clashes.<\/p>\n

Supporters of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress battled the Inkatha Freedom Party, which was secretly backed by white security forces. Hundreds of people died.<\/p>\n

– ‘I don’t have a choice’ –<\/b><\/p>\n

In the stairs of the Helen Joseph Women’s Hostel, an ANC poster still clings to a wall.<\/p>\n

Built in 1972, the hostel has survived decades of change. But the threat of violence remains terrifyingly real.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, a woman was raped and stabbed to death down the corridor from what is now Nomvelo Nqubuko’s room. No one was ever arrested, the 28-year-old said.<\/p>\n

“We live in fear but I don’t have a choice,” she said. “I have to stay here.”<\/p>\n

In a country where a rape is reported to police every 12 minutes, women here have create their own warning system, said Patronella Brown.<\/p>\n

At 32, she’s lived here for five years. If there’s an attack, residents can blow a whistle and their neighbours will arrive in force to dispense vigilante justice.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a decent place for anyone to stay,” said Brown. “It’s not a place to raise kids.”<\/p>\n

She recalls newborns being found in the rubbish, their corpses wrapped in plastic shopping bags.<\/p>\n

“Life is painful here,” she said.<\/p>\n

For the kids who grew up behind the building’s broken windows, their world hardly extends beyond the walls.<\/p>\n

Phokgedi Lekga was born here, and has never known any home other than the tiny room she shares with her mother.<\/p>\n

“The future? It’s so blurry,” she said, taking a drag from a joint.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Seychelles<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Seychelles. In one of South Africa’s roughest townships, an overcrowded and dilapidated housing complex has maintained one rule for decades: No men allowed. Sitting in a concrete hallway, Brenda fumes. The electricity went off the night before, with no sign of when it might return. She had nothing for supper. Breakfast was water […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":2865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,13,16],"tags":[234,268,763,761,762,760,233,757],"class_list":["post-2866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-social","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-seychelles","tag-apartheid","tag-insecurity","tag-johannesburg","tag-poverty","tag-seychelles","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen live in fear and despair in South African hostel - Seychelles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In one of South Africa's roughest townships, an overcrowded and dilapidated housing complex has maintained one rule for ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women live in fear and despair in South African hostel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In one of South Africa's roughest townships, an overcrowded and dilapidated housing complex has maintained one rule for ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Seychelles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-21T15:58:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-02-21T19:10:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/sites\/30\/2022\/02\/img-6213e38e64bba.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Women live in fear and despair in South African hostel\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-21T15:58:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-02-21T19:10:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel\"},\"wordCount\":698,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/sites\/30\/2022\/02\/img-6213e38e64bba.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Seychelles\",\"Apartheid\",\"Insecurity\",\"Johannesburg\",\"Poverty\",\"Seychelles\",\"Women\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Social\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/seychelles\/all-news\/women-live-in-fear-and-despair-in-south-african-hostel\",\"name\":\"Women live in fear and despair in South African hostel - 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