Thirteen years ago, Andy Kawa decided to take a walk on one of the beaches in her hometown of Gqeberha before catching a flight back to Johannesburg where she now lives. What happened on that Kings Beach walk set off a chain of events that would drag her life away from the moment of serenity she had sought to a protracted nightmare. Abducted and gang-raped for 15 hours in the sand dune bushes, she was later repeatedly let down by the legal system.
Her loved ones reported her missing when she did not return. Police found her car parked near the beach before midnight and started looking for her while she was still with the gang of rapists. The search would be a comedy of errors save for the devastating effects. Reading the details of various police searches that never made effective use of resources — such as search dogs, a helicopter and several police officers who could have combed the area effectively — is devastating. The police bungling led to her being gang-raped for several additional hours. The failure to examine car park camera footage timeously, as well as subpar evidence processing after she reported her rape, drove Kawa to sue the police minister. She made her way to Humewood Police Station with the help of joggers she stumbled upon the following morning. Her rapists have never been found.
I walk the length of the beach from Humewood to the end of Summerstrand regularly in the mornings and late afternoons. Sometimes I follow the footpaths, while at others I walk on the actual beach and watch it turn from sand, to bush, to rocky beach, and then back again. As I do so, I encounter people of all ages walking, surfing, sitting on benches, running and loitering for reasons similar to Kawa’s. We all come to this beach like her, as individuals, as families, couples, friend groups and associations for exercise, to meditate, pray, to clear our heads and for many other reasons.
This past Thursday, I was a panellist at an event that reflected on Kawa’s legal victory in April last year — although the fight continues to ensure she gets full legal recourse. The Constitutional Court found the police liable for negligent police work and psychopathological harm. During Thursday’s event, the representatives from her lawyers, Zelda Damons of BLC Attorneys, the amicus curiae Wits Centre for Applied Legal Studies and Wize4Afrika’s adv Brenda Madumise-Pajibo underlined the extent of the legal battle that never should have been.
Leigh-Ann van der Merwe, who supported Kawa as part of the Commission for Gender Equality, reminded us to reflect on how many people have been in predicaments similar to Kawa’s without the resources to fight this battle. Far from minimising the cost to Kawa, Van der Merwe’s insistence was on the scale of the problem even after survivors report.
All the while, I was struck by how hard the minister of police fought to avoid taking responsibility for the blatant failures of the police. They had an opportunity to rescue Kawa and to hold her rapists accountable. The case remains unsolved. The picture is grim: resources to deliver what was legally and constitutionally due to Kawa, on the one hand, and the substantive resources and the will to fight her in court for over a decade, on the other.
At the event, Kawa spoke on the meanings and felt effects of such a victory. She drew particular attention to the unpredictable, far reaching, catastrophic effects of her rape and the toll that her legal fight had taken. I listened as she used the word “tsunami” to describe it, and reflected on a recent statement by her daughter who was 22 at the time of the rape. She pointed out that after her mother had been gang-raped, she too went through the experience in the aftermath. This daughter’s life had also been devastatingly altered.
I was struck by how hard the minister of police fought to avoid taking responsibility for the blatant failures of the police
There is enormous pressure on victims and survivors to report rape, on the assumption that police will act responsibly and appropriately once such reports are made. The pressure continues alongside now commonplace acknowledgement of how much the police and courts fail women who report.
Kawa, her family and loved ones did everything they could. Yet, the police failed her. They had many hours during which to apprehend her rapists in the act, to launch an effective investigation afterwards, and to shorten Kawa’s ordeal. The Constitutional Court pointed out how many opportunities the police squandered between midnight and 1.30am. Yet, the police found very effective means to fight Kawa after the fact in court to avoid taking responsibility.
We spend much time reflecting on what society should do to deal with our rape crisis. This case highlights the devastating lack of responsibility many complainants deal with. After the event, Kawa’s crisis counsellor at Rape Crisis Gqeberha came to talk to me specifically. It is important work, but as we chatted — one trained Rape Crisis lay counsellor to another, even though my days at Rape Crisis Observatory and Khayelitsha are long behind me — we were struck by how much has changed and yet how little in what survivors experience once they report to the criminal justice system.
And here is the nub: Kawa’s stubborn courage, and the unflinching determination of her legal teams, must be applauded and remembered. We dare not look away from the scale of this battle and victory. Here, I mean both the legal court victory as well as the substantial changes that have been made to the ability of members of the public to access and enjoy Kings Beach because of Kawa’s fight. We must also remember that this is one victory, “a battle won in a long war”, to use Kawa’s words on Thursday morning. More than once, she also remarked on the ways in which we celebrate the changes and advances we enjoy because of women’s battles, but we rarely reflect on the costs.
As Kawa continues to fight in the courts, and to pay for the emotional and physical effects of surviving rape and a long legal battle, may we always remember both. Rape casts a very long shadow on the human beings at the centre of it. It is not an abstract violence representable with high statistics and practical measures.
• Gqola is a professor at the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at Nelson Mandela University and the author of 'Rape: A South African Nightmare', which won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for Non-Fiction in 2016
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