Dear Editor,
Once again the lives of two women have been snuffed out.
Dionne Stephens a mother of four children, died at the cruel hands of her husband, the children left in care of their grandmother.
Sheema Mangar was at the brink of her life and career, but was killed, apparently by a stranger who stole her cell phone, leaving her mother, father and brother to mourn.
The first is a case of domestic violence, the second case is not. But they are similar because both involve the deaths of women in their prime, with relatives who need them, and because both cases show that women’s lives are cheap.
According to information we have gathered from the press, seventeen women were murdered for the period January to September 2010. Out of the seventeen murders, seven were arrested and placed before the court, four disappeared, one committed suicide and in five cases no arrest was made. In other words, fewer than half the men alleged to have committed these murders are facing justice.
Some of the men that brutally murdered these women seem to have the view that they can get off easily, especially if they have money or friends in high authority, or they can just disappear knowing they would not be caught.
We demand justice for Sheema Mangar and Dionne Stephens, and all our sisters who are victims of domestic violence.
Yours faithfully,
Shirley Shaffeek
Vanessa Ross
Red Thread/Grassroots Women
Across Race
