Twelve years on, Marikana remains infamous for the massacre that occurred in 2012, when a multitude of mineworkers sacrificed their lives in pursuit of a wage increase.
However, not all is gloom and doom, because mam’ Thumeka Mgwangqana, a former community leader and now a gender-based violence activist, formed an anti-GBV organisation that combats related cases in the community of Wonderkop, in Marikana, North West.
The organisation, Sinethemba Women’s Organisation, which has been operating for five years, was established in 2018. It strives to not only to empower women in the community, but has a mission to combat cases of abuse against women and children.
Mgwangqana said the organisation was sponsored by Ford Foundation and Oxfam South Africa (OZA), a social justice organisation that works to eradicate poverty and gender inequality.
Mgwangqana explained that there was an immense number of GBV cases in Wonderkop, where women and children are raped and cases of domestic violence and femicide abound.
“In this community, GBV cases are extreme, to an extent where we had a case where a father raped his daughter,” she said.
She added families lived in one-bedroomed apartments that were too small to accommodate families. This was why children witnessed abuse in households, with their parents fighting in front of them.
The apartments, also known as baraxes, are owned by Sibanye Stillwater employees, in particular mineworkers. The mineworkers, who don’t receive a subsidy from the mine as a housing allowance, rent out these flats.
Asked whether Wonderkop’s local South African Police Service (SAPS) takes GBV cases seriously, she said the police did not follow up on reported cases. As a result, most cases go unreported and there’s no social justice.
She noted that the community of Wonderkop, instead took the law into its own hands – mob justice. “A girl was shot for no reason. The people who shot her knocked at her door, and just shot her. There was no house break-in, or even an attempted robbery.
“That was why the community killed the people who murdered her. The community used tyres and fire to kill these people,” she said.
Furthermore, Mgwanqana explained that she had a workshop that empowered the community. She runs stalls where she sells beadwork and traditional regalia, more especially on Heritage Day.
Her workshop operates where she lives from Monday to Friday. They cook for the community. But, she emphasised her workshop did not aim to tackle youth unemployment, although when she makes a bit of profit and there’s funding, she pays the people who helped her R2 000 each.
Also, her workshop has sponsored community sports outreach programmes. “We had donated R4 000 for a community soccer which happened last week,” she said.