The political repression of women whether through detention, restriction, political trials or imprisonment reflects their involvement in all areas of the struggle for liberation.
In July 1989 there were 33 known women political prisoners, including two, Daisy MODISE and Evelina DE BRUIN, under sentence of death. This figure is based on press reports of trials and independent monitoring which is not comprehensive. The real figure may be higher. Moreover, as defendants under 18 years are not named, the number of girls in prison is unknown.
Participation in mass resistance accounts for most women political prisoners as well as those awaiting trial. They have faced such charges as public violence, arson and murder. As trade unionists they have appeared on charges of intimidation following labour disputes. There are women in prison for participating in the armed struggle and women have increasingly been involved in trials related to armed struggle.
Trials recently before the courts in the Eastern Cape involve three women on charges which include 'terrorism' and membership of the ANC. Lauretta Pinky Mengezeleli (33) has been recently convicted with Lizo Grant PITYANA and eight others while Nontobeko Alice ZAZE (33) and Nancy Miseka NGONA (47) are amongst a group of ten awaiting-trial defendants.
A trial in the Western Cape concerned with the ANC's armed struggle involves five women. Jenny SCHREINER (31), Lumka Elizabeth NYAMZA (25), Zuraya ABASS (35), Colleen LOMBARD (38) and Gertrude FESTER (35) were all charged with Tony YENGENI and eight others. Abass and Lombard were granted bail at the start of the trial and Fester in May 1989, a year after her detention. Schreiner and Nyamza have been in custody since late 1987.
Veliswa MHLAWULI (36), and Linda Oriel TSOTSI (32) were charged in March with 'terrorism'. Mhlawuli, who was granted bail, was detained under the Internal Security Act in October 1988, still suffering the effects of an attack by an unknown gunman three months before which blinded her in one eye.
Another trial involves Sheila Moipane Mathabe NYANDA, abducted from Swaziland in May 1987 and detained until November 1988. She appeared in the Bethal Regional Court in June 1989. She is alleged to have undergone military training and worked with Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim who was also kidnapped from Swaziland and is currently serving a 20-year sentence for treason.
High rents, bad housing and poor education are just some of the issues which women have challenged in an organised way. Their organisations have not escaped repression: offices have been raided and members harassed. They have been affected by the lengthy detention and subsequent restriction of officials. For example Ivy GCINA (52), the president of the Port Elizabeth Women's Organisation (PEWO) who was detained in June 1986, and Buyiswa FAZZIE (56), an executive member of PEWo and the Eastern Cape women's organiser of the UDF who was detained in November 1986, were both placed under heavy restrictions on their release on 12 May.
Women have continued to organise and mobilise even under the conditions of extreme repression imposed under the State of Emergency. A recently formed group in the Transvaal is Women Against Repression (WAR). It unites a wide range of women including those in the Federation of Transvaal Women (FEDDRAW) and Black Sash and others involved in student, worker and religious bodies. Launched in response to the hunger strike by detainees in March and to the detention of still more people, WAR's long-term objectives are to co-ordinate the activities of anti-apartheid women's groups, to unite as many women as possible and 'to raise the voice of women in the struggle against apartheid'. As one member said, 'As our name implies, as long as there is repression there is a need for WAR.'
WAR is concerned with conditions for women in custody. Inadequate medical, sanitary and dietary provision, and the constant threat or fact of torture and assault have been revealed by detainees' protests, statements in court, or by prisoners and detainees on their release.
In a case settled out of court in 1988 Rose DIMPE (47) described being strippered naked, blindfolded and tied to a chair for several hours during her detention in 1986. Water was poured over her and electric shocks applied, causing her severe mental shock and permanent physical disability.
Sophie MAHLAELA (19), detained for ten months from May 1988 and restricted on her release, was initially held at a police station where a sack was put over her head and electric shocks applied to her feet, head and back. She was assaulted, thrown against a wall and forced to do constant exercises.
Pumla WILLIAMS (28), currently facing charges of 'terrorism', has endured two years of almost constant solitary confinement. In January the court rejected a statement she made under duress after a member of the Security Branch said that intensive questioning and use of force was justified to extract information from a person regarded as a 'security' threat.
The detention of pregnant women and those held with infants is of special concern. Noma-India MFEKETHO (36) was detained under the emergency regulations with her child of two months in September 1988 and a month later was transferred to detention under the more stringent provisions of the Internal Security Act. Her seven-year-old son was separated from both her and his father who was also in detention. Buyiswa JACK (35) spent six months of her pregnancy in detention before being charged with 'terrorism' and released on bail in May 1989, a few weeks before her child was born.
Thandi MODISE (31), a trained ANC combatant released in 1988 after an eight-year prison sentence, resisted state pressure for the adoption of her child, born a few weeks before her trial. The baby was taken away after only six days and put in the care of her family, even though other women have been allowed to keep their infants with them in custody.
In 1988 women's organisations drew attention to female political prisoners who get less publicity than their male counterparts, are frequently kept in isolation and denied visiting and study rights. Protests by prisoners and people awaiting-trial have exposed the discrimination in conditions for black and white prisoners. The determination of women to struggle against their conditions, despite severe punishments, was revealed in a book by Caesarina MAKHOERE, who was jailed for five years from 1977.
In protest at discrimination between prisoners, the accused in one trial went on hunger strike during 1988. Lumka Nyamza in the section for black women, unlike her co-defendant Jenny Schreiner in the white section, was isolated and had to eat and exercise alone.
Segregation of prisoners and the small number of white political prisoners means that white women also may endure long periods of isolation. A recently convicted prisoner, Susan DONNELLY (34), was kept isolated even after being released from detention and charged, and remained isolated throughout her trial which in June 1989 was postponed to October for sentencing.
