The MEC for Education, Mavhungu Lerule-Ramakhanya, has urged members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Africa (ELCSA) to pray for peace and an end to crime in the province.
Lerule-Ramakhanya addressed hundreds of women from all branches of the Vhuilafuri Parish Prayer Women's League who converged at Zamenkomste on 10 June for their annual women's conference.
The MEC said she found the fact that, so many years into democracy, women were still perceived as sexual objects that men could do with as they wished, even to the extent of raping them, thus eroding their dignity and status as women and mothers of the nation, shocking.
She said she was happy that the church had come up with a conference where women from all walks of life could meet and chart the way forward together. "It is through such gatherings that we as women can sit down and decide on ways that we could contribute to the fight against crime, and the church has offered us the right platform," she said.
Lerule-Ramakhanya urged the women and the church as a whole to pray for the leadership in government, that they live up to their mandate for their constituencies. She strongly encouraged women to blow the whistle on any form of women and child abuse. "Let us women stand up and do something about the crimes perpetuated against women. Criminals are our children, and it is still us who [can] expose them, so that they face the might of the law. If we [do] that, we would see a decline in crime in our locality."
She said that women were playing meaningful roles in making a difference in their respective communities.
The chairperson of the Vhuilafuri Parish Prayer Women's League of the Lutheran Church, Ms Marubini Ramuedzisi, encouraged the women to work hard in order for them to achieve their dreams and to speak out about abuse. "In biblical times, women were faceless and voiceless. They couldn't do anything on their own because they had no freedom to do so. They had to ask a man for everything that needed to be done. I am not saying that women should antagonise their husbands; far be that spirit from us, but a woman should not wait for a man to come into her life before she could do good things to enrich her own life," she said.