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It's Women's month, so a quick reminder of the horrors faced by women anti-Apartheid activists in prisons is in order
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During Apartheid, women liberation activists were routinely shot and killed, tortured in various ways, and they would also get raped and sent to prison, which was a nightmare, particularly for Black women
In prison, women would face deprivation such as lack of clean clothing, blankets in winter, and other basic needs. Because women do not possess much physical strength, any resistance they mounted would be answered with brutal violence
Because of their gender, women prisoners would be subjected to rape, and some would give in to wardens in exchange for food, blankets, clothing etc. This sexual vulnerability, coupled with menstruation, and even pregnancy made them an easy target to male security guards
Because of their gender and colour of their skin, African women had it the worst in prisons, their conditions were far worse than those of white prisoners: overcrowding and torture, lesser and in some cases unwashed clothing
Women who were kept in solitary confinement kept calendars close by because the lights in the cells were never turned off, making it impossible to tell when the sun rose or set and they would be kept there for at minimum 22 hours each day
Winnie Mandela was kept in solitary confinement under these conditions for 491 days
Non-African prisoners would receive tea or coffee twice a day while African women would only receive it once if at all. Non-Africans would receive pap for lunch, and a slice of bread with dinner while Africans were given samp for lunch and no bread with dinner
Add torture and rape to these material hardships, one can only imagine the level of emotional depression African women encountered, especially when male guards would come to search in their cells:
In an interview in the book Lives of Courage a woman reported that a male guard told her after she had been strip searched that he "really loves interrogating women. I can get things out of them and do things to them that I can’t a man"
Women's work in prison also made things worse. While men worked in the quarry or mining fields and white men would even get paid, women worked inside the prison, cooking and cleaning under supervision, with no wages, and in constant contact with abusive guards and wardens
Things would become even worse for women when other women got involved in their abuse and torture. African women felt betrayed by white women because they "saw the monsters inside the white women just like they saw in the men"
Winnie Mandela: "as the cane lashes at [woman], sometimes a hose pipe, you feel it tearing at you own flesh mercilessly. It’s hard to imagine women inflicting so much punishment"
In prison, women faced the kind of issues that no male prisoner would ever have to deal with: periods, breast sensitivity, birth after being raped in prison, or when they were thrown in jail while pregnant...
"As a woman, you dreaded the commencement of your menstrual period because it became so public under the notice of your interrogators. You had to ask them for sanitary pads. With your menstrual flow, they made you stand interminably as punishment" - Joyce Sikhakhane-Rankin
Some of the torture faced by women specifically regarding their menstrual cycles is too gruesome to describe in detail. (Please see source at bottom of thread)
Women would be kicked and beaten in the stomach and gut area which at times resulted in permanent damage. Some women stopped menstruating or lost the ability to have children. These types of torture made the plight of African women in prisons unique to that of the rest
Women spoke of struggling with lack of sleep and hallucinations of guards walking through doors to search their cells and men attempting to grab and touch them. Scars of of mental health would remain permanently
While in Apartheid imprisonment, Black women survived gender-based violence and indignities only their gender could experience. This makes them some of the toughest, if not the toughest survivors of Apartheid brutality. Happy Women's month to all the strong Black women out there
