Namibian Anti-Femicide Protestors Call to #ShutItAllDown

Cape fur seals are the only marine mammal species endemic to the continent of Africa. This week, thousands of pups were found dead in Central Namibia. [Creative Commons]

Hundreds of protestors took to the streets of Windhoek, Namibia, on October 10 after the discovery of the remains of 22-year old Shannon Wasserfall, who went missing in April. Police detained 24 protestors, who were mostly women and included four journalists, for holding a public gathering without proper notification. The prosecutor’s office dropped the charges against the group on October 12, though the victims now allege wrongful arrest.

Claiming that the use of tear gas to disperse the protest constituted excessive force, the arrested protesters have now taken steps “to institute legal action against the Inspector General of the Namibian Police for unlawful arrest and detention,” according to Samson Enkali, one of the lawyers representing the group.

Mobilizing through social media under the hashtag #ShutItAllDown, the anti-femicide protest is part of a larger movement against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Namibia. Protester Leebus Hashikutuva said of the movement: “The revolution will not only be televised but it will also be tweeted and Instagrammed. We are using the power of social media as a collective.”  

According to recent reports, police have received 200 sexual violence claims per month and  responded to more than 1,600 cases of rape between January 2019 and June 2020. Namibian Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila stated that police received 107,403 reports of gender-based violence between 2014 and July 2018. 

Activists highlight that government-mandated lockdowns in response to COVID-19 have exacerbated the rate of intimate partner violence and femicide in Namibia, as victims of abuse now have fewer routes by which to escape their tormentors. In one high-profile case, the boyfriend of 27-year-old Gwashiti Tomas allegedly murdered her and then proceeded to take his own life.

In a petition addressed to the National Assembly, the movement called on Namibian President Hage Geingob to declare a state of emergency over SGBV, review sentencing laws against sex offenders, and immediately dismiss the current Minister of Gender Equality, Doreen Sioka. The petition also proposed a series of reforms to the Ministry of Education, Namibian Institutions of Higher Learning, and the Private Sector of Namibia. 

In a statement issued October 11, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said that the government stood in total agreement with the demands of protestors.

“There’s a culture of silence in place to keep women and children from speaking out,” said Ndapwa Alweendo, spokesperson for the Sister Namibia, a local women’s rights organization. “There’s a stigma about coming out as a survivor of any kind of violence. This has been a problem in the country since the fight for independence.”

She attributes the lack of reform to a schism between the demands of protestors and governmental response. “The plans exist, but they are not being put into action. There’s a back-and-forth between government and civil society. Criticism of the government is often seen as an attack.”

Activists from the Association of Medical Students of Namibia (AMSNA) began to formulate community-based solutions to SGBV earlier this year. Led by activist Tuwilika Nafuka, AMSNA petitioned for a digital sex offenders registry called called I Am Not Next Namibia (or Ianna).

Ianna would include instructions on how to report SGBV, as well as photographs and fingerprints of offenders in order to inform the public. 

“In 2015 there was an amendment to the Rape Act that allowed for the implementation of a sex offenders registry; the only question is when are they going to implement it?” Nafuka said.

The Popular Democratic Party parliamentarian Nico Smit openly criticized Police Chief Sebastian Ndeitunga for a lack of accountability in response to SGBV.

"We have come to expect that a criminal will only be arrested and charged if they are caught red-handed at the scene of a crime or if they hand themselves over to the police or are pointed out by the community,” Smit said. “Investigation is no longer part of the skillset of the Namibian police. Since everyone knows this, criminals continue to rampage through our society, knowing they have nothing to fear from the police."