KZN Churches Call On Communities To Say No To Femicide And Children Abuse

Following a public outcry over violence and femicide, KwaZulu-Natal churches have called on all communities to stand together and say no to the scourge and other persistent social ills including substance abuse.

EThekwini Community Church’s Bishop Vusi Dube said that religious groups believed that unity and prayers could help overcome the societal ills.

“As the church, we strongly believe that prayer is an invitation for divine intervention as our society battles social ills including rampant abuse of substances; all forms of violence in communities, random murders of women and children, as well as the raping of women and children,” he said.

EThekwini Community Church through a campaign,called ‘One Nation One Voice’ which is set to be launched in September, has worked with Isolezwe Newspaper in a campaign called “Sekwanele”.

This new campaign came in the wake of Zolile Khumalo’s death, a twenty-one-year old student from Mangosuthu University of Technology who was shot death at a residence; where numerous women who died through femicide were remembered.

The “One Nation One Voice” campaign is aimed at creating awareness about the prevalence of women and children abuse, and to promote love in communities. Bishop Dube also said that strides have been made by the government to raise awareness but there was still a room for support from communities.

“God is our last line of defense in times like these and we need to remind people not to turn their backs from the almighty. There have been number of efforts done by the government and we strongly believe that government needs support and commitment of the communities to expose those involved in anything that seeks to destroy our nation,” Dube said.

Dr Taki Dube of the ECC said the campaign also seek to target different races, ages, genders, the abused, and the young women who have been labelled as ‘slay queens’ to join hands and fight against the scourge of women ‘selling their souls’ to the ‘enemy’.

“We call upon everyone even the young women who are called slay queens, who end up dying for weaves. We need the women who feel as though they don’t have anyone to talk to to know that we are here for them,” she said.

On 30 June a march to say ‘enough is enough’ will be held in the Durban CBD.

Featured image via Flickr.