In a country with high rates of gender-based violence, Diepsloot has come to represent the convergence of all the factors contributing to abuse against women. Photograph: Delwyn Verasamy/Mail & Guardian In a neighbourhood where the 3km walk to the police station can be deadly, the Green Door is not so much a doorway as a tall gate built into an even taller concrete wall – the kind South Africans refer to as a “stop nonsense.” Behind it, in Lekekela’s front yard, is a wooden shed with beds and basin a safe place where women can report abuse.īrown Lekekela started his own shelter for women, the Green Door, behind secure fencing in a shed in his front yard. Lekekela heard a version of this story so many times that he started his own shelter, a halfway way house literally situated between the community and the police station. “Some would survive if a car comes by while they are raping her or before she was killed.” “There were incidents of women being killed on the street,” said Lekekela, who used to work as a volunteer at the local police station. It’s a safe space women can run to in the middle of the night – or sometimes in the middle of the day – if they are experiencing abuse from their partners. Brown Lekekela has barely taken a weekend or holiday off since starting the Green Door shelter in the heart of the community.
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