Organisers have said 98,000 ‘maidens’ were transported
in 80 buses to attend Swaziland’s Reed Dance where they would dance half-naked
in front of King Mswati III. But newspapers and social media have disputed the
figure.
Innocent
Maphalala, the editor of the Times
Sunday, one of the kingdom’s few independent newspapers, wrote this would
mean each bus would have carried 1,225 girls on each journey or
each bus would have to make 15 trips.
Newspapers
reported each of Swaziland’s four regions was given 20 buses. The main Reed
Dance ceremony took place on Monday (29 August 2016) at the Ludzidzini palace.
Reed Dance Overseer Hlangabeza Mdluli was
reported in the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by
King Mswati, saying that ‘safety was made a priority for the maidens’.
The SABC
in South Africa quoted Mdludi saying, ‘We used buses to transport the girls this year, this shows that things
have changed and we want our people to be safe.’
The emphasis on ‘safety’ followed a tragedy at last
year’s Reed Dance when 13 women and children died when the open backed truck
they were travelling was involved in a collision. The dead were thrown clear of
the truck.
The number of dead was
disputed, with the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN)
putting the figure at 38.
Photographs later revealed the maidens were
being transported like cattle. The girls were forced
to stand up in the back of an open truck cheek-by-jowl. There was no space to
sit down or even to turn around. Photographs showed that at least sixty
children were squashed onto the back of a single truck. Many of the trucks that
transported the girls were usually used to move building materials.
Tens of thousands of young girls from across Swaziland
are forced to travel in similar trucks to attend the Reed Dance where they are
expected to dance topless in front of Swaziland’s King Mswati, sub-Saharan
Africa’s last absolute monarch. Media in Swaziland routinely describe the girls
that dance for the 48-year-old King as ‘virgins’ or ‘maidens.’
See also
SWAZI
MAIDENS LEARN POLITICAL SONGS
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2016/08/swazi-maidens-learn-political-songs.html
No comments:
Post a Comment