In one of South Africa's roughest townships, an overcrowded and dilapidated housing complex has maintained one rule for decades: No men allowed.
Eight blocks of flats, five floors each, designed like a prison.
8,000 women, plus 3,000 children.
Each flat comprises a single room, with a single mattress, but lots of inhabitants. The rent is cheap, about 100 rand ($6) a month, but it's rarely paid.
Originally these hostels were built by the white supremacist apartheid government to house black men on the edge of South Africa's cities. The men often worked in the mines. Women weren't allowed, so their families had to stay behind.
After apartheid, the hostels became popular with Zulus who came to seek their fortunes in the country's economic heart.
Successive governments have promised to overhaul the hostels, but there's no sign of the promised money.
And unemployment in South Africa is at record highs, hitting black women the hardest. The overall rate is 34.9 percent, but it is 41.5 percent for black women. For white women, the rate is 9.9 percent.
Built in 1972, the Helen Joseph Women's Hostel has survived decades of change. But the threat of violence remains terrifyingly real. A few years ago, a woman was raped and stabbed to death in one of the corridors. No one was ever arrested, the 28-year-old said.
"We live in fear but I don't have a choice," she said. "I have to stay here."
In a country where a rape is reported to police every 12 minutes, women here have create their own warning system. If there's an attack, residents can blow a whistle and their neighbours will arrive in force to dispense vigilante justice.
"It's not a decent place for anyone to stay," saidPatronella Brown. At 32, she's lived here for five years. "It's not a place to raise kids. Life is painful here," she said.
Women live in fear and despair in South African hostel (yahoo.com)
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