Johannesburg – The
Springbok women's captain, Babalwa Latsha, said on Thursday that
the rugby field is one of the few places she feels safe in South
Africa, where a woman is murdered every three hours.
The 25-year-old star said the South African men's first
Rugby World Cup win under a black captain on Saturday had
"ignited a flame" in her team to win the 2021 women's World Cup.
"No one can attack you on a rugby field. No man can point a
gun at you, hurt you, throw a fist at you. We feel safe there,
but we should feel safe everywhere," Latsha said in a phone
interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
About 3,000 women in South Africa were murdered in 2018,
which is more than five times higher than the global average,
according to the World Health Organization.
Latsha, who comes from one of Cape Town's biggest townships,
Khayelitsha, said the women's team had "drawn strength from the
men's team, and also from themselves as women" to qualify for
the upcoming World Cup in New Zealand.
Latsha's love for rugby came quite late in life, at the age
of 20, when a rugby-training programme called Vuka came to
Khayelitsha to train and search for grassroots talent.
"I fell in love with the sport," said Latsha. "It gave me a
sense of belonging, ownership and power. It is the one place
where I can just be myself fully, without worrying who will
think what or say what about me."
Latsha said she has spent her life answering to people "with
the audacity to ask about my gender" for being very muscular.
"People in the street will stare at me, or walk up to me and
ask why I look the way I do. You just have to develop a thick
skin," she said.
"The truth is, to society, my body is an anomaly but on the
rugby field it is a marvel."
Latsha said she felt for Caster Semenya, South Africa's
double Olympic champion who has hyperandrogenism, a medical
condition, and was barred by The International Association of
Athletics Federations (IAAF) because of her testosterone levels.
"It is heartbreaking what she has been through as a woman,"
said Latsha, referring to the global athletics governing body's
requirement that Semenya take hormonal drugs that made her feel
sick to lower her testosterone levels.
"Someone of that calibre, with such a natural strength and
prowess, has had to be curtailed to be herself. She is the best
in the world. The world needs to rise up to her level."
According to the World Rugby rankings, the South African
women's team is the best is Africa and 15th globally.
Latsha, also a law graduate, hopes to set up a sporting
agency for women, which would educate them about their rights to
equality and freedom from discrimination, as well as providing
mentorship and training to thrive in the sporting world.
"Sport can educate, empower and break down stereotypes about
women," said Latsha.
"Women are taught to be submissive and this contributes to
the normalisation of violence against women. The least we can do
as sportspeople is to continue to be trailblazers who refuse to
accept that is normal."
After mass protests against gender based violence in
September, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced plans to
strengthen the criminal justice system and train counsellors.
"We are created for greatness," said Latsha. "(The
Springboks') win has shown us our own dreams are not too big,
too wild, too impossible to achieve."