Women honour the life and legacy of Khwezi, who passed away in 2016 and took back her name as Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, after a challenging life of struggle, resistance, a love for travel and the rejection of the country of her birth. And 13 years after the rape trial, women insist on telling her story – the story of one their own – themselves.

On Monday, 17 September, the FEZEKA archives and Memory Project hosted the inaugural Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo memorial lecture, to honour the woman widely known as Khwezi, at the SAHRC offices in Braamfontein, and to remember the struggles she withstood against the vitriolic backlash she faced after accusing the then deputy president, Jacob Zuma, of rape.

And in celebration of what would have been her 44th birthday, the inaugural lecture was organised to “archive” the life of a woman whose name is frequently used for political gain without appreciation of who she was, especially at a time when it is politically expedient to do so.