Interrogating: i am ALL GIRLS
On May 14, 2021, Netflix premiered Donavan Marsh’s chilling film about a global sex trafficking syndicate. i am ALL GIRLS sees South African actresses Hlubi Mboya in the lead role as ‘Ntombizonke’, a troubled but powerful detective with a dark, ugly secret and Erica Wessels who plays her unlikely confidant and emotionally-troubled colleague, ‘Jodie Snyman’ embark on an investigation to solve murders connected to missing persons cases during Apartheid.
Elements of South Africa’s apartheid regime and resistance, to this day, are shrouded in secrecy. The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu sought to bring what was done in the dark to the light when he spearheaded the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995. However, in retrospect, hoping that individuals who had no intention of living equally with carried on and expected apartheid regime enforcers to fear criminal prosecution more than the entitlement enshrined in their whiteness.
As to be expected, many didn’t fear criminal prosecution, and in the last year of National Party rule, file destruction to cover up their crimes was commonplace. Thus making building a criminal case nearly impossible. For this reason, the true storyline of i am ALL GIRLS is even more disturbing.
While parts of i am ALL GIRLS is fictitious, the relationship between the Apartheid regime and sex trafficking is true. While democracy for all was achieved in 1994, by 2021, South Africa had been named gender-based violence capital of the world. In recent weeks, the news of a gang rape in Krugersdorp, South Africa topped every local news cycle and sparked national discourse.
In a statement by Global Citizen 2021 Hero Award recipients, Wise 4 Afrika purports that women in South Africa are being subjected to war-time experiences. “Gender-based violence, particularly rape is a known and well documented method of war. It would seem as if the men in South Africa, regardless of race, nation, or creed, are waging war against women and every day that our government fails to intervene in a way that grants women their constitutional right to safety, they sanction the continuation of this terror.”
In some ways, i am ALL GIRLS depicts a story of revenge and triumph. For this reason, it’s clear that this film is a movie instead of a documentary. Women in South Africa are a far cry from experiencing triumph while living under a government that fails to guarantee our human right to safety.
