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Hear our Voice by Andrea Hobson - The Northern Lights Duo
LIVE recording from Rendalen Low Brass Seminar 2025, Ytre Rendal kirke 20th of June.
"Hear Our Voice" is a four-movement cycle that gives voice to four women — Lefu, Annemie, Zehar, and Behati — each of whom has experienced profound suffering at the hands of violence, silence, and injustice. These are not abstract stories; they are drawn from the lived experiences of people I know personally, as well as reports and articles from across South Africa.
Each movement reflects the emotional and psychological landscape of these women’s stories — not only their pain, but also their resilience, strength, and the often-overlooked dignity in survival. The names are real, the emotions are raw, and the statistics that underpin their stories are taken from police reports and government sources.
Writing this piece was both an act of witness and a call for attention — to the lives behind the headlines, and to the ongoing crisis of violence against women. Hear My Voice is not just a title — it is a plea, a demand, and a reminder that these voices matter.
Hear our Voice
By Andrea Hobson For Bente Illevold & Dave Earll
This piece is written for four people and their stories.
1. Lefu Invasion is death.
These numbers are not just statistics; they represent lives, stories,
and experiences that are lived in this world.
In the United States, it’s said that one in three women—one in three—
will experience some form of unwanted sexual attention or harm in their lifetime.
One in five will face more serious forms of harm.
In South Africa, one in five women will experience some form of sexual harm.
And every year, one in nine will experience an event that changes their lives.
In Germany, one in ten women will experience some form of
sexual violence in their lifetime.
And every year, one in twenty women will face an event that changes
their lives, such as severe sexual assault.
In Norway, one in ten women—one in ten—will face unwanted sexual attention.
And in some communities, that number rises to one in seven.
These aren’t just numbers. These are people—our sisters, our mothers, our daughters.
Each movement represents a person and their story.
This movement is dedicated to a luminary who, in 2019, was senselessly taken from us.
2. Annemie The unwilling mother. Bitter grace.
Motherhood is a gift, they say, But for too many, it’s a sentence, A burden borne of violence, A body held captive by others’ hands. One in three women across the world bear children not by choice, But by trauma, Their stories unread, Their pain ignored. Unthanked, Unacknowledged, These mothers are forced to nurture From ashes not of their making. We owe them more than silence, More than hollow gratitude or judgement . We owe them a world Where motherhood is a choice, Not the consequence of violence.
3. Zehar Starvation is poison.
Daily Maverick, South Africa 7 August 2023: "A debt collector looking for repayment of a loan found the bodies of a Butterworth woman and her three children at their home on Sunday morning. It is understood that she had poisoned her small children by mixing the last food in the house with rat poison. Her teenage daughter died after she was stabbed in the throat. The mother then hanged herself. Family members said the woman was deeply in debt and the family had been starving for weeks."
4. Behati Hear my voice. It is a blessing.
If Africa were a woman, She would rise with the dawn,
Her spine the mountain’s backbone, Her heart, the endless song.
Flexible like water, Flowing, shifting, adapting, Silent like stone,
yet ever speaking, Her presence, quietly impacting.
She is the whisper of the baobab, Rooted deep, yet always stretching,
Her strength not from brute force, But from the quiet wisdom she's fetching.
Ferocious like the lioness, Fierce in her love and might, She is the roar of justice,
The shadow in the night.
Knowledge of the ages, Like the elephant’s wise gaze, Her mind is the library of history,
Tales that wander through the days.
If Africa were a woman, She would hold the earth in her hand, A fierce, eternal, gentle force— The heartbeat of this land.
動画公開 2025-07-15
情報取得 2026-10-20
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