Three Gender-Based Violence (GBV) survivors and activists who arrived in Swakopmund after walking 370 kilometres from Windhoek say suicide is not a solution to GBV.
Reverend June Dolley Major, a South African national, has urged survivors to speak out and for communities to stop shaming them.
Major says she got a vision from God to walk long distances with the aim of creating awareness and giving hope to victims.
She became an activist for gender-based violence after another priest raped her.
Her South African friends, Felicity Roland and Celesthea Pierang, also survivors, joined her last year, and they walked about a thousand kilometers in some rural areas of South Africa.
This year, they chose Namibia and walked from Windhoek to Swakopmund for 16 days.
The women say they have experienced challenges on their journey, which include bloody injured feet, and lack of accommodation and food, among others.
"The message we want to give to survivors is that rape is painful, it's bloody, it's traumatic, it's ugly, but we need to push through, and just as we saw these dry rivers, there was always a tree in the middle of the dry river that was greener than green, and it just shows that we have that life-giving water within us. That even in the dryness of that wilderness, there is hope. Don't let suicide be an option, don't let cutting yourself or drugs or anything else is an option," shared Reverend Major.
The reverend revealed that certain cultures and tribes in Namibia and South Africa still find gender-based violence taboo. "And the victim gets seen as being shameful, and they are shamed and ousted, and we need to change that narrative. We need to say it is not your shame as a victim and survivor of rape or any gender-based violence, it is the shame of the perpetrator. No matter what you are facing, whether it be unemployment, relationship problems, financial problems, abuse, that is another world that can be broken down and if anyone is a testimony of breaking down these walls, it's us."
The trio will explore the African continent next year when they will walk from Cape Town to Cairo, Egypt, with the hope of leaving a legacy of peace for the next generation.