In May 1988, Gertrude Fester was detained and subsequently put on trial with other political activists in a trial known as the 'Yengeni 14'. In March 1990 charges were dropped and Fester was released. She subsequently initiated the Women's Education Artistic Voice and Expressions (WEAVE), a black women's writing collective. Her paper entitled 'Apartheid's Residue - women's lives, struggles and testimonies: challenging patriarchal lenses' is a personal account of Fester's own detention in terms of Section 29 of the Internal Security Act and an interrogation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from a gender perspective.