As the nation gears to celebrate Women’s Day tomorrow, women have nothing to be jolly about because the country remains unsafe for them.
What will it take for the worsening gender-based violence and femicide to be government’s every day priority?
We have had laws amended earlier this year. The government also announced a R21bn fund to fight the scourge of GBV and femicide in 2021, but there seems to be no end in sight.
More than a week ago, eight young women were gang raped and robbed in Krugersdorp while filming a music video at an old mine. The eight were attacked in West Village, allegedly by illegal miners.
The incident shocked the nation and resulted in police raids in which over a 100 “zama zamas”, as illegal miners are known, were arrested.
We have seen it all before, the outrage when a woman is brutally killed or raped, reaction from police top brass descending on the area, and protests outside courts.
We were shocked and angry when the body of an eight months pregnant Tshegofatso Pule was found hanging from a tree in the west of Johannesburg in 2020.
The year before, 19-year-old Uyinene Mrwetyana’s rape and murder at a post office drew the same reaction.
In 2018, we had a presidential GBV summit after cries from the public as a number of women had been attacked and killed across the country. The summit was the reason the laws were amended.
Sadly, none of the brutal cases were the real turning point for the country’s response to GVB – one to yield tangible results against the scourge.
A few weeks after each incident, the noise dies down and we carry on with our lives as if nothing happened. The killings have raged on, as demonstrated in the quarterly crime statistics released in June. Murders of women went up by 17.5%, while rape rose by 13.7%.
Our sister publication, Sunday Times, spoke to Gender Links’ Colleen Lowe Morna, who slammed the government for not putting “real leadership, energy and resources” in the fight against GBV.
“Declare a state of disaster, like we did during Covid-19, and put effective measures and resources in place to end this pandemic,” she said.
We could not agree more, enough is enough. Let the Krugersdorp eight be the last victims of GBV.
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