South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced four urgent directives, with implementation deadlines of no more than 90 days, after the bodies of 11 women were found in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, since July. In a televised address to the nation on Tuesday, he acknowledged that what his government had done to address violence against women “had not been enough”.},{
Investigation elevated to national level
Ramaphosa said the nation was angry, and that the anger of South African women was justified and shared by him, adding that the government needed to do much more. Most of the women whose bodies were found were in their twenties or thirties. The president said the investigation into the killings had been elevated to the national level, stressing that “police have so far found no evidence that these killings were committed by a single perpetrator”.
Although police have acknowledged similarities between the victims’ profiles and the crime scenes, they have warned against speculating that the case is linked to a serial killer. The first directive calls for a national review of unresolved cases involving the murder and rape of women and children, as well as sexual offences committed against them.
The second directive calls for a funded plan to speed up the examination of the backlog of forensic evidence in laboratories, with the aim of advancing investigations delayed by the wait for test results. The third directive requires every municipality to conduct a women’s safety audit, including identifying hazards in local areas such as broken street lights and abandoned buildings.
The fourth directive includes preparing a package of legislative and executive measures to curb alcohol-related violence. Ramaphosa stressed that alcohol does not cause gender-based violence and cannot justify it, but said that harmful alcohol use is a major aggravating factor in interpersonal violence.
Mechanism for monitoring implementation of government measures
The inter-ministerial committee and the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide will monitor implementation of the measures, with public reports issued every three months. The president said gender-based violence had long been treated as though it were a problem women were expected to solve, adding that society had placed the burden of violence committed by men on women.
He called on men to break their silence, stressing that the time had come for good men to stop remaining silent. Ramaphosa cited a study by the South African Medical Research Council which found that intimate partners had killed more than 60% of the women murdered during 2021 and 2022, an indicator he used to illustrate the scale of the crisis of violence against women in the country.
Crisis continues despite previous speeches
He noted that seven years ago, in the same month, he had stood before the nation to speak about the same crisis, referring to his address in September 2019 following the murder of student Uyinene Mrwetyana. He said that having to discuss the problem again after all those years weighed on him more than anything else.
Ramaphosa added that the government had reprioritised its resources since gender-based violence was classified as a “national disaster” last year, and that the inter-ministerial committee had approved a “comprehensive emergency response”.
He concluded his address by stressing that, seven years from now, no president should have to stand before the nation and repeat the same words again.
