The country has one of the highest femicide rates in the world, and women are yet again being asked to remove themselves from public life to counter it
When I heard the authorities advising women in and around Kempton Park, the site of a recent spate of femicides, not to walk or run alone, to avoid isolated places and to “remain vigilant”, my immediate response was anger. Remain vigilant. How groundbreaking.
Women are already vigilant. We photograph number plates before entering vehicles. We share Uber details with friends. We phone one another while walking. We watch the driver’s route and notice every unexpected turn. We avoid certain roads, certain times and certain conversations. We scan parking areas before getting out of our cars. We check the back seat. We listen for footsteps. We carry pepper spray where we can. We hold our keys in a way that makes us feel slightly less defenceless.
Women have informal safety systems built into our friendships. “Please let me know when you get home” is not simply a polite farewell. It is a survival protocol.
Yet women are still being killed.
Police are investigating the deaths of nine women whose bodies have been found across the Ekurhuleni district, east of Johannesburg, since July. Some were found naked or partially clothed, and several had visible injuries.
One of the women was Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, a 38-year-old who disappeared after leaving her home in Kempton Park for an afternoon run on 9 September. Her body was found three days later.
Now running must be approached like a security operation. Choose a group. Share your route. Check the time. Avoid quiet roads. Stay where people can see you. Keep one earphone out. Carry your phone. Remain visible. Remain alert. Remain vigilant.
But women cannot “vigilance” themselves out of gender-based violence and femicide.
Where are the instructions to men? Where is the urgent public warning telling them not to harm women? Where is the nationwide mobilisation asking men to confront their friends, brothers and colleagues? Where are the campaigns teaching men that affection does not create ownership and that rejection is not humiliation?
Where is the same relentless attention on perpetrators, effective policing, prosecution and prevention?
The truth is, women are not safe anywhere.
In 2019, 19-year-old University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana went to collect a parcel from a post office in Cape Town. She was raped and murdered inside that post office by an employee. Her murder shattered the idea that danger is limited to badly lit streets and isolated fields.
If we must avoid every place where another woman has been attacked or killed, where are we allowed to exist?
We are told to stay indoors, although many women are abused in their homes. We are told not to trust strangers, although women are killed by husbands, boyfriends, relatives and former partners. We are told to choose better, as though abusive men introduce themselves honestly and arrive carrying warning labels.
<a href="https://absafricatv.com/india-south-africa-hold-first-army-to-army-staff-talks-focus-on-training-and-capacity-building/" title="India, South Africa hold first Army-to-Army Staff Talks, focus on training and capacity building”>South African women were killed at a rate of 12.2 per 100,000 in 2022, nearly six times the global rate, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. That figure should stop the country in its tracks. Instead, it becomes another statistic repeated during interviews, marches and annual campaigns.
After protests ahead of the G20 summitin Johannesburg in November 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared gender-based violence and femicide a national crisis. Women had already spent years explaining that it was one.
The issue is not whether government has heard us. It has. The issue is hat actually changes after gender-based violence is declared a national crisis?
Which institutions become accountable? What additional ret when a woman is reported missing? Are officers trained to respond to survivors with care rather than suspicion? Are investigations adequately resurvivors protected while cases move through courts?
Who answers when commitments are not fulfilled?
The Commission for Gender Equality has called for an urgent safety audit of the affected areas. It wants attention given to lighting, surveillance, public transport routes, neglected spaces, police visibility and access to emergency assistance. That is necessary.
But the response cannot end at Ekurhuleni’s borders. Women are being killed nationally, therefore prevention strategies must implemented at a national level.
We also need to stop treating every killing as an isolated tragedy with no relationship to the culture around it. Femicide does not begin when a body is discovered. It develops along a continuum.
Through my work with young people, I see why intervention must begin long before violence reaches the criminal justice system. We need sustained education about consent, bodily autonomy, healthy relationships, emotional regulation and positive masculinity.
That is not an excuse for violence. It is part of preventing it.
Men must confront misogyny in their own circles. They must challenge the jokes, controlling behaviour, coercion and entitlement before somebody is dead. Silence is not neutrality. It protects the conditions in which violence thrives.
This responsibility does not belong only to activists, police or women’s organisations. It belongs in homes, schools, churches, workplaces, sports clubs, taxis, universities and friendship groups. It belongs wherever boys learn what manhood means.
I am not arguing that women should ignore immediate safety warnings. I am arguing that those warnings cannot be presented as the solution. There is a difference between sharing information about a specific risk and building an entire response around women limiting their lives.
The state’s responsibility is not to teach women how to stay alive around violent men. Its responsibility is to prevent violence, investigate cases properly, pursue perpetrators and build a country in which women can collect a parcel, go for a run, leave a relationship, take a ride home and simply live.
We have restricted ourselves. We have changed our behaviour. We have remained vigilant. We are still being killed. It is time the authorities, and men, tried something different. Accountability would be a good place to start.
Explore more on these topicsReuse this content
