Women's Month in August which is meant to highlight and raise awareness about violence against females, ended on a horrific note with several women and girls being raped and murdered in South Africa.
On Tuesday, the public, women’s rights organisations and celebrities took to social media to vent their anger at the government’s failure to protect women and girls under the hashtags #NotInMyName #AmINext and #SAShutDown.
Highlighting the brutal slaying of UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana, among others, nearly 300 000 people have signed a petition calling for the death penalty to be reinstated in South Africa, while pickets are also set to take place outside Parliament this week.
Community activist, Roegshanda Pascoe, says on Wednesday women are intending to chain themselves to fences outside Parliament due to the continued femicide.
While police are still looking for the killers of Heinz Park teen Janika Mello, 14, and Jesse Hess, 19, from Parow, President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday welcomed the arrests of two suspects linked to the murders of UCT student Uyinene and SA boxing champion Leighandre Jegels.
Uyinene, who was reported missing, was allegedly raped and killed by a 42-year-old Post Office employee, who has since appeared in court.
The man suspected of killing Jegels was also arrested, but has since died in hospital.
“This is a very dark period for us as a country. The assaults, rapes and murders of South African women are a stain on our national conscience,” the President said.
“We have just commemorated Women’s Month. Sixty-three years after the women of 1956 marched for the right to live in freedom, women in this country live in fear - not of the apartheid police but of their brothers, sons, fathers and uncles. We should all hang our heads in shame.”
Ramaphosa was to meet with top cops yesterday to be briefed on steps being undertaken to stem the tide of gender-based violence in the country.
The first Women’s Month victim in Cape Town was Sadiqah Newman, 26, of Manenberg on 1 August.
The mother of two, who was eight months pregnant, was shot eight times by skollies after allegedly being used as a human shield by the intended victim.
Other murders include that of mom Denushe Witbooi, 25, who was shot in a car in Eastridge; Meghan Cremer whose body was found in a sand mine in Philippi; six-year-old Nathlia Pienaar who was shot in the head by gangsters outside her home while playing; and Lynette Volschenk, who was allegedly killed by a neighbour in her Bellville flat and her body chopped up.
South Africans took to social media and the streets to vent their anger at the government’s failure to protect women and girls. Picture: Kim Kay
Janika was found raped and killed in her backyard, while Jesse and her oupa, Chris, were murdered in their flat.
Community activists are calling on women to join them outside Parliament on Thursday at 9pm for a vigil.
Cape Town women took to the streets on Wednesday morning. Video: Kim Kay
Activist Venetia Orgill will be chaining herself outside Parliament and urged mense to write a letter to President Ramaphosa to complain about the violence: “We will be placing boxes outside Parliament and we want to hand it over to government.”
She says they chose 9pm as a starting time “because rapes and murders happen in the dark while the bodies are found during the day”.
Atlantis activist Barbara Rass will also be joining Venetia and says: “We must stop saying ‘rest in peace’ to the deceased because these women’s lives were taken away brutally by evil cowards who want to admit guilt later and have a paid holiday inside prison.
“We are calling on the death penalty or life imprisonment without the option for parole.”
Video: Kim Kay
Celebs like Robin Pieters, Zoe Zana, Alistair Izobell, Carl Weber, Candice Manuel, Ikie Botha and Siv Ngesi made tribute videos for the victims and posted it online.
Plus-size model Candice Manuel said: “I’m disgusted that my aim is to uplift and empower women to love the skin they’re in and yet we now have to fear to do just that.”
Siv Ngesi, who started the #SAShutdown - Real Men Don’t Rape campaign, slated to take place on Thursday said: “it’s time for us as men to admit that we have failed.”
Video: Kim Kay