#Saytheirnames: Growing calls for action on SA's grim GBV crisis

Unicef has joined growing calls for tougher action to be taken to break the cycle of violence against women and children.

This comes on the back of the latest crime statistics, which again paint a grim picture of murder, attempted murder and assaults on women and children.

The data shows that 1,101 women were murdered between October and December 2022, with 319 children killed in the same period. This translates into roughly 12 women and three children murdered daily in South Africa over a 90-day period. Another 21,434 children and women suffered attempted murder or grievous bodily harm.

Christine Muhigana, Unicef’s South Africa representative, said: “Such high levels of violence against children and women should never be accepted as a norm in society. It’s easy to lose hope looking at the statistics but prevention and early intervention programmes do work.”

She cited the example of Koketso*, who after joining a parenting programme understood better how to educate his children without resorting to violence. The project under the department of social development and supported by Unicef works with fathers to help them understand why a more engaged and nurturing role in their children’s lives results in better outcomes for the whole family.

Another case was that of Andile*, who lost her parents as a child and was abused and thrown out of the home by a family member.

“Her life could have gone very differently had it not been for the local Safe Park, where she was protected, given food, access to health services and supported in her education,” Muhigana said.

These are the faces of some of the women recently murdered.

TINNY NKGUDI

Tinny Nkgudi, 51, was discovered by her daughter with multiple head injuries and other wounds all over her body in her bathroom on January 29 in Tsakane, east of Johannesburg.

Nkgudi’s daughter, Carol Modjadji, 25, told TimesLIVE that she had arrived home at about  6am from a night shift and found the doors locked, which was unusual.

“I called out and nobody answered, and that’s when I realised something was wrong,” she said.

A neighbour helped her break down the burglar doors to gain entry into the house, where Modjadji’s seven-year-old son was found hiding in a wardrobe.

This unusual discovery did little to prepare Modjadji for what she would find next.

“He asked if I had seen where my mother was. I asked where that was and he said she was in the bathroom. I went to the bathroom and found her there,” she recalled.

PRECIOUS MOCHADIBANE

A day later, about 40km away, another family woke up to a desperate cry from Precious Mochadibane, 39, as her former partner was allegedly attacking her with a knife.

That morning, while her two children were preparing for school, the man had allegedly stabbed her while she was asleep.

Mochadibane’s friend, Dipuo Dire, said Mochadibane had run to a neighbour’s yard as her ex-boyfriend allegedly chased her.

“He followed her there, picked her up and carried her back [home where] he stabbed her in the neck, next to the heart, in her waist and back,” Dire said.

“Her mother was in the sitting room and all she heard was ‘help me mama, he's stabbing me’.”

The man was arrested and appeared in the Benoni magistrate’s court on a murder charge. The case is proceeding.

In the same week, third-year Tshwane University of Technology student Ntokozo Xaba’s friends found her dead in her room. 

Xaba, 21, had stab wounds to her neck. Her former boyfriend was arrested. A case of murder is also in the early stages of the court process.

These three women are part of a group of women found brutally murdered in just two weeks.

Others include Tshenolo Mabote, 27, in Rustenburg. She was allegedly beaten up and stoned by her former partner after he had found her speaking to a man he didn’t know.

Lindelani Nengovhela, from Mangodi in Limpopo, was found in a water-filled hole next to a pit toilet in her yard just a day after she had withdrawn a domestic violence case against her husband.

Ntobikayise Mzize was stabbed with what appeared to be a spear. It is alleged the suspect broke into her home in KwaGamalakhe, Port Shepstone, while she was sleeping and stabbed her in front of her eight-year-old son.

Unicef said GBV statistics “depict the bleak reality of everyday life for women and children across the country”.

“Words though are not enough. Actions to break this cycle of violence are what’s needed.”

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Javu Baloyi, spokesperson for the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE), suggested denying bail to people held for GBV and femicide cases. 

“We also need a national GBV council to be fully effective and functioning. Remember there’s been a promise for all these years [but] we don’t have a co-ordinating structure on gender-based violence,” he said.

“You have Stats SA giving us different statistics, SAPS, ourselves and others giving [statistics]. So we don't have a co-ordinating mechanism which will talk to a national strategic plan.”

Baloyi said more money needed to be allocated to organisations to help victims.

“The Commission for Gender Equality, Human Rights Commission and public protector get little money but we’re expected to give the greatest services to society and be active in all the provinces,” Baloyi said.

Sonke Gender Justice’s Bafana Khumalo said the justice system needed to be reshaped urgently.

“It’s all in the strategy,” he said. “We need to ensure that the criminal justice system gets its act together.”

Khumalo also stressed the need for prevention programmes in schools and other sectors of society to “change the mindset of what it means to be a man”.

“We need a lot of concerted work with men particularly so that as men we can change our mindset in terms of how we see women.”

An intervention specialist at the Tears Foundation, Michael Masina, called for more accountability from the government and perpetrators.

The government could help ensure better environments and resources to help vulnerable women and children, he said.

Masina called for an end to “toxic masculinity”, saying men needed to get off the “inferiority complex” pedestal they’ve been on for such a long time.

“Unfortunately, and as much as they are the leading cause [of GBV], they [men] also form a huge part of the solution,” he said.

“The most important thing we can do for gender-based violence prevention is to teach young men from a very young age ... that they do not have power or superiority over women.”

Unicef’s Muhigana said: “Violence is a tragedy for every family but it’s also a tragedy for the development of South Africa and the future of a country that holds so much promise.”

TimesLIVE

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.