“Pigs were eating her body,” read one harrowing headline this week.
The victims were mother of four Mariah Makgato, 47, and 34-year-old Lucia Ndlovu, who went to a Limpopo farm to collect expired food. Before being devoured by the animals in the pigsty, they were shot dead, allegedly by farmer Zacharia Olivier. Olivier and his co-accused, AR de Wet and William Musora, have been remanded in custody.
In the past week, two more abhorrent stories emerged. One has left a 22-year-old woman fighting for her life in Mpumalanga after being set alight by her boyfriend. Her agonising screams alerted neighbours after she was doused with a flammable substance and left to burn.
After this, acting provincial commissioner Maj-Gen Zeph Mkhwanazi reiterated that incidents of gender-based violence (GBV) were considered serious by the police and would be attended to as a matter of urgency. “We are disturbed by these types of incidents of violence perpetrated against women during the month of August when we celebrate women.”
Celebrate women? A hollow government event does not celebrate women and neither do failed promises to protect them.
In fact, it was the protector who turned perpetrator when a Pietermaritzburg woman went to the Mountain Rise police to obtain an affidavit. Instead, the officer in full uniform set his firearm aside, locked her in his office and raped her.
Remember Uyinene Mrwetyana? If you’re unable to recall her name, it’s because we moved on and she became just another statistic to have senselessly lost her life. Isn’t a post office meant to be a “safe” space or do they even exist in SA? Mrwetyana, lest we forget, was raped and murdered five years ago by postal worker Luyanda Botha, a repeat offender.
Sadly, heinous violations against women in this country are met with an initial burst of outrage followed by silence — a society so desensitised and uncaring they have lost their voice in the face of a constant siege against women.
It’s no wonder that Tuesday’s Victims of Crime report from the Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey 2023/24 compiled by Stats SA showed the sense of safety in the dark among individuals aged 16 and older has declined, dropping from 41.8% in 2019/20 to 34.9% in 2023/24. This trend is particularly pronounced among women, who reported feeling less safe walking in their neighbourhoods after dark compared with men.
It went on to show that assault incidents among individuals aged 16 and older have also risen, increasing from 263,000 in 2022/23 to 295,000 in 2023/24. Victims of assault indicated that knives were predominantly used in these incidents, with nearly 73% resulting in injuries. Only about 2% of assault victims sought counselling afterwards. Most perpetrators were known to their victims, including friends or acquaintances (24.7%), spouses or intimate partners (12.6%), and relatives or other household members (8.9%).
We’ve heard it all before. The anxiety and fear of navigating public spaces or even violent homes don’t change — and neither does our lack of horror and disdain.
SA is no place for women — be it your mother, wife, sister, daughter or the future girl child — unless we find a collective voice that screams “no more”.
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