Nine Women Found Dead in Ekurhuleni as South Africa's Femicide Crisis Fuels Fear
A family's grief, a nation's fear
Ekurhuleni, South Africa — Dineo Motapane was last seen alive on Sunday. Two days after relatives identified her body, her family is still trying to absorb how she died: battered, partly burned and left in a field in this residential district east of Johannesburg.
She was 38, a mother of two.
“What we are going to do, I have no idea,” her aunt, Nokwanda Matshikiza, said through sobs. “But something must give.”
“For us, for all the other women. How many other bodies will be found before something happens?”
Matshikiza spoke to the BBC from the family home near Johannesburg. She described the grim task awaiting the family: telling Motapane's daughter that her mother had been brutally murdered, dumped in a field and “discarded like a piece of rubbish.”
“There's no coming to peace with it,” she said. “It's something that you can never reconcile yourself with, that you can never get over.”
Motapane's death is not an isolated case. Her body was one of three found in Ekurhuleni this week, and one of nine women killed in similar circumstances in the region since July. The discoveries have revived national anger over gender-based violence in South Africa, a country with one of the world's highest rates of violence against women.
‘We are devastated with grief’
Themba Kekana is also grieving. His sister, Itumeleng, was among the first women to disappear in Ekurhuleni. The 32-year-old shopkeeper was last seen alive in July. Her body was found 17 days later, badly bruised, partially clothed and dumped on a bridge.
“We are devastated with grief,” Kekana said, his eyes wet.
He said he looks at his sister's young daughter and weeps, knowing he cannot take her pain away. “No family should have to deal with what we are faced with.”
Only one arrest has been made in connection with the murders. It came two days after the first body was discovered on July 15. No one has been detained over the killings of Itumeleng, Dineo or the other six Ekurhuleni women.
Most of the victims were in their 20s or 30s. Nearly all had suffered extreme violence before their deaths. Police say they are not sure whether they are hunting a serial killer, and the cases may not be linked.
But for many South Africans, the pattern is impossible to ignore. The deaths have traumatized the nation and put fresh pressure on a government that declared gender-based violence a national disaster less than a year ago.
A crisis measured in bodies
South Africa's police publish detailed crime statistics every quarter. Between April and June this year, 5,427 people were murdered, according to the official data, which does not distinguish between genders.
This week, the country's Human Rights Commission released figures showing that 569 women were killed during that period — an average of six a day — while another 1,052 faced attempted murder.
Many women, already uneasy, say recent events have left them reeling.
The issue has also intensified scrutiny of the government's response. Last November, Minister of Social Development Nokuzola Sisisi Tolashe said treating gender-based violence as a national disaster would help the state tackle the crisis. The announcement followed weeks of protests, including a “Women's Shut Down” march as South Africa hosted the G20 summit.
This week brought more calls for action. Amnesty International said an important first step was for South Africa to recognize femicide as a separate crime.
“Every day that femicide remains unrecognized as a crime is a failure to confront the targeted killing of women,” Shenilla Mohamed, Amnesty's country director, said in a statement. “It is time to call it what it is: Femicide.”
She added: “Femicide is a gender-motivated crime. It is the killing of a woman because she is a woman.”
Amnesty says 33 countries, including Gabon and Morocco in Africa, have criminalized femicide as a specific offense. The group argues that doing so in South Africa could help authorities better measure the scale of the problem.
“It would compel the state to confront their failure to protect women and girls from violence,” Mohamed said. “You cannot fix what you are not tracking.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa this week pledged to leave “no stone unturned” in investigating the Ekurhuleni crimes. “As a nation, we must stand up for the rights, safety and dignity of women and girls,” he said.
Roots in history, fear in daily life
Lebogang Ramafoko, an advocate for gender and social justice, said the violence is a symptom of a deeper problem: a lack of regard for human life.
“The bodies of black women have been treated as disposable in this country for time immemorial, passed down from colonization through to apartheid,” she told the BBC, referring to South Africa's legalized system of racism that ended in 1994.
“What we see happening to women is testimony to legacies of violence from those systems whose traumas were never addressed,” she said. “This is not to say black men are inherently violent, but in systems where violence was meted out against them for decades, historically black women were the people that that violence would be taken out on — that cycle has not been broken.”
In Kempton Park, a district of Ekurhuleni where five of the nine recent bodies were found, residents are demanding change.
Lumka Maqhubela is part of the Girl2Woman Foundation, which has held protests to raise awareness of the crimes.
“We are grieved, we are scared,” she said. “If the police cannot protect us anymore, the government should step in and do something.”
She dismissed official advice for women to be more vigilant. “It's clear that we are not safe. We cannot be told by the police to be more vigilant. They should be doing more to make our communities safe — what else are we expected to do? We are not safe anywhere, not in our homes, not in the streets. It needs to stop.”
Thulisile Sibande, 32, said everyday life has become exhausting. “I feel uncomfortable,” she said. “When I go to a shop, I have to look around. I'm shocked and scared. So scared, it's a trauma.”
Thembi Mabena, 60, said she lived in the same neighborhood as Motapane. “She was laughing every day, with everybody,” Mabena remembered. “Now I'm worried.”
She said many children and girls in the area tell her they are afraid to walk to the shop alone. “There is no safety, even for me too. I am old, but there is no safety.”
Lerato Mzizi, 20, put it simply: “In South Africa, women are not safe anymore.”
For Motapane's family, the national debate offers little comfort. They are still waiting for answers.
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