The mysterious deaths of several women in the sprawling East Rand of Johannesburg – known as Ekurhuleni – raises much more pertinent questions about the current state of our freedom.
Over the past two months, the bodies of nine women have been discovered in Ekurhuleni, their condition clearly indicative of their violent demise.
According to the acting Minister of Police, Firoz Cachalia, “at this stage, it’s premature to speculate on patterns. These appear to be quite distinct, separate events. But at this point, it would be unhelpful to speculate”.
Post-apartheid South Africa was meant to bring about an avalanche of joy and happiness, guaranteed safety and security, jobs and a prosperous life where people – particularly women – could dream and reach for the stars.
A new South Africa where many fought to defeat apartheid, others paid the ultimate price by laying down their lives for our present-day freedom – such as Steve Biko, Chris Hani, Solomon Mahlangu, among others – has become a nightmare for women.
SLAIN: Itumeleng Kekana
I am aware that I am generalizing, but the death of one woman is a death too many. Our freedom should have ushered in a period of a “better life for all”, enhancing better life-chances, but instead life expectancy continues to drop uncontrollably. Increasingly, SA wakes up to the naked reality that our envisaged utopia has, in the face of evidence, turned out to be our collective dystopia.
Currently, only one suspect has been arrested by the police in connection with one of the eight murders reported so far. Of course, our beleaguered society is holding its collective breadth. We don’t know if this will turn out to be another case of mistaken arrest, or whether this could be part of a public relations exercise to hint at a SAPS hard at work attempting solve the puzzle.
And then, there is also a small matter of undue delays in our judiciary, but let this is be a matter for discussion on another day.
South Africa is a nation on a downward spiral to a possible failed state, unless lawlessness is rooted out and equitable distribution of the country’s wealth start to materialize.
SLAIN: Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo
Lamentations about our porous borders have also oftentimes fell on deaf ears. A nation that cannot account for the population within its lawful borders is not worth the flag representative of that country.
Our endeavour at periodic census by Stats SA is a feeble exercise. Those counted are increasingly being matched in a close ratio by those who are uncounted for, the multitudes whose identity is unknown yet they roam our streets freely.
Now, let me hasten to add: I am not for once suggesting that perpetrators of Ekurhuleni women murders are undocumented foreign nationals. However, I am merely pointing out that in a probable case that that could be the case – transgressors are highly likely to escape arrest.
I hope you get my drift. There is nothing xenophobic, or Afrophobic, about such a hypothesis, I believe.
I merely raise this question because, as a matter of fact, there is nothing the police can do if a perpetrator of crime is undocumented. There are no finger prints, no trace of identity whatsoever. Even in the jungle, the animals know who’s who.
The state of our freedom truly leaves much to be desired. A mother, sister, daughter, aunt, niece, granny – that’s what the slain women represents. Freedom fighters who led us to a post-apartheid dispensation envisioned the creation of a society where we could fearlessly sleep with our windows opened in hot weather.
Instead, we lock ourselves up from the gate – if you have one – and every door in the house until the bedroom is locked. Many others have installed burglar doors to their bedrooms!
Freedom is measured in a variety of ways. Some of the most important measurement tools are not scientific. For instance, a woman’s ability to go jogging in an afternoon ought to demonstrate a freedom of choice that must be enjoyed without any shred of fear as to weather a running woman will return home unharmed.
SA owes our women a lot. Throughout all intervals of history, women have kept our home fires burning in ways too many to mention.
I
SLAIN: Gracious Nkomo
derive absolutely no joy writing this column. Women unemployment is currently above 51%, according to statistics. The fact that SA continues to be what former President Thabo Mbeki once described as a country of two unequal and separate economies – one black and the other white – makes particularly women from impoverished backgrounds too vulnerable to the vultures that roam the streets of Ekurhuleni and elsewhere in our country undisturbed.
I know that like our women, many men too, myself included – are too scared to walk the streets of our liberated country solo. We are scared for our women when they leave home on their own, and our women are scared for their men too.
Under immense public pressure and international scrutiny, our government has announced measures aimed to nabbing women killers in Ekurhuleni. The police have even offered a reward of some R400,000 for information that could lead to arrest and conviction of the criminals.
But I want to argue that until we go to source of it all, what the social sciences describe as the “disordered faults of progress”, the government’s efforts will come to naught.
Violence suits all those who have nothing to lose. I’m afraid that our freedom, our liberation, has become a breeding ground for the bloodthirsty in our midst. Our heroes and heroines must be turning in their graves. The failures of our public governance system are too glaring. Our annual end-of-year Sixteen Days of Violence Against Women and Children sounds hollow at times like Kempton Park “apparition”, as Shakespeare would have described it. We can no longer plaster over the cracks. Our women are dying like flies.
CONCERNED: Police Minister Firoz Cachalia
