A friend of mine once said: “It is only by the grace of God we make it alive to the end of each day.” He was not being dramatic. He was speaking plainly about the hard, unvarnished truth of living in one of the world’s most violent countries. SA’s latest crime statistics show that in just one week in November, 1,870 wanted suspects were tracked down and apprehended for serious and violent crimes, including murder, rape, car hijackings, house and business robberies, and drug trafficking.
Of those figures, 143 suspects were arrested for murder, with Gauteng recording the highest number of arrests with 38, followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 26, and the Eastern Cape coming in third with 25. A total of 178 suspects were arrested for rape, with the majority in KZN with 39 arrests, followed by the Eastern Cape with 25 suspects arrested. SA has some of the highest femicide and sexual assault rates globally.
In this country, a woman is murdered every two-and-a-half hours. Fast forward a few days after the Women For Change Shutdown, the country commemorated 16 Days of Activism Against GBV on November 25. The campaign runs until December 10, with heightened focus on protecting women, children and members of the LGBTQIA+ community from harm. As Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation chief executive, Gqeberha lawyer Tania Koen, said: “We can only achieve results if it is 365 days of action.” And not just the 16 days that activism has been confined to by government.
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