SOWETAN | Make women’s safety a lived reality

The killing of two women and two police officers inReiger Parkon the East Rand has highlighted the troubling and ongoing failure to protect women and communities from gang violence. According to police, the two women were ambushed and killed by gunmen on Friday night, while two police officers who came to their rescue were also shot dead. Yesterday, firearms believed to belong to the two anti-gang unit constables, Thapelo Tlomatsane and Sphiwe Sibeko, were recovered in Dukathole near Reiger Park.

The recovery of the guns is a critical step in the investigation by the police to find the killers and the motive behind the senseless shootings. Acting police minister Firoz Cachalia visited the area following the brutal murders. The killing of the two women, Roleen Lessing and Jaydin Magerman, 27, comes at a time when violence, particularly against women, has come under sharp scrutiny.

The timing of the attack was both tragic and symbolic, as it happened during National Women’s Month and days before the remembrance of the 1956 Women’s March on Sunday. Ours is a violent society in the grip of one of the highest levels of crime in the world, and women disproportionately bear the brunt of it. Anti-apartheid activist and 1956 Women’s March participantSophie de Bruynunderscored this reality in her speech delivered during the National Women’s Day commemoration at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Sunday.

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De Bruyn said the freedom for which she and thousands of other women fought had not translated into the safe and prosperous society they had envisioned. “How can we fully celebrate our historic victories when our present reality is so deeply disappointing and distressful? We fought to banish the pass laws.

Yet today our women are prisoners in their own homes. Gender-based violence continues to cast a dark cloud on our society,” she said. We share in De Bruyn’s sentiments of distress and disappointment.

Public safety in our communities must be the utmost priority of the state, especially because the ongoing violence is no longer just against women but also against the state. Police officers, as happened in Reiger Park on Friday night, are also increasingly under attack from emboldened criminal gangs who are armed, organised and ruthless. The threat posed by this to the legitimacy of the state is apparent to all of us.

The drug dealing and violence that accompany these illegal activities are also a matter of national security. This scourge of violence cannot be allowed to continue further. It must be nipped in the bud before we lose more lives.

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