Grim discoveries of murdered women spark fear in South Africa

ByPuma Fihlani Southern Africa correspondent, Reporting fromEkurhuleni.

Key points

• Announcing the move last November, Minister of Social Development Nokuzola Sisisi Tolashe remarked treating the problem as a national disaster would support the administration tackle the crisis.
• It followed weeks of protests, culminating in a "Women's Shut Down" march as South Africa hosted the G20 summit.
• The 32-year-old shopkeeper's body was discovered in July, 17 days after she was last seen alive.
• Amnesty notes femicide is criminalised as a specific crime in 33 countries, including Gabon and Morocco in Africa.
• "What we are going to do, I have no idea, " sobs Nokwanda Matshikiza, reflecting on the murder of her niece Dineo Motapane.

"What we are going to do, I have no idea, " sobs Nokwanda Matshikiza, reflecting on the murder of her niece Dineo Motapane. "But something must give."

"For us, for all the other women. How plenty of other bodies will be identified before something happens?"

Nokwanda is speaking to the BBC from the family home near South Africa's main city, Johannesburg, just two days after relatives identified Dineo's body.

For context, the 38-year-old mother-of-two was last seen alive last Sunday. Her battered body, partly burned, discovered afterwards in the residential region of Ekurhuleni.

Nokwanda weeps as she describes how the family will have to face, at some point, the grim task of telling Dineo's daughter of her death.

How do you explain that your parent was brutally murdered, dumped in a field, and just left there, discarded like a piece of rubbish.

"There's no coming to peace with it, " she adds. "It's something that you can never reconcile yourself with, that you can never get over."

Dineo's death this week has come against the backdrop of a series of comparable incidents in Ekurhuleni – her body one of three discovered there this week. In total, nine bodies of murdered women have been discovered in similar circumstances in the region since July.

For context, the difficulty has always been there but this spate of grim discoveries has once again sparked a national outcry concerning the scale of violence against women in the country – which has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world.

Themba Kekana is additionally living in shock at the death of a loved one.

His sister, Itumeleng, was one of the first to disappear in Ekurhuleni.

Notably, the 32-year-old shopkeeper's body was discovered in July, 17 days after she was last seen alive. Her body was badly bruised, partially clothed and dumped on a bridge. "We are devastated with grief, " notes Themba, wet eyes shining.

I look at my sister's young daughter and my eyes fill with tears, I know there is no way that I can ever take this pain away from her.

"No family should have to deal with what we are faced with."

Only one arrest has been created in connection with the murders – and that was two days after the first body was discovered on 15 July.

Nobody has been detained after the murders of Itumeleng or Dineo or the other six Ekurhuleni women.

Most of the victims were young, in their 20s or 30s, and almost all had suffered extreme violence before their deaths.

Police have remarked they are not sure if they are hunting a serial killer. It is feasible the cases are not linked.

Either way, what has happened in this residential district east of South Africa's biggest city has traumatised the nation, shining a spotlight on a situation that plenty of believe is a crisis.

South Africa's police matter detailed crime statistics every quarter. It show that during the last quarter – between April and June this year – 5, 427 residents were murdered.

For context, the official data does not distinguish between the genders of the victims, but this week the country's Human Rights Commission published figures showing that 569 women had been killed in that period (six a day on average), with another 1, 052 who faced attempted murder.

Plenty of women – already feeling unsafe – have been left reeling by recent events.

And it has put pressure on the administration, less than a year after ministers acknowledged the scale of the problem and declared gender-based violence a national disaster.

This week has seen a chorus of calls for things to go further.

Rights group Amnesty International remarked an notable first step towards protecting South Africa's women was to recognise femicide as a separate crime.

Every day that femicide remains unrecognised as a crime is a failure to confront the targeted killing of women, remarked Amnesty's country director Shenilla Mohamed in an official note. It is time to call it what it is: Femicide.

"Femicide is a gender-motivated crime. It is the killing of a woman since she is a woman."

It argues that making that change in South Africa could support focus on the scale of the problem.

"It would compel the state to confront their failure to protect women and girls from violence, " notes Mohamed. "You cannot fix what you are not tracking." Almost everyone in South Africa agrees more needs to be done.

President Cyril Ramaphosa this week pledged to leave "no stone unturned" in investigating the crimes in Ekurhuleni, adding: "As a nation, we must stand up for the rights, safety and dignity of women and girls."

Lebogang Ramofoko, an advocate for gender and social justice, remarked the levels of violence against women in the country were symptomatic of a much bigger challenge – a lack of regard for humanity.

"The bodies of black women have been treated as disposable in this country for time in memorial, passed down from colonisation through to apartheid, " she tells the BBC, referring to the legalised system of racism that was in place until 1994.

What we see happening to women is testimony to legacies of violence from those systems whose traumas were never addressed.

"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 discovered, Lumka Maqhubela is part of the Girl2Woman Foundation group which has held protests to raise awareness of the crimes.

We are grieved, we are scared, she notes. If the police cannot protect us any more the administration should step in and do something.

Taken together, the developments around grim discoveries of murdered women spark fear in South Africa point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.