A surge in murders of women and children following the ease of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions in the country should be condemned by all South Africans as “shameful and simply cannot continue,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Saturday.
The president said this following the latest killing of a woman in the Dobsonville (Soweto) area of Johannesburg whose body was dumped under a tree in the area on Friday.
Ramaphosa noted that there has been a surge of gender-based violence (GBV) since the country moved from Level 4 to Level 3 of easing the lockdown restrictions which have enabled people to freely move about in the country.
“It is a dark and shameful week for us as a nation. Criminals have descended to even greater depths of cruelty and callousness. It simply cannot continue,” he said.
He noted with disgust that at a time when the country is “facing the gravest of threats from the pandemic, violent men are taking advantage of the eased restrictions on movement to attack women and children.”
“As we still struggle to come to terms with the brutality inflicted on Tshegofatso Pule, Naledi Phangindawo, Nompumelelo Tshaka and other women in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces whose bodies were found dumped this week, another woman has lost her life,” the South African leader said.
The manner in which these defenceless women were killed pointed to an “unconscionable level of barbarism and lack of humanity,” he said.
He called on all South Africans to end the culture of silence around GBV and report the perpetrators to the police.
NM/jn/APA