South Africa's Shame: How government is failing young women
The fourth quarter crime statistics for 2024/25 paint a sobering picture.
More than 10,600 cases of rape; 1,872 cases of sexual assault; 656 attempted sexual offences; 236 contact sexual offences. This is one quarter, from January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025.
Extrapolate that over four quarters and you have well over 42,000 cases of rape in a year. That’s 115 rapes a day. And those are just the reported cases.
Some believe the actual number may be at least four times as high.
As a woman, you are four times more likely to be assaulted in your own home.
It’s estimated around 90% of the victims of reported rape cases are women.
Following the news coverage of the murders of young women on IOL, you’ll recognise that nowhere is safe for women. You get murdered going on a date. You get murdered using ride-sharing. You get murdered going to the post office. You get murdered going to the bathroom at night. You get murdered going to school. You get murdered at varsity.
The poem Siphokazi Jonas penned in 2018, first published by The Cape Argus and IOL still rings true: We Are Dying Here.
And yet, year after year, we are subjected to a State of the Nation Address where our president promises to do more to end the scourge of GBV, to set up specialised task teams, to hold national dialogues, to urge the NPA and the rest of the justice system to get its act together to properly investigate and prosecute these matters, to Youth Day speeches where we are sold a dream…
We are tired.
We demand action.
No more empty promises.
Our quarterly crime statistics may show some green shoots: There were 809 fewer murders between January 2025 and March 2025 than there were in the corresponding period in 2024 — but that’s still 5,727 murders a quarter too many.
Femicide accounts for about 1,500 of the country’s total murders per annum — around four per day.
Women are five to eight times more likely to be murdered by their intimate partner, according to SAPS in 2024.
According to the World Health Organization, the femicide rate in South Africa is five times the global average.
Just this year alone: Olorato Mongale, 30; Likhona Fose, 14; Imaan Syms, 30… The list goes on.
This Youth Day we need to remember their names.
Remember their names when President Cyril Ramaphosa is addressing us on June 16.
Think about the number of young women and girls who have been raped, murdered, or gone missing, like little Joshlin Smith.
Think about how this system, this society, this government has failed them.
As we honour the youth activists of the June 16, 1976 Uprising, remember that many of those who participated are now in government and leadership positions in this country, in positions where they can make a difference but choose not to.
Thousands of youth gave up their lives for the freedoms we now cherish.
What are we prepared to offer up to stem the tide of grave crimes committed against our young women?
* Lance Witten is the editor of IOL.
