South Africa: Call it what it is. Femicide

The state must urgently recognise femicide as crime, Amnesty International South Africa said today.

“South Africa continues to experience one of the highest femicide rates in the world. But it is currently not recognised as a crime,” Amnesty International South Africa Executive Director Shenilla Mohamed said. 

“Every day that femicide remains unrecognised as a crime is a failure to confront the targeted killing of women. It is time to call it what it is: Femicide.”

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

It is currently criminalised in 33 countries, of which only two, Gabon and Morrocco, are in Africa. When a woman is killed, either by a stranger, someone she knows or an intimate partner, the crime is categorised as a murder. 

However, criminalising femicide is an important step to recognising the gendered motivation behind the crime. Without the distinction, patterns of gender-based violence that precede femicide, such as intimate partner violence, rape and stalking to name a few, are treated as isolated incidents. 

Recognising femicide as a crime would highlight the drivers behind the killing. 

“The criminalisation of femicide alone will not stop the killing of women but it will be a powerful tool to hold the state accountable for not doing more to protect women in South Africa, and  ensure dedicated resources are allocated to address femicide. It would compel the state to confront their failure to protect women and girls from violence. You cannot fix what you are not tracking,” Shenilla Mohamed said.

The full scale of violence against women remains unclear because of missing data. The South African Police Service has not published disaggregated crime data, including statistics related to murder and assault of women and children, since August last year, citing accuracy concerns that required investigation before the matter was resolved. 

“Reliable data is not a technical detail, it is a prerequisite for accountability,” Shenilla Mohamed said.

By failing to recognise femicide as a crime, and record cases as such, the state is failing women in South Africa.

“Not only are men killing women and girls but the state is allowing it to happen,” she said.

“Femicide constitutes the most extreme form of violence against women and the most violent manifestation of the discrimination and inequality women face.”

Amnesty International South Africa has removed the data on the number of women murdered. The South African Police Service has withdrawn the 2023/2024 annual crime stats presentation from its website, which stated that 5,578 women had been murdered. The only available official report that includes figures is the annual financial report, which uses the 3,485 figure. This reiterates Amnesty International South Africa’s point that the full scale of violence against women remains unclear because of missing and/or inaccurate data.

Background

Nine women have been found dead in Ekurhuleni. They were reportedly killed over a span of two months. 

Amnesty International South Africa is calling on everyone living in South Africa to sign the petition calling on the state to codify femicide. You can find the petition here.