Cape Town – Representing a historic milestone, tens of thousands of people, mostly women and girls, gathered for one of the largest protests ever outside the gates of Parliament on Thursday.
At the same time, many thousands more pupils who protested at their schools and communities across the city formed human chains to demand action against the scourge of violence against women and children.
Protesters also marched to the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) where the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa is being held as Africa's leaders were confronted with the growing anger of locals about gender-based violence.
The protests followed the killings of UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana, UWC student Jesse Hess, both 19, 17-year-old Sandisile Mona of Plettenberg Bay and boxer Leighandre Jegels, 25.
In the latest atrocity, police confirmed on Thursday that the body of a 38-year-old as-yet-unnamed woman riddled with stab wounds had been found outside Delft Mall on Wednesday and no one has been arrested.
Outside Parliament on Thursday, Mitchells Plain community leader Alvina Spike said: “As women, we are facing challenges of men who hurt us on a daily basis but can't stand up for themselves to other men. Men who rape us and tomorrow act like nothing happened.”
Stellenbosch University student Tshepo Molefe said: “Today, as a man, I come out to support women. What we are doing to women is evil and I also agree there must be a death penalty in matters like this.”
In response to the unprecedented groundswell of protest, fuelled by social media, President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for the review of all gender-based violence cases that were closed or not properly investigated.
In a televised address to the nation on Thursday night, Ramaphosa said: “We will strengthen the emergency teams at a provincial level - which bring together the police, social development, health, justice and education - to continue providing rapid and comprehensive responses to all forms of violence against women.”
These emergency response teams, according to Ramaphosa, will focus in particular on violence directed at women, children and other marginalised groups, including the LGBTQIA+ community and people with disabilities.
“We will address other systemic challenges such as the backlog of cases, delays in DNA testing and the availability of rape test kits in our police stations.
"We will use every means at the disposal of the state - from the police service to the justice system, from social development programmes to our school curriculum - to strengthen all parts of our national response to gender-based violence,” he said.
Ramaphosa said the government will implement a national multifaceted plan to prevent gender-based violence through school programmes, community initiatives and workplace policies.
Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni will be asked to allocate additional funding to the national machinery to co-ordinate campaigns against gender-based violence, he said, adding that he would ask Parliament to discuss and identify urgent interventions that can be implemented without delay.
“Let us declare that enough is enough.”
An online petition emerged on Thursday demanding that Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola make the sexual offenders register publicly accessible in online and mobile platforms for easy access.
The petition, which had about 2000 signatures by last night, is demanding that the register be available through a free government site that is accessible even when users do not have data. Earlier this week, Lamola said his ministry would not be tempted by populist calls for the return of the death penalty.
“The rejection of the death penalty by the founders of our Constitution is not limited to the fact that it was used in the past to conduct judicial killings against freedom fighters and opponents of the apartheid system.
"It was also based on well-documented research that the death penalty has not served as a deterrent to committing crime in any society around the world,” he said.
EFF Gauteng chairperson Mandisa Mashego said on Thursday that in reality the sexual offenders register did not exist. She said the register should be expanded to include all perpetrators of gender-based and sexual violence and be published regularly, even on social media platforms.
“They are unable to update the current one that has such a limited scope,” Mashego said.
The EFF will be holding pickets at all 142 picket points in Gauteng on November 7 and the party also hopes to influence all its provincial structures to do the same.
The Wise Collection, an African women-initiated advocacy organisation and social enterprise bringing innovative solutions to prevent and address women's safety and overall oppression from patriarchy, has demanded that Ramaphosa declare a gender-based violence state of emergency.