DOMESTIC ABUSE: MORE MUST BE DONE ABOUT MURDER OF WOMEN
AGAIN. It’s happened again. Another death. Another woman killed by her male partner. It isn’t a new problem.
Karabo Mokoena, a 22-year-old woman, was murdered by her boyfriend, Sandile Mantsoe.
It was unthinkable to most that she could have been killed by someone she loved, but, sadly, each year, many South African women are killed by intimate partners in similar incidents.
We know just how dangerous domestic violence can be. Lethal violence is at the most severe end of the spectrum of domestic abuse. We know how women are killed and by whom. It is time to act. Femicide by an intimate partner must not be accepted as a fact of life for women.
It’s not strangers, friends or acquaintances who pose the biggest threat to women’s lives. It’s the men they date and marry.
It’s the unacceptable reality becoming all too common in South Africa – women dying at the hands of their abusive partners, yet it frequently fails to get proper attention and outrage from the public.
According to Africa Check, South African police recorded a total of 14333 murders between April and December 2016 – 1713 of these were women. This works out to a woman being murdered every four hours in South Africa. It is time for the government to initiate a time-bound action plan to strengthen the police and administration to combat crimes against women.
The government should also allocate resources to stop the scourge of violent attacks on women. This should include giving ample financial assistance to shelters for abused women, many of which are run on shoestring budgets by non-profit organisations. SHAISTA MIA Morningside JUDGMENT has been passed in the murder of Karabo Mokoena by Sandile Mantsoe.
According to SAPS statistics, in the year 2016/17, women and children made up 13% of all murder victims. Of this number 3478 were women, 574 boys and 265 girls.
We must punish murderers in proportion to their evil. Killers who are so callous deserve to be incarcerated for life without parole. They should forfeit their right of appeal to a higher court.
Life imprisonment is the surest way to uphold the sanctity of life. To grant parole to anyone convicted of murder is the greatest perversion of justice.
These satanic monsters have committed heinous crimes with the full knowledge of the consequences and therefore deserve stern punishment.
The parole system is a violation of our constitution.
An eye for an eye may make the world blind, but allowing demonic beings to gouge out the eyes of others leaves us with a society in which only the malevolent may see.
An innocent life that is lost to a barbaric crime is beyond redemption. We recently celebrated Freedom Day, but freedom is a mirage if we are forced to live imprisoned in our homes.
Living in gated communities is not the freedom we fought and many of us died for. We are forced to live under siege, fearing our names could be added to the 49 people murdered every day. FAROUK ARAIE
Benoni