Ntokozo Xaba (23) is just another name, like Uyinene Mrwetyana.
Only another woman had her life cut short, allegedly at the hands of her partner. Her tale is a very common story for the South African demographic, black women, who do not fear for their lives in the face of increasingly violent men, bear the greatest burden of the country’s socio-economic decay – they are the most unemployed. the poorest in the country. This does not mean that the killings are reserved for this part of the population. We close on Valentine’s Day and the 10th anniversary of Reeva Steenkamp’s murder.
This week, Xaba’s ex-girlfriend was charged with defeating the ends of justice and murder after she allegedly stabbed him to death. In case you forgot Uyinene’s name, he was a student at the University of Cape Town who was raped and murdered in the suburbs of Claremont, Cape Town almost four years ago.
Their names will soon fade from our minds as the body count continues to rise, with a total of seven women every day in this country. More than 2,500 mothers died.
These are the daughters and grandmothers who find themselves under the boots of their partners, or strangers who through patriarchal indoctrination believe they have.
Fear is the norm for women, who live in big cities, towns and villages. But if sleeping with the enemy could not be bad enough, in Johannesburg, where we live through almost 12 hours a day open -shedding, the streets provide more layers of darkness for strangers to hide in.
For a single woman who lives and works in these dark and busy streets, your body is a commodity and freedom is a phenomenon that only you want to understand. If you don’t live at the mercy of a potential killer like Karabo Mokoena, you avoid cat calls from strangers and ask your male friends to accompany you to the mall because you fear being kidnapped.
Mokoena’s ex-boyfriend was accused of murdering her in 2018 after her cremated remains were found buried in a shallow grave in an open field. That is the value of a woman’s life in this country. About 9 516 rapes were reported to the police between April and June 2022 and of these only 286 convictions. Not a very promising figure for women who dare to speak.
Falling in love is a death sentence and love is stabbed to death, still cut and put in a suitcase left on the street. That is the reality of Nosicelo Mtebeni. Alutha Pasile’s ex-boyfriend confessed to killing her in 2021 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is only 23 years old.
Consider yourself lucky as a woman if you came home safe today but couldn’t hold your breath. Tomorrow is another day.