A woman is killed every four hours in South Africa.
According to the Mail and Guardian, “the five-year period between 2015 and 2020, a total of 13,815 women over the age of 18 years were murdered, according to the South African Police Service (SAPS).”
About seven women are murdered every day, or 2,763 a year.
Hillary Gardee was one of the women who died at the brutal hands of Philemon Lukhele, 47, Albert Mduduzi Gama, 52, and Sipho Lawrence Mkhatshwa, 39.
New data reveal that her murder was planned months before the heartless incident on 3 May outside of Mbombela, Mpumalanga.
According to News24, Ntwaagae Seleka writes that three suspects appeared in the Nelspruit magistrate’s court on Monday for charges of “rape, murder, kidnapping and possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition”.
Hillary Gardee’s case is highly publicized as she is the daughter of former EFF general-secretary Godrich Gardee. Police Minister Bheki Cele arrived at the crime scene and launched a 72-hour action plan “giving investigators hard deadlines to make arrests”. The EFF held a media conference and put pressure on the cops to make haste with the investigation.
Even though the EFF and the Gardee family didn’t like how the police handled the murder of Gardee, Mandy Wiener writes that, by South African standards, the police did a very good job of finding the suspects, completing the autopsy and processing the forensics.
The News24 journalist and author pens that the “police in Mpumalanga responded with haste, under enormous pressure from politicians and the public”.
Wiener writes that while we should commend the SAPS for responding so quickly, imagine every woman in South Africa who endures the same brutal, awful, horrific end receives the same kind of justice.
The reality is that many victims of gender-based violence (GBV) “battle to get a response from the police”. Wiener continues to say that it takes months if not years to get any kind of feedback. In addition to receiving no support from the SAPS, there’s a massive DNA backlog that hampers forensic evidence.
“It is hugely concerning that not all cases receive the same response or attention.”
Dr. Nechama Brodie discovered in her research on femicide in South Africa that media emphasis on one example did not promote or raise public awareness of femicide in general. “What it does is tend to steal all the limelight and when we have mega cases we actually have less coverage of other GBV crimes. So in effect, it doesn’t actually boost the profile of that type of crime.”
Instead of focusing all the media attention on one crime, we need a “competent, efficient, well-funded and well-resourced police service that can give each case the attention and priority it deserves.”
Here’s a roundup of interesting opinions, analyses, and editorials:
Hillary Gardee and all GBV victims deserve swift justice, not political grandstanding – News24 (for subscribers)
Hillary Gardee’s family rejects condolences of murder-accused working in ANC leader’s office – News24 (for subscribers)
Conspiracy to murder Hillary Gardee was ‘hatched months before death’ — charge sheet – Times Live
#SayHerName: The faces of South Africa’s femicide epidemic – Mail and Guardian
