Protecting women needs to be as vital as community safety

Since 15 July, the bodies of at least 11 women have been found across Ekurhuleni, in Kempton Park, KwaThema, Dawn Park, Tembisa, and beyond. Some were dumped beside roads. One lay half-naked near a cemetery. Several have still not been identified, and only two had been reported missing. 

The police have not confirmed a serial killer, and President Cyril Ramaphosa told the nation on 29 September that there is no evidence yet of a single perpetrator. We take that seriously and will not speculate. But it cannot be where the conversation ends. 

Whether these women were killed by one man or by 11 different men, the message is the same. In South Africa, a woman can vanish, be murdered, and lie unnamed, with almost nobody noticing until there are enough bodies to make the news. That is not a crime story. It is a red alert. 

Between April and June this year, 559 women were murdered in South Africa and 9 201 rapes were reported to the police. That is roughly six women killed and 100 rapes reported every single day – and rape is one of the most under-reported crimes there is. In 2023/24, 3 422 women were murdered. UN Women ranks South Africa’s femicide rate among the highest in the world. 

Gender-based violence (GBV) was declared a national disaster last year. But on 29 September, Ramaphosa admitted that the state had failed women, and that seven years ago, in the same month, he had stood before the nation about the very same crisis. “The women of South Africa are angry,” he said. He announced a 60-day audit of women’s safety, a 90-day review of unresolved GBV cases, and a crackdown on alcohol abuse. 

These steps are welcome. But we have heard speeches, summits, and national strategies before. Meanwhile, Ekurhuleni station commanders have been telling the police minister about broken landlines and staff shortages. Women don’t need more jaw-jaw. They need a police station that answers the phone, victim support, cases that reach court, and perpetrators who are convicted. 

It is tempting for the Jewish community to read these headlines as something happening far away. At Koleinu SA, we know better. We sit with women and children from our own community who’ve been abused in their homes, in their relationships, and in institutions they trusted. Being white, being Jewish, and living behind a boom gate doesn’t make us protected. Abuse happens in Glenhazel and Sea Point, just as it does in Tembisa. 

That is not to diminish who is bearing the brunt. The Ekurhuleni victims are overwhelmingly black women from working-class communities, with far fewer resources than most of us have. Our privilege may buy us distance from some risks. It doesn’t buy us safety, and it must never buy our silence. 

Think about how we move through the world. When we travel to Israel, many of us walk alone to shul, to a friend, or back from dinner without a second thought. At home, most of us would never walk on our own, even when we have to. We have accepted panic buttons, locked car doors, and “text me when you’re home” as normal. It is not normal. 

Our community is very good at programmes: self-defence classes, safety talks, awareness workshops. Koleinu SA runs many of them, and they matter. But a workshop teaches a woman how to survive a system that has failed her. It does not fix the system. We can attend every course on offer and still have no real protection. 

The question is what real protection looks like for the South African Jewish community, and what we owe to the women beyond it. 

Bring the same seriousness to GBV that we bring to security. Our community has built impressive infrastructure to protect us from antisemitic threats. We should ask how that expertise, and that sense of urgency, can be turned towards women’s safety, in public spaces, at communal events, and in getting women home at night. 

Make every institution safe by policy, not by goodwill. Every shul, school, youth movement, and communal organisation should have a written safeguarding and abuse policy, a named person to report to, trained staff, and a commitment to involve the police when a crime is disclosed. Parents and congregants should ask to see these policies. 

Our rabbis must speak plainly. Abuse thrives on silence and on misplaced loyalty. Rabbinic leaders can say from the bimah, as many leading poskim (legal scholars) have, that reporting abuse to the police is not mesirah (reporting of a Jew to non-Jewish authorities). They can make clear that no woman should be pressured to stay in a dangerous home for the sake of shalom bayit (peace in the home), and that no woman should be trapped in a marriage because a husband withholds a gett. 

Believe women, no matter who the abuser is. In a small community, the abuser is often someone we know – a donor, a professional, a well-liked father. When status protects perpetrators, victims stop coming forward. We must back victims publicly, not just in private. 

Fund the response, not just the awareness. Survivors need counselling, legal support, and, often, money to leave. Communal funders should treat this as core welfare, not a once-a-year campaign. 

Involve men. Fathers, teachers, and youth leaders shape how our boys understand respect, consent, and power. GBV is not a women’s issue that men attend workshops about. It is a men’s issue first. 

Stand with women beyond our suburbs. We can hold our leaders to the 60-day audit and 90-day review, support shelters and organisations working in Ekurhuleni, and show up at vigils and marches rather than retreating further behind our walls. 

Busisiwe Mahlangu, Itumeleng Kekana, Nomfesane Mjobo, Elizabeth Moselakgomo, and Dineo Motapane were daughters, sisters, and mothers. Others still have no names. Every one of them deserved to walk home. 

• Rozanne Sack is a co-founder of Koleinu SA, a helpline and advocacy organisation for victims of gender-based violence and child abuse in the Jewish and wider community.