Death by Gender
Honoring women’s right to life
A war is raging, and women’s bodies are the battlefield. Femicide — the peak of violence against women — has increased on the African continent. The World Health Organization defines femicide as the intentional killing of females simply because they are females. Women in Africa get killed at double the rate of femicide than the rest of the world. Africa also ranks as the second highest continent for femicides, accounting for 19,000 out of 50,000 cases globally. The spike in cases of violence against women has ignited protests, particularly in Kenya and South Africa. South African Police reports show that close to 3,000 women were murdered in South Africa from April 2017 to March 2018, an 8.6 percent increase from the previous year. Additionally, 60 women in Kenya were killed in the first six months of this year.
As fellow Africans of the soil and those in the diaspora, we want to challenge discriminatory stereotypes about victims of femicide and survivors of gender-based violence. We acknowledge that gender-based violence is a malicious game of power and predators often inflict maximum terror on women and girls who they see as easy targets.
Young high school student Janika Mallo, 14, was raped and killed with a concrete block, her body was found in her grandmother’s backyard — no arrests were made. University of Cape Town student, Uyinene Mrwetyana, 19, was raped and killed by a government employee at a post office near campus. Sixth year medical student at a Kenyan university, Ivy Wangeci, was hacked to death with an axe then a knife which was used to slit her throat in broad daylight. These isolated incidents disprove the popular narratives of victim-blaming perpetuated by rape culture. The stories of these victims shows that our mothers and sisters are not safe — any of them could be next.
The government and its constitutions, that are meant to bring justice, still remain elusive and have failed to protect African women and girls from predators that lurk on our continent. This system of structural violence has rendered African women and girls stateless. Statistics show that nine in ten cases of murdered neither make it to court nor result in a sentence. Nearly half of these murders occurred in a public setting. In her letter of address to the United Nations Symposium on Femicide, Diana Russell questioned why the murder and mutilation of women is not considered a political event. “Men tell us that they cannot be blamed for what a few maniacs do,” Russell said. “Yet the very process of denying the political content of terror helps to perpetuate it, keeps us weak, vulnerable and fearful,” she said.
What then? You ask.
Justice eludes the victims of femicide and survivors of gender-based violence because the issue is underreported. The burden that lies on a victim and their family to report such cases is slowed by societal stigma and judicial red tape. The femicide cases we know about today are only a drop in the ocean of the innocent blood that was shed. The lack of research on femicide in Africa makes it more difficult to protect survivors of gender-based violence and implement strategies that prevent femicide from happening. We call for all African governments to establish a publicly funded and sustained database to collect information on femicide cases, centralizing this process to include court records and police reports, which can be accessed by the media and the general public. This can be used as a bargaining chip to lobby statutory reforms.
Femicide cannot be fully addressed in Africa without tackling the widespread patriarchy and misogyny that permeates our society. We must purpose to engage local communities through education programs on women’s rights and wellbeing. Women and girls should be informed of their rights and where to seek services in the event they face an attack. Men should be held accountable and equally taught about respecting women and their bodies, attitudes on patriarchy also need to be dismantled. Moreover, African governments need to execute the legal consequences of committing acts of violence against women.
As black women we ask the general public to stand in solidarity with us in our joint effort to address the issue of femicide. This is not merely a women’s issue, we must adopt all necessary measures to protect women’s rights, especially the right to life and the right of access to justice.
It’s time to make noise and take action because silence is consent and to be indifferent is to be complicit.
Authors
Boikanyo Tefu is a multi-media journalist and Master’s candidate at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She is also a MasterCard Foundation Scholar.
Sarah Lebu is a graduate student of Public Health and City Planning at the University of California Berkeley. She is also a MasterCard Foundation Scholar. She identifies as a feminist and a champions for women’s rights.
