In South Africa, femicide is not an independent crime.
Nine women have been found dead in Ekurhuleni in just two months. And the number could grow. Between 2023 and 2024,5,578 women were murdered in South Africa. That’s around 15 women every day.
Yet when women are killed because they are women, South African law does not recognise femicide as an independent crime.
Call it what it is. Femicide.
Femicide is the most extreme form of violence against women. Without recognising it as a distinct crime, patterns of gender-based violence that precede femicide (e.g. intimate partner violence, rape, stalking etc.) get lost as isolated incidences.
Not only are men killing women and girls but by not acting the state is allowing it to happen. Call on the South African government to codify femicide as an independent crime.
The criminalisation of femicide alone won’t stop the killing of women but it would compel the state to confront their failure to protect women and girls from violence in South Africa.
In solidarity,
Amnesty International South Africa
Put femicide in the law
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