South African children and women are under siege due to high incidence of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) and human trafficking, even during the global campaign 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children.
This is according to the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), which said on Monday that it was deeply concerned by the increase in incidents and reports of women and children being victims of violence.
The yearly campaign, which ran from November 25 to December 10, ended on a sour note with the discovery of the body of a GBV activist in the Free State on Monday after going missing on December 5.
According to the Women for Change organisation, 28-year-old Nombulelo Jessica Michael’s body was found in Kalkfontein dam on Monday, December 11.
She was last seen on December 5. Reports indicated that she was attending a GBV related court case that day as she was a GBV social worker.
“As the campaign draws to a close, it is disheartening to learn that women and children are not protected and they are still being murdered in our country, at an alarming rate,” Numsa spokesperson Phakamile-Hlubi Majola said in a statement.
Hlubi-Majola said news of an Eastern Cape’s six-year old whose body was found wrapped in a plastic bag this week, was another sad reminder of how bad the GBVF situation had become in the country.
“In the Eastern Cape, we learned of a harrowing story of a six-year-old girl, from Inyibaba in Mdantsane who was murdered, and her body wrapped in plastic, and hidden under a bed. The little girl went missing on Wednesday and her body was found the next day by members of the community. A male suspect was also found dead, after members of the community allegedly beat him to death, because they believed that he had murdered the little girl. The SAPS suspect that she was raped before she was killed,” she said.
the union said more and more women and children were being killed, abused and raped in communities with impunity.
“In another incident, 16-year-old teenager, Machaka Radebe was murdered and her body was discovered in an open field in Bloemspruit in the Free State last week Saturday. It is alleged that an unknown man called the family demanding a ransom of R3 000 for her safe return,” she said.
These incidents coincided with human trafficking incidents after the Border Management Authority reported having intercepted more than 400 children in 42 buses travelling into South Africa from Zimbabwe, while in another incident, the same week, the media reported on 14 undocumented children between the ages of 6 and 14 years old, who were found travelling from Midrand on a bus from Pretoria to Cape Town.
Just last week, in another case, 33 children were found locked in a room in Benoni, in Ekurhuleni.
It is alleged that the children had been kidnapped and were victims of human trafficking. The children came from different parts of the country and were being held in that house.
And just days into the gender-based violence campaign, 48-year-old Khethiwe Nkambule, a school teacher was shot dead near the South Park Cemetery in Bloemfontein.
NUMSA second deputy president Puleng Phaka also decried the high levels of GBVF as well as human trafficking of children and women, saying the country’s children and women were under attack.
“We are under siege and we are overrun by crime in our country. Children are suffering unimaginable abuse and this is happening during a campaign designed to protect women and children. What is most concerning is that it seems law enforcement is helpless and is unable to protect our communities. We are like lambs who are ready to be slaughtered.”
The Star