NOKUTHULA MAZIBUKO | Stop counting the bodies, start preventing the next one! - TimesLIVE

South Africans have become good at saying that addressing gender-based violence (GBV) begins with dialogues, strategies, planning, campaigns and billions of rands allocated to interventions. We hold conferences, establish structures and develop policies, yet women continue to tell us that they are being murdered at an alarming rate, while children are also losing their lives to brutal violence.

The question we must now ask is simple: how many more women and children must die before South Africa accepts that something is fundamentally wrong with its response? This is not about politics. It is about the silence surrounding a national crisis and the responsibility of those entrusted with leadership. GBV is not a women’s issue. It is a national crisis that affects families, communities and the future of this country.

South Africa must also stop relying exclusively on explanations rooted in economic deprivation and the legacy of apartheid. These factors remain important in understanding inequality and social conditions, but they cannot explain away the deliberate murder of a woman or child in 2026 and past years.

A person who decides to take another person’s life makes a deliberate choice. Poverty and unemployment may provide a context in which social problems occur, but they do not remove individual responsibility for violent crime.

Men must be the solution. Men in political leadership, churches, communities, universities, workplaces and families must hold other men accountable.

The recent discovery of women’s bodies in Gauteng has once again generated fear and outrage. Communities are asking whether the killings are connected and whether there could be a person or people responsible for multiple murders. These questions must be answered through evidence and proper police investigations. But, beyond identifying perpetrators, South Africa must confront the deeper question of why women and children remain so vulnerable to violence.

The weaknesses and gaps within the criminal justice system have been debated for many years. South Africans remain deeply concerned about the sentencing, parole and the possibility that convicted offenders may eventually return to communities. Life imprisonment does not necessarily mean imprisonment until death, and there is the parole which is governed by a legal process. Nevertheless, victims and their families deserve a justice system that takes the seriousness of violent crimes into account and keeps public safety at the centre of all decisions.

There is now growing public support for bringing back the death penalty. Most believe that capital punishment could deter potential offenders and make them think twice before committing murder. And that any discussion of its return must confront the constitutional framework honestly, seriously and urgently. South Africa also needs effective policing, investigations, prosecutions, victim protection and meaningful accountability.

Men must be the solution. Men in political leadership, churches, communities, universities, workplaces and families must hold other men accountable.

Women should not have to organise their entire lives around avoiding men who may harm them.

The country does not need another promise that something will be done. South Africans need to see that something is being done.

Women deserve to grow up without fear. Our children deserve to have mothers who return home safely. And our grandchildren deserve to inherit a country where violence against women and children is treated not as another social problem to be discussed, but as a national emergency that demands immediate action.