Make SA safe for women before another life is lost

For years, women have cried, pleaded and, in some instances, died for the very simple act of being born women.

From the youngest child to the oldest grandmother, from urban centres to remote rural communities and from the highly educated to those denied classrooms – women have been killed for being women.

We have marched, protested, spoken, prayed and demanded that our safety be taken seriously.

Yet, the bodies continue to accumulate and the pleas continue to fall on deaf ears. At what point does our grief become unacceptable as the price of being female? Senzeni na (what have we done)?

The latest bodies should not become another crime statistic. These were women with families, routines, responsibilities, dreams and people waiting for them to come home.

Yet, whenever women are killed, the conversation turns to what women should have done differently: change routes, avoid walking alone, run in groups, carry protection, share locations and be more vigilant. But women are not being killed by ghosts.

They are being killed by men who live among us.

We keep telling women how to survive instead of asking why they must live as though danger permanently stalks them.

We speak about women being killed, but where is the same urgency in addressing the men doing the killing? Safety cannot remain a responsibility placed primarily on those being hunted.

Policing, investigations, intelligence, functioning streetlights, safe public spaces and effective responses to missing person reports are not lifestyle choices for women – they are matters of state responsibility.

The question is simple. What more are women expected to do when they are already doing everything society has demanded of them? We obsess over securing elections while failing to secure the women meant to cast the votes.

A woman should not have to become a security expert merely to survive. To government, lawmakers and the security cluster – we are tired.

Women are tired, but we are also pleading to stay alive. While addressing the societal fabric that has come apart, may you be so unbothered by our continued lack of safety that it propels you to actively make an effort to keep the woman and girl alive.

We do not need another declaration, speech or promise after tragedy strikes. We need you to act while we are still here, while our daughters are still here and while there are still women left to save.