South Africa's Femicide Crisis: A Nation in Trauma The gruesome discovery of nine murdered women in Ekurhuleni, a residential district east of Johannesburg, has sent shockwaves across South Africa.
The incident is the latest manifestation of a long standing crisis that has been brewing for years – the targeted killing of women, which has become an accepted norm in this country.
Femicide, as human rights advocates have termed it, is a deliberate act of violence against women because of their gender. In the last quarter alone, 569 women were killed, with another 1,052 facing attempted murder.