Two days after the world noticed this yr’s Worldwide Girls’s Day on March 8, the sixty-ninth session of the Fee on the Standing of Girls (CSW) commenced on the United Nations’ Headquarters in New York.
In 2025, members of the CSW world neighborhood will mark the adoption of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Motion (BPfA), considered probably the most progressive blueprint for advancing ladies’s empowerment. It offers a framework for reaching lasting, measurable progress in ending discrimination, selling ladies’s rights, and advancing gender equality.
Specializing in SDG 5, one of many 17 Sustainable Growth Objectives set by the United Nations in 2015, this yr’s CSW gathering will assessment the implementation of the Beijing Declaration over the previous 30 years. The assessment will assess present challenges to its implementation and its contribution to reaching the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Growth.
The journey towards gender equality stands at a important crossroads, with stakeholders expressing deep concern that, as a world neighborhood, we’re woefully lagging in our efforts.
And South Africa is just not faring any higher than the remainder of the world.
Behind the numbers: A actuality test
Shortly earlier than Christmas final yr, South Africans had been horrified by one more ghastly case of femicide when a video of a person from KwaZulu-Natal went viral on social media. Within the video, which garnered over 20,000 views, he admitted to killing his 25-year-old girlfriend, displaying her lifeless physique with a number of stab wounds in his automobile. Police later discovered the person hanging from a tree simply meters away from the place her physique was found.
Instances like this usually seize headlines, sparking societal outrage and protests. This, in flip, creates media hype and collective introspection, eliciting responses from authorities and different stakeholders. South Africans then briefly hope for change, however in a rustic tormented by excessive charges of gender based mostly violence (GBV) together with rape and femicide, extra nonetheless must be completed.
We proceed to battle within the battle towards femicide, with the variety of ladies murdered steadily rising. Between July and September final yr alone, 957 ladies had been killed, an 8.6% rise from the 881 murders reported throughout the identical interval in 2023, this in line with the second quarter crime statistics for the 2024/2025 monetary yr.
Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu just lately urged GBV victims to persevere in searching for justice. But, with systemic inefficiencies, and with out political will, a shift in how GBV is sensationalised and reported, and larger male involvement as allies towards GBV, significant change stays elusive.
When three ladies die because of femicide each day in South Africa, and with over 1,000 murdered by intimate companions yearly, we can’t afford systemic inefficiencies. But, that’s precisely what I and a crew of researchers from the SA Medical Analysis Council (MRC) uncovered in our groundbreaking Third Nationwide Femicide Examine (The Femicide Examine) launched on the finish of final yr. A key discovering, drawn from interviews with SAPS officers in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlights that the problem lies in stopping these heinous crimes, but additionally in our lack of ability to trace, examine, and perceive them successfully.
The Femicide Examine, which delves into the complexities and challenges of working inside the hierarchical buildings of the South African Police Service (SAPS), revealed that 9.1% of femicide circumstances couldn’t be situated in police stations because of mismatched or lacking case numbers.
This isn’t merely an administrative hiccup – it represents actual ladies whose tales threat being misplaced within the bureaucratic void. When a case quantity modifications every time it transfers between police stations, we’re not simply shuffling paperwork; we’re doubtlessly obscuring justice.
Whereas COVID-19 uncovered many of those systemic weaknesses, the report states that it might be a mistake to view them as pandemic-specific issues. The fragmentation between mortuary programs and police information, the challenges in monitoring circumstances throughout jurisdictions, and the unreliable contact info for police stations are deeply rooted institutional points that predate the pandemic and that may persist for many years to come back if not addressed.
Information as a defence towards femicide
One of many greatest challenges in our combat towards femicide is that South Africa doesn’t have a dependable and environment friendly administrative system to collate information on the homicide of ladies and to establish the perpetrators and their relationship with the victims.
Our challenges in documenting femicide precisely forces us to face two essential questions: If we can’t gather and doc femicide information reliably and validly, what’s the hope of ever documenting different types of violence towards ladies and women constantly and precisely?
And if we aren’t emphasising prevention (which might disrupt the cycle of GBV that at instances result in the killing of ladies), as a core purpose of knowledge assortment, why gather information in any respect?
The Femicide Examine supplied invaluable classes for enhancing information assortment in bureaucratic resource-constrained environments. Researchers embraced technological options, using digital communication instruments like WhatsApp to facilitate communication and streamline information assortment. This method proved important and may very well be adopted by bureaucratic settings to cut back the delays generally attributable to conventional bureaucratic channels.
The examine additionally highlighted the significance of creating versatile methodologies. The researchers had been capable of regulate their methods in response to the disruptions attributable to COVID-19. This demonstrated how important it’s to stay adaptable and ready to change information assortment strategies when circumstances change unexpectedly.
The necessity for enhanced coaching and sensitisation for information collectors was one other key takeaway. This may guarantee high-quality, correct, and dependable information whereas getting ready information collectors with the mandatory expertise to navigate bureaucratic challenges.
Moreover, the researchers burdened the significance of creating clear protocols and definitions. Defining key phrases and standardizing information assortment procedures throughout numerous departments or businesses may also help decrease confusion and keep consistency. Collaboration between departments was a important issue within the examine’s success. Common engagement with police and different stakeholders helped make sure the effectiveness of knowledge assortment. Establishing interdepartmental committees or job forces may enhance info sharing and combine information extra effectively throughout governmental entities.
The examine emphasised a survivor-centered method to information assortment, which prioritises the rights, wants, and security of people affected by violence. Adopting this method will guarantee moral requirements are upheld throughout social analysis initiatives.
Lastly, the examine highlighted the worth of utilizing combined strategies to achieve complete insights. Combining quantitative and qualitative information supplied a deeper understanding of complicated social points. The qualitative follow-ups enriched the quantitative findings, resulting in extra knowledgeable insurance policies and interventions.
Constructing infrastructure for justice
We have to refocus our information assortment efforts on producing accessible information that can be utilized to tell extra nuanced responses to the prevention of GBV towards ladies and women, particularly these at highest threat of femicide.
Like all types of GBV towards ladies and women, femicide is a selected drawback and requires particular information, analysis and options.
The time for piecemeal options has handed. We want political will and institutional dedication to overtake these programs. Our analysis experiences spotlight not simply the myriad of challenges, but additionally alternatives for transformation.
As a society, we should ask ourselves: Can we really declare to be combating femicide successfully when our programs for monitoring and investigating these crimes are working towards us?
The reply lies not simply in lowering numbers however in constructing infrastructure that helps justice, allows prevention, and honours each femicide sufferer’s story.
The trail to ending femicide runs by the unglamorous work of system integration and administrative reform. It’s time we recognise this and act accordingly.
This isn’t nearly higher record-keeping – it’s about saving lives.