President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday he had ordered a clean-up of high-risk municipal areas and a crackdown on alcohol abuse to protect women after a series of murders has sparked a national outcry.
“The nation is angry. The women of South Africa are angry. Their anger is justified. “We must confront an uncomfortable truth. What we have done has not been enough.
I share that anger,” Ramaphosa said in a national address. Even though gender-based violence had been declared a national disaster last year, the government had failed women, Ramaphosa said, announcing a new raft of government measures with deadlines. We need to do much more,” he said. “Every municipality must begin a women’s safety audit without delay,” he said. “High-risk areas must be identified” and addressed.
He said a multidisciplinary, national-level emergency response was in place to investigate the Ekurhuleni murders, for which four people were in police custody. “There has understandably been widespread fear that the discovery of these women in close proximity could indicate the work of a single perpetrator,” Ramaphosa said.
