What Changed? Make the findings of South Africa's Femicide Reviews count
The Issue
Over the past few days, I have written repeatedly about the killing of women in South Africa. I was incensed with authorities saying women need to be more vigilant because we're already hypervigilant. Yet and still, women are being killed. I was raped 25 years ago. I experienced GBV 12 years ago, again 10 years ago and again 7 years ago. This means I have spent 25 years learning how to stay alive as a woman in South Africa. I've been doing activism work for eight years and I didn't want to create another campaign telling women how to keep themselves safe. So I am doing something more constructive. I am asking the systems responsible for protecting us what they are doing differently when those systems fail.
South Africa recently launched a Femicide Review Pilot. The idea behind the initiative is to look closely at cases where women have been murdered and understand what happened, what warning signs existed and where opportunities to intervene may have been missed. I fully support this. What I want to know is, when a Femicide Review finds that something went wrong, what happens next? If a woman repeatedly reported her abuser and was later killed, what changes? If a protection order was breached, what changes? If warning signs were missed, what changes? If police, courts or another part of the system failed her, what changes so that the same failure does not happen to another woman?
Finding the failure is only the beginning. I am asking the government to make the findings of Femicide Reviews count. When a review shows that the system failed a woman, tell us what went wrong, who must fix it, what they are going to do about it, and whether they actually did it. This can be done without publicly identifying victims or exposing families' private information.
I've started a petition called What Changed? asking for accountability after femicide, because if we are going to study the circumstances surrounding the deaths of women in South Africa, those deaths must teach our systems something.
If you support my stance, please add your name to this petition and let's start doing the work to make this country better for all of us.
2,364
The Issue
Over the past few days, I have written repeatedly about the killing of women in South Africa. I was incensed with authorities saying women need to be more vigilant because we're already hypervigilant. Yet and still, women are being killed. I was raped 25 years ago. I experienced GBV 12 years ago, again 10 years ago and again 7 years ago. This means I have spent 25 years learning how to stay alive as a woman in South Africa. I've been doing activism work for eight years and I didn't want to create another campaign telling women how to keep themselves safe. So I am doing something more constructive. I am asking the systems responsible for protecting us what they are doing differently when those systems fail.
South Africa recently launched a Femicide Review Pilot. The idea behind the initiative is to look closely at cases where women have been murdered and understand what happened, what warning signs existed and where opportunities to intervene may have been missed. I fully support this. What I want to know is, when a Femicide Review finds that something went wrong, what happens next? If a woman repeatedly reported her abuser and was later killed, what changes? If a protection order was breached, what changes? If warning signs were missed, what changes? If police, courts or another part of the system failed her, what changes so that the same failure does not happen to another woman?
Finding the failure is only the beginning. I am asking the government to make the findings of Femicide Reviews count. When a review shows that the system failed a woman, tell us what went wrong, who must fix it, what they are going to do about it, and whether they actually did it. This can be done without publicly identifying victims or exposing families' private information.
I've started a petition called What Changed? asking for accountability after femicide, because if we are going to study the circumstances surrounding the deaths of women in South Africa, those deaths must teach our systems something.
If you support my stance, please add your name to this petition and let's start doing the work to make this country better for all of us.
Petition Updates
Share this petition
Petition created on 15 September 2026