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Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu — 'I announce the passing of your mythical daughter, Tintswalo'

Bhekisisa Mncube
By Bhekisisa Mncube
12 Dec 2024
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Lately, I find myself consumed by thoughts of women and children, the most vulnerable in our society, especially as the curtain fell on the lacklustre 2024 edition of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV). The campaign’s tepid finale mirrored the hollow promises we’ve heard too often.

Ah, Chief Dwasaho! My psychiatrist has recently revised my diagnosis from clinical depression to melancholic depression — a more severe, almost aristocratic strain of despair. It’s the private school version (first-class cricket, rugby and shopping therapy) of mental illness. 

This descent into a dark hole began when I lost three dear friends in rapid succession during the fourth quarter of 2024. My genetic predisposition to depression, which is a family Mncube malady, didn’t make matters any easier. It invokes the ancient phrase: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” I am ready; if I perish, I perish. 

Lately, I find myself consumed by thoughts of women and children, the most vulnerable in our society, especially as the curtain fell on the lacklustre 2024 edition of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV). The campaign’s tepid finale mirrored the hollow promises we’ve heard too often. My empathy leans towards women; I brought one into this world. My daughter, who is studying and working in Cape Town, has already endured the trauma of a mugging attempt. She works late into the evening and relies on public transport. 

I think of my sister, a police officer whose uniform offers no immunity from GBV, and grieve for the countless women and children enduring this GBV scourge.

My thoughts often turn to Tintswalo, the fictional character you invoked in your State of the Nation Address. In my mind, she teeters between two futures: as another tragic statistic of GBV, her obituary etched in sorrow, or as the subject of a full biography — an example of fortitude and aspiration eclipsing even Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri’s recent literary endeavour. 

Trapped between despair and possibility


These are the oscillations of my melancholic mind, trapped between despair and the faint glimmer of possibility. Thoughts of the apocalypse, shrouded in a bleak and distorted view of the world, seem to revolve around the grim notion of the extermination of the feminine gender. It is a prospect so chilling that the very essence of life, embodied by women, becomes the target of annihilation. This paragraph may or may not be inspired by Nthikeng Mohlele’s new book, Breasts, etc. 

As I mulled over the feminine creatures, it hit me: this is part three of the lies you told us six years and 10 months ago. In the 2019 State of the Nation Address, you said: “Violence against women and children has reached epidemic proportions. It’s a crime against our common humanity.” Action, dololo (nothing). 

Therefore as a gender activist, I extensively reviewed various sources, including official statistics from the South African Police Service (SAPS) spanning 2018/19 to 2023/24, data from Statistics South Africa, and analyses from Africa Check. I wanted to understand the texture of GBV and its related crimes, specifically sexual assault, rape, murder, attempted murder, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH), and common assault. The period chosen is deliberately the post-Zuma “one-man wrecking ball”. I focused exclusively on the much-touted New Dawn. 

The findings, my labour of love, reveal the shocking pervasiveness of violence against women and children. Each statistic represents lives shattered, often aided and abetted by your inertia.

To move the needle, one thing is clear: GBV is not merely a societal issue; it is a state of emergency — one that demands a relentless commitment to pursue perpetrators in every town, suburb, village, informal settlement and township, leaving no stone unturned. Beyond that, we need a paradigm shift to confront toxic masculinity, dismantle patriarchy, and combat spiritual violence.

Crisis


The SAPS’ Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences Unit tasked with tracking down these purveyors of murder and mayhem require dedicated financial and technical resources to match the scale of this crisis. It comprises 176 units across the country. However, the number of investigators with specialist training and skills in such crimes increased from 1,120 Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences Unit detectives in 2006 to 2,064 in 2012. They do register some progress notwithstanding. I struggled to find the latest figures of detectives attached to this unit. Even before I bombard you with the statistics, 2,064 detectives are no match for the multitudes of perpetrators of GBV. 

If there’s no national reset, that would be a betrayal of the victims whose lives have been irreparably harmed. It is time for action, not empty rhetoric. I am beginning to believe that you are “fronting” to draw on the wisdom of the dead “in office but not in power”. Interestingly, you only woke up to the GBV scourge in 2020 when you launched the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, which, of course, has no funding for it to be implemented. The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities has been allocated R821.7 million for the 2024/25 financial year. 

However, specific funding details for the strategic plan are glaringly absent from the available budget documents. And yet, you’re meant to be in charge — to protect the weak, infirm and the vulnerable. Instead, you’re globetrotting, happily mingling with your BRICS+ and G20 counterparts while failing to address the epic crisis at home. In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare describes the impending doom thus: “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.”

I am no expert in pure mathematics or statistics, but I have spent countless days poring over the SAPS annual crime statistics reports during your tenure (15 February 2018 to December 2024). An exercise that was as gruelling as it was revealing opened the grim reality faced by women and children in this country. Sadly, crimes against the LGBTI+ community are not even acknowledged by the pretence of delineation in crime reports.

My estimate shows that 158,252 cases of rape have been reported during this period (2018/19 to 2023/24) — a chilling indictment of a society that has normalised the violation of women. Attempted murders stand at 12,055, each a narrow escape from a fate too many women have already met. The category of sexual offences tells an even graver story since it is estimated that 251,589 cases were reported, which underlines the endemic nature of this violence.

Brutality


But the brutality does not stop here. Assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a crime that leaves physical and emotional scars, has been reported, pointing to a grave number of 176,819 cases. Common assault, an all-too-frequent reminder of the pervasiveness of violence, stands at a staggering 271,204 cases. And then there is the finality of murder — 16,983 women lost their lives to male violence during this period. This statistic includes the two-quarters of crime statistics for 2024. These are not just statistics; they are stories of mothers, daughters, and sisters whose lives have been brutally cut short. The numbers are damning of a society where violence against women and children is a daily reality. Yet, the response by those in power remains timid — a betrayal of the most defenceless. 

Two renowned institutions support my estimates. In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported an age-standardised interpersonal violence death rate for South African women at 12.5 per 100,000 — nearly five times the global average of 2.6 per 100,000. This placed South Africa fourth among 183 countries for female interpersonal violence death rates.

The 2024 Human Sciences Research Council inaugural national study on GBV in South Africa revealed alarming statistics. It shows that 36% of women, an estimated 7.8 million — have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse at some point in their lives and that 24% — an estimated 3.4 million — have experienced it at the hands of an intimate partner. 

Thus, with profound sadness and sorrow, I announce the passing of your mythical daughter, Tintswalo, who symbolised the “progress” of the past 30 years. She succumbed to injuries inflicted by her live-in male lover, who remains at large. Tintswalo was laid to rest this Tuesday in the historic but derelict Braamfontein Cemetery in Johannesburg. To borrow from Shakespeare yet again: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” During your “New Dawn”, 886,902 GBV-related cases have been registered. We must treat GBV as the “Manhattan Project of our time”, to borrow an American metaphor. 

Till next week, my man. Send me nowhere. I suffer from presidential talk fatigue; fine words won’t patch torn trousers. DM

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