The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on the killings of women in Ekurhuleni and the government’s response to gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) as yet another belated intervention from a government that has known for years the scale, nature, and location of this crisis but has consistently failed to translate this knowledge into effective action.

The President’s decision to address the nation only after immense public pressure, outrage and the exposure of the horrific killings in Ekurhuleni is a reflection of a government that responds to public outrage rather than one that anticipates and prevents violence against women. The women whose lives were taken in Ekurhuleni did not become victims when their bodies were discovered. They were failed long before their deaths by institutions that are supposed to protect them, and it is very insulting for the President to invoke their names in a national address while presenting the State as though it is only now confronting the reality of GBVF.

The women murdered in Ekurhuleni were not isolated victims. Their deaths occurred within a country where women face persistent sexual violence, domestic violence, rape, abduction, and murder, and where the weaknesses of the criminal justice system are well documented. The state has extensive information on where violent crime occurs, the circumstances in which women are most vulnerable, the communities experiencing persistent violence, and the institutional weaknesses that prevent perpetrators from being brought to justice. South Africa does not suffer from an absence of information about GBVF; it suffers from a failure of political will, institutional capacity, and accountability.

It is therefore deeply concerning that the President’s response is centred once again on establishing new mechanisms, conducting further audits and reviewing unresolved cases, as though the State requires another process to establish what is already known. Crime statistics, police dockets, court records, forensic data, community reports, and the experiences of survivors already provide government with substantial information about where and how violent crime occurs.

The state knows which police stations are overwhelmed or dysfunctional, where forensic backlogs exist, where detectives are inadequately capacitated, where prosecution rates are poor and where survivors encounter serious deficiencies when attempting to access medical and legal assistance. What is required is not another mechanism to identify the crisis, but the political and administrative capacity to act on information already available.

The President’s announcement of a review of unresolved murders, attempted murders and rape cases involving women and children, together with further safety audits and measures to address forensic backlogs, cannot be presented as a decisive new intervention when these failures have been raised repeatedly over many years. A government that has presided over the continued deterioration of sections of the criminal justice system cannot respond to the consequences of that deterioration by commissioning another review without explaining why previous investigations, strategies, and interventions failed to produce meaningful change.

The failure to secure justice for survivors of sexual violence is particularly serious. South Africa continues to experience extremely high levels of rape and sexual offences, while the number of cases reported does not translate proportionately into successful prosecutions and convictions. The journey from reporting a rape to securing a conviction is undermined by failures at multiple points, including inadequate investigations, incomplete dockets, forensic delays, poor case management, witnesses withdrawing from proceedings and weaknesses in the prosecution of sexual offences.

The President’s address must also be assessed against the government’s previous response to GBVF, including its decision to treat gender-based violence as a national crisis and the extensive commitments made through various summits, strategies, action plans, and institutional arrangements. Despite these interventions, the violence has continued at an unacceptable scale. Government therefore cannot continue responding to every major incident by announcing another structure, another audit or another review without accounting for the failure of the structures that already exist.

The President’s address also fails to sufficiently confront the question of accountability. Government must identify why those cases became unresolved in the first place, which institutions failed to act, which officials were responsible for those failures and what consequences will follow. If police investigations were inadequately conducted, there must be accountability; if forensic evidence was left unprocessed, there must be accountability; if prosecutors failed to proceed with viable cases, there must be accountability, and if victims were denied appropriate assistance at police stations or healthcare facilities, there must be accountability.

The EFF therefore rejects the notion that the killings in Ekurhuleni represent a moment requiring government to discover the scale of GBVF. The scale of the crisis has been known for years, as have many of the institutional weaknesses responsible for the failure to protect women and prosecute perpetrators. What has been lacking is sustained implementation, adequate resources, effective coordination, and political accountability.

The women whose names have been publicly associated with the Ekurhuleni killings, including Busisiwe Mahlangu, Itumeleng Kekana, Nomfesane Mjobo, Gracious Nkomo, Elizabeth Moselakgomo, Dineo Motapane, and Jabulile Ntimba, must not be reduced to symbols through which the President demonstrates concern after the fact. Their families require justice, their cases require competent investigation and prosecution, and the state must demonstrate through concrete action that it is capable of preventing other families from experiencing the same devastation.

The President should also stop presenting additional mechanisms as though they constitute action. The state already possesses the information required to identify high- risk areas, recurring patterns, and institutional failures. The urgent task is to deploy resources to those areas, repair dysfunctional institutions, hold officials accountable, and ensure that every component of the criminal justice system performs the function for which it exists.