Femicide: is one student’s murder changing South Africa?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2019

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

On the 24th of August, 19-year-old Uyinene Mrwetyana went missing in Cape Town. She had gone to fetch a parcel at the post office. A week later her body was found. She had been raped and murdered. Her death spurred a movement across the country with thousands of people protesting after the most deadly month for violent crimes against women the country has ever seen. Rebone Masemola is a women’s rights activist in Johannesburg. She talks about the daily struggles of being a woman in South Africa, while the BBC’s Johannesburg correspondent, Milton Nkosi, explains why the country has a deep-rooted culture of violence. Producers: Seren Jones, Jaja Muhammad Mixed by Nico Raufast Editor: John Shields

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Matthew Price. This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.
0:11.2	Every day we ask one big question about one big story.
0:17.0	Today it's about femicide. Is one student's murder changing South Africa?
0:27.0	My fellow South Africans, our nation is in mourning and pain.
0:37.0	Over the past few days, our country has been deeply traumatized by acts of extreme violence perpetrated by men against women and children in our country.
0:51.0	A few days ago the South African president Cyril Ramaposa
0:55.0	addressed the nation. The country he said found itself in the middle of a
0:59.0	national crisis, an emergency that touched every South African.
1:03.0	These acts of violence have made us doubt the very foundation of our democratic society,
1:10.0	our commitment to human rights and our
1:14.4	human dignity to equality to peace and to justice.
1:19.4	What spurred the President into speaking
1:22.0	wasn't a general fear of South Africa's problem with violence.
1:26.7	It wasn't the 57 daily murders the police say happen there.
1:30.6	It wasn't the 137 sexual offenses that are committed every day. It wasn't the 30 women
1:36.9	killed by their husbands last month.
1:39.6	As we have done before in times of great difficulty and strife. This is the time to come
1:46.4	together as a nation to confront our problems directly. The nation is mourning the deaths of several women and girls who were
1:58.3	murdered by men. What forced him to speak out was a 19 year old first year university student in Cape Town called
2:05.4	Uin Nenemwood Chana.
2:07.0	I am Nenay.
	...

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