Kathrada Foundation demands urgent action after string of Kempton Park-area murders

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has condemned recent killings in Kempton Park and Olifantsfontein and demanded urgent action and accountability to tackle gender‑based violence and femicide.

Outrage after multiple bodies discovered

The foundation expressed outrage and sorrow following the discovery of six women’s bodies in Kempton Park and Olifantsfontein over the past two months, including local runner Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, whose body was found behind a hotel in Rhodesfield on Saturday, 12 September.

According to the foundation, two days later an unidentified woman was discovered bruised and partially clothed on the roadside in Olifantsfontein. On Tuesday, 15 September, another woman’s body was found in Ekurhuleni, bringing the tally to eight deaths in two months as authorities offered a R400 000 reward and deployed a high‑level police team.

Calls from police and the foundation

Acting police minister Feroz Cachalia said the deaths of eight women in these circumstances “remind the nation that women are unsafe in South Africa.”

“The thought that someone can go out on a run to participate in a happy event, never to return home, is too unbearable to think about,” Cachalia said.

Neeshan Balton, executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, said the killings highlighted systemic failures in protecting women and called for decisive intervention on gender‑based violence and femicide (GBVF).

“We cannot accept a society where women live in perpetual terror. The responsibility to secure our streets must rest squarely on the state and law enforcement, not on women being forced to modify their basic freedoms just to survive,” Balton said.

What the foundation is demanding

The foundation set out four demands it said are needed to address the crisis:

• Comprehensive investigation: The SAPS multidisciplinary task team must be fully resourced to track down and prosecute those responsible.
• Crime‑fighting infrastructure: Gauteng authorities must account for visible policing, surveillance and technology deployment in hotspots like Rhodesfield and the R21 corridor.
• Institutional accountability: Oversight bodies must investigate delays in warnings and communication when patterns of killings first emerged.
• Societal intervention: Men, businesses and communities must actively dismantle misogyny and violence.

Demand for transparency and solidarity

Balton said the foundation stands in solidarity with civil society movements, taxi operators and residents demanding justice, and warned that violence against women is a societal crisis that must be confronted by men as well as law enforcement.

“We will not look away, and we will not remain silent while women are being hunted down. Violence against women is not just a policing issue-it is a societal crisis that men must confront head‑on.”

The foundation added that the tribunal process and investigations must be transparent, independent and swift to ensure justice for the victims and safety for women across South Africa.