ANC Women’s League urges national debate on death penalty after Ekurhuleni killings

The ANC Women’s League has called for a national conversation on the death penalty after a recent spate of killings of women, including the discovery of 12 women who were found dead in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng. The league said the wave of murders has intensified concern about gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa.

Prayer service and community response

The Women’s League held a prayer and memorial service in Alberton on Sunday, attended by faith-based organisations and churches. Speaking to broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, the league’s spokeswoman, Boitumelo Moiloa, said different organisations had come together because addressing gender-based violence requires a collective effort.

“We have realised that working in silos is not going to help,”

Moiloa said churches and communities should play a greater role in preventing gender-based violence rather than leaving the responsibility solely to government. She warned that danger can come from within homes and that people who appear safe can become victims.

“You wake up with a partner; you need to find that that partner wants to kill you or the partner can kill you. So it says a lot,”

What the Women’s League says it has done

Moiloa defended the league’s record of activism, saying it has participated in marches and demonstrations to press government for action and funding. She said the Women’s League had marched to the Union Buildings and to Treasury to demand financial support after gender-based violence and femicide were declared a national crisis.

“We have even gone beyond to march to Treasury to say, even if a president is declaring this as a national disaster, you can’t declare it as a national disaster and not fund it,”

Focus on boys, men and community mentoring

Moiloa argued that prevention must include greater attention to boys and young men, whom she said society had neglected. She pointed to absent fathers and social expectations that discourage boys from expressing emotions.

“We are saying to a boy child, you must not cry. You must be strong,”

She proposed creating spaces where men could speak about their challenges, supported by male social workers, and urged families and male relatives to mentor boys where fathers were absent. Moiloa also referenced earlier programmes in the North West that worked with boys, saying those sessions revealed some young people turned to drugs because they longed for fathers.

“In the North West, we used to have the session where we only take boys. And you will get shocked when they go there and tell us that some of them, the reason why they got into drugs is that they are longing for their fathers,”

Moiloa called on government to fund such programmes, saying talking alone was insufficient.

Death penalty should not be ignored, league says

Reports suggested ANC first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane may have raised the possibility of reintroducing the death penalty. Moiloa said she had not heard Mokonyane make the remarks herself but that the question should form part of a national discussion.

“But we, as the nation, we must start talking about it. We must not run away from it. We must not shy away from it,”

She said the death penalty was not necessarily the ultimate solution but argued that legal experts and society should consider all measures to address the killings. Moiloa also acknowledged the risk of wrongful convictions and people being framed for crimes.

“Mind you, there are those who will frame others, because we know that these things do happen,”

She urged that the death penalty be included in discussions and, if it were to gain support, that the modalities be debated.

Legal context

South Africa abolished the death penalty after the Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional on June 6, 1995.