Women’s rights groups say that a spate of murders of South African women in recent weeks, including a heavily pregnant woman stabbed and hanged from a tree, highlighted the need for tougher police action on violence against women. Two weeks after South Africa ended a nine-week ban on alcohol sales, President Cyril Ramaphosa linked a surge in rapes and killings of women to the end of the country’s strict coronavirus lockdown, calling it a “dark and shameful week”. Women’s rights campaigners welcomed the greater focus on violence against women but said this was not just due to the end of lockdown but a constant issue for women in South Africa who face high rates of domestic abuse. The rate at which women in South Africa are murdered by intimate partners is five times higher than the global average, according to the World Health Organization.
SOURCE: REUTERS AFRICA
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