Be more vigilant

by Nicole Dickson

Nine women whose bodies have been found across Ekurhuleni since July, including in and around Kempton Park, Olifantsfontein, KwaThema and Dawn Park. SAPS has confirmed the ninth body and has assembled a multidisciplinary team to investigate the deaths, while cautioning that it has not established that all nine cases are connected. 

I live in Kempton Park.

And while I may not regularly travel through the particular places where these women’s bodies were found, I live among women who do. I have spoken to women from all walks of life who walk to taxis, trains and buses to get to work. Women who leave work and calculate how quickly they can get home before it gets dark. Women who ask colleagues for lifts. Women who phone their partners while walking. Women who share their location. Women who change their routines. Women in my hometown who are afraid.

And then we are told to be more vigilant than we already are. Don’t walk alone. Don’t walk after dark. Don’t wear that. Don’t trust strangers. Watch your surroundings. Tell someone where you are. Hold your keys between your fingers.

When will we tell men to behave differently?

I know that men are also victims of South Africa’s devastating violence. The statistics matter. In the first quarter of 2025, 4,890 of the 5,727 murder victims were male, and 837 were female — roughly 85% men and 15% women. That is an enormous and horrifying level of violence against men, and every one of those lives matters. 

But that statistic cannot be used to dismiss what women are saying because women experience violence in gendered ways. South Africa’s female homicide rate has been estimated at around six times the global rate. And the issue isn’t simply the number of women who are murdered. It is the constant mental labour of being a woman in a violent society. It is the vigilance. The calculating. The scanning. The wondering. The constant self-surveillance is exhausting. And when women are told, yet again, to change their behaviour to avoid being harmed, something is profoundly wrong with the conversation.

There have been statements. There have been promises. There have been declarations of urgency. Yet, I don’t think I am the only person in our country who is tired of promises that only arrive after the bodies have been found. Because I know how this goes. We’ve experienced it before. For a week or two, we will be angry. We will share the stories. We will change our profile pictures. We will demand answers. We will march. And then another story will dominate the news. Another crisis will arrive. And women will once again quietly return to their calculations about how to get home safely. I don’t want our anger to disappear. I don’t want these women to become nine more names we eventually struggle to remember. I don’t want the lesson to be that women must become even more vigilant.

— A woman who lives in Kempton Park