From commitments to concrete action: Ending femicide in South Africa
Posted: 20 July, 2026 Filed under: Derara Roba, Keziah Mwashigadi, Noah Yesuf, Rumbidzai Musonza | Tags: accountability, femicide, gender-based violence, human dignity, intimate partner violence, live free from violence, National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Act 9 of 2024, national disaster, National Strategy on the Prevention of Femicide, South Africa, woman's rights, women’s dignity Leave a commentThe Authors are enrolled in the LL.M in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Noah Yesuf |
Rumbidzai Musonza |
Derara Roba |
Keziah Mwashigadi |
Femicide in South Africa: The staggering realities
Femicide represents the most extreme manifestation of gender-based violence against women and girls. The numbers are frightening as reports have repeatedly shown that South Africa has one of the highest femicide rates in the world. Recent records indicate that the rate of intimate partner violence in South Africa is five times higher than the global average, and approximately 15 women are killed every day.
Yet, the response remains sluggish, unable to effectively tackle the pervasive ongoing femicide crisis that poses a daily threat to women’s lives and deprive their constitutional right to live free from violence with dignity, equality, and freedom.
Extending sexual health and reproductive rights through the Court: Analysis and lessons from FIDA – Kenya & Ors v The Attorney General & Ors High Court Petititon No 266 of 2015
Posted: 24 October, 2019 Filed under: Nimrod Muhumuza | Tags: botched abortion, failure to pay, Kenyan law, physical health, prohibitive cost, reproductive rights, sexual health, social well-being, woman's rights 1 Comment
Author: Nimrod Muhumuza
Lawyer and LLD candidate, Dullah Omar Institute, University of Western Cape
On 3 December 2013 and 24 February 2014, the Kenyan Director of Medical Services respectively withdrew the 2012 Standards and Guidelines for Reducing Morbidity and Mortality from Unsafe Abortion in Kenya, and the National Training Curriculum for the Management of Unintended, Risky and Unplanned Pregnancies.
In June 2018, JMM, at just 18 years of age, died as a result of a botched abortion in an attempt to terminate a pregnancy resulting from rape. Activists and JMM’s mother petitioned the High Court of Kenya linking the withdrawal of the guidelines to JMM’s death which they argued was a violation of her right to life, and her right to health. It would be first time under the new 2010 Constitution of Kenya that Court would flesh out the application of sexual and reproductive health rights, particularly the right to abortion, to a particular demographic: teenage girls from economically and socially impoverished backgrounds. The Court also had to determine, if it found that JMM’s rights had been violated, the appropriate remedies available to the petitioners. Read the rest of this entry »
AfricLaw 