March at Cape Town’s Princess Vlei highlights danger when it’s dark

About 100 individuals took part in a nighttime march along Cape Town's Princess Vlei walking trail on Friday. The demonstration aimed to draw attention to the dangers women and children face in the city after dark. The event also sought to highlight the ongoing issue of gender-based violence (GBV). Participants included neighborhood watch groups and Social Development MEC Wendy Kaizer-Philander.

The march came in the wake of a series of murders of 12 women in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, over the course of two months. This tragic event has sparked nationwide protests against GBV. Organiser Lucinda Evans, who is the director of Philisa Abafazi Bethu, a safety shelter in Steenberg, stated that the Ekurhuleni murders served as a "portal of anger and anguish in this broken country with so much violence." She emphasized that the government's failure to address this issue has been repeated time and time again.

President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation last month, pledging additional resources to combat GBV. He assured that further funding would be allocated to strengthen the Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences units, and that a consolidated report on the government's actions would be released within 90 days, with quarterly progress updates.

However, Evans criticized Ramaphosa's speech, asserting that it was a repetition of the same pledges made in 2019, and that the broken system needed more than mere words.

Evans stressed that the march provided an essential opportunity for men to engage with the issue of GBV and to demonstrate vulnerability. She noted that it can be difficult for men to be open about this issue, as they fear losing social acceptance. The march was intended to be the starting point of a more profound conversation on the matter, hopes Evans.