Address to the nation by President Cyril Ramaphosa on the killings of women in Ekurhuleni and the national response to gender-based violence and femicide

Behind each of these terrible deaths was a human being – a daughter, a mother, a sister, a friend – whose life had value, whose future mattered and whose absence has left a family and a community grieving.

Across our country, women are living with the terrible fear that they may be next. No woman should have to live with that fear.

What weighs on me most is that seven years ago, in this same month, I stood before the nation to speak about this same crisis. Yet here we are, once more having to confront the