More than 21 cases of the brutal killing of women and children have been reported in less than a month.
RnB and Soul singer Loyiso Gijana’s newly released track for Femicide had South Africans in tears, as the song calls on men to hear the cries of women and children, and paying tribute to the victims of Gender-Based Violence.
Loyiso Gijana said he initially wanted to dedicate a song to Uyinene Mretjyane as they were friends and went to the same school. He said, he realized that a lot of women were victims of gender-based violence and dedicated the song to all victims. The song was composed by Gijana alone and he also did all the backing vocals. The emotional video for the song that is also available on YouTube, shows some of the women and young girls who were killed in the country.
On a social media post, Loyiso said: “All we need to do as men is to put our pride aside and be vulnerable, let’s help each other… There needs to be a total shift in [the] mindset of men.”
Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned the brutal killings of women and children in the past few weeks and added that South Africa was facing another pandemic as the killing wave surged.
He said South African courts, have been firm in dealing with cases of gender-based violence even during the lockdown, handing down life sentences, and multiple life sentences to perpetrators.
“We will speak for the 89-year-old grandmother who was killed in an old age home in Queenstown, the 79-year-old grandmother who was killed in Brakpan and the elderly woman who was raped in KwaSwayimane in KwaZulu-Natal.
“We will speak for the innocent souls of Tshegofatso Pule’s unborn daughter who had already been given a name, six-year-old Raynecia Kotjie and the six-year-old child found dead in the veld in KwaZulu-Natal. They are not just statistics. They have names and they had families and friends.” President Cyril Ramaphosa said while addressing the country in Pretoria.
Ramaphosa commended the South African Police Service (SAPS) for their “excellent work” in arresting almost all of the alleged perpetrators.
