Two days after the world observed this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8, the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) commenced at the United Nations’ Headquarters in New York.
In 2025, members of the CSW global community will mark the adoption of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), regarded as the most progressive blueprint for advancing women’s empowerment. It provides a framework for achieving lasting, measurable progress in ending discrimination, promoting women’s rights, and advancing gender equality.
Focusing on SDG 5, one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2015, this year’s CSW gathering will review the implementation of the Beijing Declaration over the past 30 years. The review will assess current challenges to its implementation and its contribution to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The journey toward gender equality stands at a critical crossroads, with stakeholders expressing deep concern that, as a global community, we are woefully lagging in our efforts.
And South Africa is not faring any better than the rest of the world.
Behind the numbers: A reality check
Shortly before Christmas last year, South Africans were horrified by yet another ghastly case of femicide when a video of a man from KwaZulu-Natal went viral on social media. In the video, which garnered over 20,000 views, he admitted to killing his 25-year-old girlfriend, displaying her lifeless body with multiple stab wounds in his car. Police later found the man hanging from a tree just meters away from where her body was discovered.
Cases like this often grab headlines, sparking societal outrage and protests. This, in turn, creates media hype and collective introspection, eliciting responses from government and other stakeholders. South Africans then briefly hope for change, but in a country plagued by high rates of gender based violence (GBV) including rape and femicide, more still needs to be done.
We continue to struggle in the battle against femicide, with the number of women murdered steadily increasing. Between July and September last year alone, 957 women were killed, an 8.6% rise from the 881 murders reported during the same period in 2023, this according to the second quarter crime statistics for the 2024/2025 financial year.
Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu recently urged GBV victims to persevere in seeking justice. Yet, with systemic inefficiencies, and without political will, a shift in how GBV is sensationalised and reported, and greater male involvement as allies against GBV, meaningful change remains elusive.
When three women die due to femicide every day in South Africa, and with over 1,000 murdered by intimate partners annually, we cannot afford systemic inefficiencies. Yet, that’s exactly what I and a team of researchers from the SA Medical Research Council (MRC) uncovered in our groundbreaking Third National Femicide Study (The Femicide Study) released at the end of last year. A key finding, drawn from interviews with SAPS officials during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlights that the challenge lies in preventing these heinous crimes, but also in our inability to track, investigate, and understand them effectively.
The Femicide Study, which delves into the complexities and challenges of working within the hierarchical structures of the South African Police Service (SAPS), revealed that 9.1% of femicide cases couldn’t be located in police stations due to mismatched or missing case numbers.
This isn’t merely an administrative hiccup – it represents real women whose stories risk being lost in the bureaucratic void. When a case number changes each time it transfers between police stations, we’re not just shuffling paperwork; we’re potentially obscuring justice.
While COVID-19 exposed many of these systemic weaknesses, the report states that it would be a mistake to view them as pandemic-specific problems. The fragmentation between mortuary systems and police records, the challenges in tracking cases across jurisdictions, and the unreliable contact information for police stations are deeply rooted institutional issues that predate the pandemic and that will persist for decades to come if not addressed.
Data as a defence against femicide
One of the biggest challenges in our fight against femicide is that South Africa does not have a reliable and efficient administrative system to collate data on the murder of women and to identify the perpetrators and their relationship with the victims.
Our challenges in documenting femicide accurately forces us to face two crucial questions: If we cannot collect and document femicide data reliably and validly, what is the hope of ever documenting other forms of violence against women and girls consistently and accurately?
And if we are not emphasising prevention (which would disrupt the cycle of GBV that at times lead to the killing of women), as a core goal of data collection, why collect data at all?
The Femicide Study offered valuable lessons for improving data collection in bureaucratic resource-constrained environments. Researchers embraced technological solutions, utilizing digital communication tools like WhatsApp to facilitate communication and streamline data collection. This approach proved essential and could be adopted by bureaucratic settings to reduce the delays commonly caused by traditional bureaucratic channels.
The study also highlighted the importance of developing flexible methodologies. The researchers were able to adjust their strategies in response to the disruptions caused by COVID-19. This demonstrated how essential it is to remain adaptable and prepared to modify data collection methods when circumstances change unexpectedly.
The need for enhanced training and sensitisation for data collectors was another key takeaway. This will ensure high-quality, accurate, and reliable data while preparing data collectors with the necessary skills to navigate bureaucratic challenges.
Furthermore, the researchers stressed the importance of establishing clear protocols and definitions. Defining key terms and standardizing data collection procedures across various departments or agencies can help minimize confusion and maintain consistency. Collaboration between departments was a critical factor in the study’s success. Regular engagement with police and other stakeholders helped ensure the effectiveness of data collection. Establishing interdepartmental committees or task forces could improve information sharing and integrate data more efficiently across governmental entities.
The study emphasised a survivor-centered approach to data collection, which prioritises the rights, needs, and safety of individuals affected by violence. Adopting this approach will ensure ethical standards are upheld across social research initiatives.
Finally, the study highlighted the value of using mixed methods to gain comprehensive insights. Combining quantitative and qualitative data provided a deeper understanding of complex social issues. The qualitative follow-ups enriched the quantitative findings, leading to more informed policies and interventions.
Building infrastructure for justice
We need to refocus our data collection efforts on producing accessible data that can be used to inform more nuanced responses to the prevention of GBV against women and girls, specifically those at highest risk of femicide.
Like all forms of GBV against women and girls, femicide is a specific problem and requires specific data, research and solutions.
The time for piecemeal solutions has passed. We need political will and institutional commitment to overhaul these systems. Our research experiences highlight not just the myriad of challenges, but also opportunities for transformation.
As a society, we must ask ourselves: Can we truly claim to be fighting femicide effectively when our systems for tracking and investigating these crimes are working against us?
The answer lies not just in reducing numbers but in building infrastructure that supports justice, enables prevention, and honours every femicide victim’s story.
The path to ending femicide runs through the unglamorous work of system integration and administrative reform. It’s time we recognise this and act accordingly.
This isn’t just about better record-keeping – it’s about saving lives.
