IN recent years, South Africa has been horrified by the murders of women, mostly by men they knew and trusted
Friday will mark the seventh anniversary of the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, shot and killed by her then-boyfriend, former Paralympian and Olympian Oscar Pistorius,
who claimed he believed she was a robber.
At the time of her death, Steenkamp had applied to the bar with the hope of becoming a legal advocate by the age of 30. She died at 29.
Now, Tammy Taylor Mrs South Africa Top 25 finalist Natasha King, is saying enough is enough.
Later this month, King will host a family fun run at the Castle of Good Hope in aid of the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation from 10am to noon.
The foundation was started by Steenkamp’s mother and registered in 2015. It aims to raise awareness of
the horrific statistics of violence and abuse against women and children, not only in South Africa, but around the world.
King said she believed “the root of gender-based violence to be lack of education”.
“That and not enough great male role models for our young men to look to. Evil thrives when good men do nothing. Women empowerment is just as important for men to acknowledge, as it is for women.
“That said, there are amazing men standing beside women on this matter. To those men, we see them and we thank them.”
King said, the fun run would be a “great, chilled family day where the whole family can come together and enjoy”.
In the latest available breakdown of murder victim statistics by the SAPS, which details age, group and sex, in 2017/18, 2 930 adult women were murdered.
According to the South African Medical Research Council, the first national femicide study established that the country had an intimate-
partner femicide rate that far exceeded documented rates for other
countries.
“In 1999 we found four women were killed per day by an intimate partner. We repeated the femicide study to look at women killed in 2009 and we found an overall decline in the number of women killed, but it remained more than 1 000 women killed by an intimate partner, which related to three women a day.”