Fear and rage over femicide in South Africa

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0:30Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm Paul Henley. In South Africa, what looks like a spate of serial killings near Johannesburg is casting light on the country's dubious reputation as having one of the worst rates of femicide in the world. For the ninth time in two months, a woman's body has been found in the city of Ekohuleni, just east of Johannesburg. Our Southern Africa correspondent Nomsa Maseko has been reporting on this. What Nomsa describes includes details that some listeners might find upsetting. The body that was found is that of a woman who's now been identified.

1:10She's about 35 years old and she had left her home to visit her friends a few days ago and just never returned home. The police have told us that she was found with her throat cut and that she had several stab wounds in her body. And this is the ninth body that has been found, but the sixth just this week alone. And that has sparked really outrage and fear among women in South Africa who have said, you know, a countless number of times that they do not feel safe at all. The numbers are staggering, but the conviction rate remains very low. And that is what is of concern. Last November, the BBC did a story about the fact that there was a huge uptake of women going for, you know, a firearm training and acquiring firearm licenses because they wanted to arm themselves in order, you know, to protect themselves and their families.

2:13The president has in the past spoken about the fact that, you know, the uncertainty and the fear of women that, you know, that they're feeling here in South Africa, but also established a gender commission. But, you know, rights groups have said the government has been talking a lot, but there's been very little action to show that the government of South Africa really is serious about taking such crimes, you know, as a high priority and ensuring that they are dealt with accordingly. The police have been advising women not to walk alone or use isolated routes. Here's Nomsa again. You know, I think what's concerning is the fact that police have not said that whether they are investigating the possibility of a serial killer or they are also looking into the possibility that these are copycat crimes that are being committed, you know, by several people.

3:08But they've only said that they are closing in and say women need to just look after themselves as a precautionary. Earlier today, Panyaza Lasufi, who is the premier of Gauteng province, where the killings took place, visited the location where the latest body had been found. I know the level of anger, the level of frustration, the level of despair. It's natural. I mean, if you have ninth body, no one would behave normally. But the investigators have done well. They've crit-crossed the country. There are people that have already moved out because they know we are looking for them. So we'll make a breakthrough.

3:43The BBC's been hearing from women living in Johannesburg about how they feel about the murders. These are people's mothers and sisters and relatives and, you know, they had a story and they had a life. And that was cut short by the growing rates of the femicide that is going on in our country. And it's very, very sad. And you kind of sit with it and you think, OK, literally, am I next? Am I going to make it home today? Am I going to make it to work? It's about freedom and it just suddenly feels all very threatening and everyone's feeling very vulnerable. You know, it's hit home. It feels it's not in your nearest area, but it also feels very close.

4:22You should be able to go to the grocery store. You should be able to just go about your day without thinking twice. It's like looking over your shoulder. It's exhausting. Crowds of women gathered outside a memorial service to the latest murder victim with placards chanting, demanding justice. The latest killings have brought renewed attention to South Africa's long-standing crisis of violence against women. Girls and women were killed in South Africa at a rate of 12.2 per 100 ,000 people. In 2022, that was nearly six times the global rate, according to the United Nations. Bernadine Bacha is director of the Sarah Bartman Centre for Women and Children, one of South Africa's best-known support centres for survivors of gender-based violence.

5:08People are fearful, they're anxious. There's a lot of anger from activists because it appears that not much has been done or responses have been delayed by the police services. It's almost the frustration that notwithstanding the fact that all the work that we do on the ground, we're just not able to get to a point where the numbers and the rates of gender-based violence are actually lowering. It's a Herculean task at this moment in time to try in South Africa to make sure that women are safe. We don't feel safe. None of us feel safe. I had a whole lot of activists. There were approximately 100 of us staying in this hotel on the east end of Johannesburg for this indaba.

5:51And women again and again were saying they don't feel safe walking around the outsides of the hotel to get from the conference area to their rooms. So there's a lot of fear. What would make women feel safer? What would make women feel safer is that the South African police services did their job. If there was visible policing, if we had some sort of reassurance that there was a plan of how the police services and the criminal justice system are actually going to assist women in South Africa. It will make us feel better if we didn't constantly have to look over our shoulder. Actually, Paul, I think the worst part of it has been the onus that has been placed on women in South Africa by the South African police services for us to keep ourselves safe.

6:39And that really was a slap in the face for many of us. The obligation to keep us safe actually lies squarely with the South African police services, not with women in this country. Are there no-go areas for women, particularly after dark? Is that how people feel? Oh, absolutely. So I live in Cape Town. I'm a runner. I will not go at certain times on the road at all. We don't have the opportunity to enjoy our mountains at all. No woman in South Africa will go onto a mountain by herself, even if it's for a trail run or something like that. We generally won't be out by ourselves after dark on the streets ever.

7:19If we walk into our cars, we have a pepper spray in our hand or we have our keys between our fingers and a plan as to how to keep ourselves safe. So it's a constant hypervigilance. Can you shed any light on the man problem here? Absolutely. So South Africa's problem when it comes to gender based violence is quite unique. It is rooted in huge unemployment rates. So we've got 8.5 million people in this country at this moment in time that don't have jobs. It's rooted in high rates of poverty. It's also rooted in high rates of substance abuse. And one of the drivers of gender-based violence also is rooted in the patriarchy.

8:05We've got a very patriarchal society where men believe that they have control over women's bodies, but also the after effects of the apartheid era that also spoke to power and control. So in South Africa, you've got a confluence of so many factors that makes it so difficult to actually address the problem. You need to come to it from very many different angles. You need to look at rates of employment so men feel that they're worthy, that women are also economically empowered and not trammeled to a perpetrator that she might be in a relationship with because he holds the purse strings. We need to start addressing the high rates of substance abuse in this country.

8:45So there's many things that really cause us to have one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world. And apart from the approach of the police, as you see it, what would you highlight that makes women in South Africa particularly vulnerable and why the situation there is so bad? It's a confluence of very many things. So we are very good in South Africa when it comes to promulgating laws. Our Domestic Violence Amendment Act, just to give you an example, has some very good provisions in it. One of the provisions of a law that was passed in January 2022, so we're over four years later now, spoke to online applications for protection orders.

9:28And this is a basic way that women in South Africa are kept safe when they're in relationships where domestic violence or gender-based violence is prevalent. That provision for the online applications four and a half years later has not been enacted. So the implementation of policies, legislation, anything that would concretize a consolidated, collaborated, holistic approach to protecting the women of South Africa is just not happening from our government. We have these laws and they can't be enacted. The funding's not in place for many of the provisions that women that are subjected to gender-based violence might need, like shelters.

10:11Shelters in the country are underfunded. So it's a confluence of very many factors of a completely broken system. Are the authorities awake to the fact that there is a femicide problem in South Africa and not just a murder problem? I do believe that they can't but be awake to it. If you have just a cursory glance through all of our media, our social media, women are standing up and saying, I am afraid, you know, how are we going to keep ourselves safe? The statistics that came out not even last month that said that 569, I do believe, but it was over 500 women were killed in a three-month period this year.

10:56And over 1 ,900 women, I do believe, in that same period were raped. These are our own police services statistics. They're official statistics. So it's not that they aren't aware that there's a femicide problem or that there are huge rates of gender based violence. It appears that the mechanisms to address it, there's no appetite to actually make sure that those work. Is there a chance, do you think, that this tragic spate of killings, the ninth, it seems, in two months in this limited area near Johannesburg, could make a difference, could highlight the problem in a positive way? It might be that we will get to that point again.

11:37But like I said, it's the implementation of policies. It's a visible policing. It's the fact that we don't have forensic kits. It's the fact that there are month-long delays on DNA testing. It's a broken criminal justice system. And the fact that the police services is not working. It's going to need a coordinated response with all of the role players to get together and say, this is how we're tackling it right now. And we're not hearing that either from the president and or from anybody that is able to say this is the plan going forward. Yes, they've announced that they're going to come up with a plan.

12:14So far, I haven't seen anything. That was Bernadine Bacha speaking to us from Johannesburg. She's director of the Sarah Bartman Centre for Women and Children in Cape Town. We did also ask for a response from the South African government, but they haven't yet been available. You're listening to NewsHour. Coming up on the programme, we'll be hearing how public opinion in the US seems to be turning on the big AI companies and their data centres as people absorb catastrophic warnings about the future dangers of artificial intelligence. And has President Trump put himself on the wrong side of the political argument in upcoming midterm elections?

12:51Plus, why memories of Princess Diana can still be incendiary for the British royal family. BBC World Service. This is NewsHour.

13:05MUSIC

13:26Coming up in 30 minutes, we'll be in Russia, where our correspondent is following a very unusual campaign ahead of parliamentary elections.

13:39During another TV election debate, one candidate bursts into song. The Communist Party, on we go. We're with the people, don't you know? The one thing the Duma has got was a lot of MPs loyal to the Kremlin. And for the president, that's the point. of a Russian parliament. The headlines. UN human rights experts say there are reasonable grounds to believe the US was behind strikes on a school and sports centre in Iran in February. More on that very soon. And a new species of cat has been identified for the first time in more than a century.

14:26I'm Paul Henley and this is NewsHour, live from the BBC World Service. A UN fact-finding mission on Iran says there are reasonable grounds to believe that America committed war crimes in two strikes in February that killed more than 170 people. A report says the missile strikes on a school in Minab in southern Iran and on a sports complex in Lamed, another city by the Persian Gulf, were indiscriminate attacks causing civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure. Let's speak live to the BBC's Tom Bateman, who's in Washington. Welcome, Tom. This is pretty clear, isn't it? A very clear finding.

15:08It's a detailed report, actually, and it goes into some length on these two strikes, which took place on the very first day of the war as it was launched by the US and Israel against Iran. And you mentioned first that strike in Minab, which has had a lot of attention because it killed around 150 people, 120 of them children, according to the Iranians. And the key finding here is that the report backs the suggestion that had been reported previously in the US that this appeared to be due to outdated targeting information by the US that suggested that the school was still some sort of military target because it was close to a military base.

15:48What the report says is this amounted then to more than mere negligence and therefore it believes the US acted recklessly and there were reasonable grounds then to believe the US committed a war crime. Similarly, with the attack on the sports centre in Le Mourdes, which killed 22 people, the report suggesting that this was indiscriminate and therefore also constituted a war crime. Now, we have had in the last sort of 20 minutes or so a response from the State Department, an official basically saying that the I mean, they've long had a problem with the Human Rights Council at the United Nations, saying that the council pushes anti American rhetoric and anti Semitism, and appeases repressive regimes.

16:30As such, we do not give credibility to the findings of this report, it says. Has the US ever formally admitted responsibility, particularly for that attack in Minab on the school? They haven't for either. And on Minab, they have said almost from day one, from the first week that they have been investigating that. Now it's understood that the preliminary inquiry by the Pentagon found that this was likely a US missile, a Tomahawk missile that hit the school. But there has never been any publication of any findings. And I think in part the reason for that is we've had a lot of equivocation from President Trump, who has at times suggested that the Iranians could have been behind it, that he falsely suggested at one point the Iranians themselves have Tomahawk missiles, which they don't.

17:15And so I think it's been clearly difficult within the system for them to then publish a report that might contradict something the commander-in-chief and the president himself has said. But, you know, their stock response to this has always been that they're investigating those findings and have never been made public. The UN report also takes time to criticise Iran for crimes against humanity, doesn't it? Absolutely. And there's a very lengthy section which makes for pretty shocking reading. And you'll remember the uprising very late December into the new year in Iran, protests against the regime.

17:50that the fact-finding mission goes into a lot of detail about the way that this was brutally cracked down upon by Iranian security forces, saying that there was a widespread and systematic attack against the civilians of Iran by their authorities, many of which it says amounted to crimes against humanity, saying that the death toll, in its view, was likely to be far higher than the official figure of more than 3 ,000 people, and some pretty chilling detail in there. They say, for example, that in some cases, security forces position themselves on rooftops and other elevator positions, firing assault rifles into crowds and also saying that in total at least 221 children were reported killed, some of them as young as two years old.

18:37Thank you, Tom. The BBC's Tom Bateman in Washington. A centuries-old document that tells the story of the fall of the Aztec civilisation after the arrival of Spanish conquerors is going on display in Mexico for the first time in more than 180 years. The manuscript's known as the Codex Azcatitlan. It depicts cartoon-like scenes from the Spanish invasion. It's been in France's National Library since at least 1898. It is widely considered to be one of the most valuable and insightful tellings of the history of the Aztecs generally. Camilla Townsend has been telling me more about the Codex. She's Professor of History at the Rutgers University in the US, and she's a specialist on the Aztecs.

19:20The Códix Azcatitlan is a really beautiful work of art, one of the loveliest of the Mexican codices. It is largely drawn in black ink and decorated in reds and oranges and yellows, sort of burnt colours, if you will. And it proceeds in a very beautiful way through their history, from the earliest legends up to the period of the arrival of the Spanish. It is illustrating all sorts of aspects of Mexica, as they call themselves, Aztec history, some warlike and some times of peace. For example, just describe what the figures look like. They're fairly primitive to some modern eyes, aren't they? Yes, they are.

20:00I guess you might use the word cartoon, but I don't mean cartoonish. They are two-dimensional but suggest three-dimensional. It's clearly by artists, Nahuatl or native indigenous artists who had gone to school with the friars and learned about Western perspective. One has the impression that they've learned to draw Western style quite recently. And so they're mixing Western presentation of the human body with all sorts of indigenous images and artwork. They show a road with a human footprint going along the path to indicate motion. And here and there, they do stop and war with their neighbours, but also do dances, sing songs, etc.

20:36So there they are living their lives when the Spaniards arrive. And do we know for sure that it was Aztec artists that did it? And were these pictures drawn at the time or as historical documents? We are certain that these were Aztec artists, indigenous artists, because the imagery is so loaded with native iconography, with stories that the Spaniards didn't even know. There would be no way for a Spanish person really to have created this piece of work in the colonial era. This is based on legends and histories that were passed orally amongst the Nahuas. And we know these stories because they sometimes stopped and wrote them down in their own language for each other without a Spanish audience in mind.

21:19And it's only recently that we've even discovered these stories and read them. And these images match those stories. On the other hand, we do know that they did not do this right after the Spanish conquest, you know, right in the early 1500s. It looks to me like it would be at least a century later, probably the early 1600s. And we say that because they have been to school learning the Spanish or European drawing techniques. They've introduced European dates right next to the Aztec dates. Like you'll have the year one house and then someone will have written above that in a different writing the year 1164.

21:52So these are people who have been living alongside the Spaniards for a while. So the codex is coming home. How big a deal is that? It's a very big deal. The Mexicans know, on some level they all know, what a grand history they have, the extraordinary nature of the civilizations that existed in Mexico before the conquest. But very few of them have the time, energy, resources to go and get their PhDs in this subject, so they don't know much about it. And of course, making matters worse, much of their heritage was taken from them, literally removed from the country, largely by the French, although some by English and Americans.

22:30Is there implied criticism of the Spanish, which wouldn't be surprising, given that they were the invaders, the killers? This text was created by Nahuas or Aztecs for their own posterity. They did not expect Spaniards or any other Europeans to be among the audience. And it's very interesting, when they do that, they allow themselves to complain and to voice anger more than they do in sources that are prepared by, with or for Spaniards. The Spaniards appear not to good advantage on several occasions. They are violent. The people, even women and children, are having their limbs cut off. The very last page shows friars involved in torturing Indigenous people who are tied to wooden sticks.

23:12Professor Camilla Townsend, Aztec specialist at Rutgers University in the US. This is NewsHour.

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23:59Welcome back to NewsHour. A very public row between King Charles and the uncle of his children, Earl Spencer, has dominated headlines here in the UK today. Charles Spencer has a book out about the life and death of his sister, Princess Diana, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail newspaper. And the King's at the receiving end of some damning allegations, including that soon after Diana was killed, he told Earl Spencer, rest assured we'll forget her soon enough. The Daily Mail's Robert Hardman is also royal book author and I put it to him that the response to this from the palace so far had been uncharacteristically outspoken.

24:37The palace yesterday, when a short version of this story came out, the palace immediately responded in about 90 minutes saying that they recognised that anger, fraternal grief, can cloud memories of events. So it was a response rather reminiscent of that of the late Queen when she said recollections may vary after some fairly incendiary allegations some years ago by the Eucon Duchess of Sussex. So that was unexpected. But I think what it shows is that the king is absolutely adamant he's not going to let this version of events by his ex-brother-in-law Charles Spencer, saying that he was somehow relieved, elated is the word that's been used, like a lottery winner is another phrase, by the death of Diana Princess of Wales.

25:26is absolutely pushing back on that. So 29 years on, this very well-trodden story, which was in Sendyrie at the time. It's been one of the major elements, if you like, of the post-war royal story, but here it is again. And there is presumably no way of knowing who's telling the truth. No, it is 29 years down the line, and as with any story, particularly possibly with any family argument, Within any family, people will have slightly or extremely different views of how a particular conversation might have happened at the time. I mean, we're talking about conversations that were happening in the middle of the night and in incredibly heated circumstances a very long time ago.