Get It Off Your Chest

In April 2025, a group of women carried a coffin to the Union Buildings, covered in 5,578 hand-woven beads, one for every woman murdered in a single year in this country. They delivered a memorandum backed by over 150,000 signatures. Today, more than a million South Africans have signed that petition, government has declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster and a statutory National Council has been established and held its first meeting.

Yet nine women have been found murdered across Ekurhuleni since July, and women across South Africa are still asking themselves the same terrifying question. Am I next?

The declarations have been made. The council has met. The signatures have been delivered. So why is it still not enough? Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Mmapaseka "Steve" Letsike, joins the show to answer the question that over a million South Africans are demanding an answer to. What is government actually doing, why is it proving insufficient and what will it take to make South African women feel safe in their own country?