Catholic Bishops in South Africa Urged to Raise Awareness on Femicide in Annual Pastoral Letters

In a report released last year, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development confirmed handling over 50,000 cases of gender-based violence and femicide in the country annually.

According to the latest crime statistics released by the SA Police Service, “The murder rate for women has increased from 10 murders per 100,000 women in 2021 to 13 per 100,000 in 2023.”

In his August 9 homily, Archbishop Tlhagale said, “What I also don’t understand is why men who fall in love and stay with a woman for five years or even more, or less, suddenly become violent when there is conflict in the family.”

He found it regrettable that men would assault their wives after years in marriage over a conflict.

He said that femicide is common in South Africa as some women are chased out of their homes or even killed.

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“Why do men become beasts?” the South African member of Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) posed,” and added, “Today, we celebrate Women’s Day. It is for this that we pray that men should become human beings as they grow older rather than wild animals.”

South Africa’s Women's Day is a public holiday celebrated annually to commemorate the 1956 march of approximately 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings in the City of Pretoria to protest amendments that had been proposed on the country's Urban Areas Act of 1950.

In his homily, Archbishop Tlhagale also reflected on the relationship between women and the Clergy in South Africa, saying that priests in the country do not have “a good reputation” as far as women are concerned.

He said that as much as women claim to love their priests and even support them based on their large presence in the church, deep down, “they are calling us names.” He said there is also an “inbuilt prejudice against women among the clergy.”

“I am not sure what we are going to do about that; I don’t think we are going to do much. That is how women look at us; they are very friendly and sympathetic, but deep down, some articulate this anger that we have excluded them from ordination,” Archbishop Tlhagale said.