By Thapelo Molefe
Guns have become the leading weapon used to murder women in South Africa, with firearm-related killings increasingly featuring in mass shootings and the proportion of women shot dead reaching its highest recorded level since femicide tracking began in the country.
Research and policy consultant at Gun Free Claire Taylor raised the alarm during an international webinar on firearms and violence against women and femicide, saying the percentage of women shot and killed increased by 75% between 2009 and 2020/2021.
“Guns are the leading weapon used to murder women in this country, including increasingly in mass shootings, which have become more and more common since 2020, 2021,” Taylor said.
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She said legally owned firearms played a major role in the killings, while men working in the security sector, including police officers and security guards who carry weapons as part of their jobs, were disproportionately involved in the killing, threatening, coercion and intimidation of women.
Taylor said institutions that routinely arm men, including the police and private security industry, lacked adequate systems to remove firearms from individuals who posed a risk to women, while existing systems repeatedly failed to do so.
Her presentation traced the relationship between firearm availability and femicide in South Africa over more than two decades, highlighting how stricter gun control measures initially contributed to a significant decline in killings.
South Africa’s femicide rate dropped from more than 24 women per 100,000 in 1999 to 12 in 2009, following the introduction of the Firearms Control Act in 2000.
The legislation was phased in over four years and introduced restrictions aimed at reducing firearm availability, including comprehensive background checks, limits on the number and types of guns individuals could own, safe storage requirements and licence renewals.
It also raised the minimum age for firearm ownership to 16 and required applicants to demonstrate a genuine need for a firearm.
Taylor said the Act was one of five pillars underpinning gun control in the country, which collectively contributed to reducing the availability of firearms.
Citing research by Naeemah Abrahams, she said the legislation and its restrictions were associated with a significant decline in firearm-related deaths among women.
The proportion of intimate partner homicides involving firearms fell from 50% in 1999 to 17% in 2009.
This contributed to a decline in intimate partner femicide, from four women killed by their partners every day to three women a day.
However, the gains were not sustained in terms of firearm-related killings.
Taylor said an increase in the number of guns in circulation from around 2011 coincided with a breakdown in South Africa’s firearms control management system.
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While applications for new firearm licences and the granting of licences continued to increase, the country also experienced growing cases of corruption and criminality within the system, resulting in more firearms becoming available.
Although the overall femicide rate per 100,000 women maintained its decline, firearm-related deaths began increasing steadily from around 2011.
By 2020/2021, the proportion of women shot and killed had increased by 75% compared with 2009, while three women continued to be killed by intimate partners every day.
Taylor said the growing use of firearms, including in mass shootings, demonstrated the need to address gun availability as part of efforts to prevent gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
She criticised the absence of firearms in South Africa’s policy response, saying the National Strategic Plan on GBVF did not mention guns.
She also pointed out that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s four-point plan to address gender-based violence, announced last month, made no reference to firearms.
“The thing is that guns are different. They are not like knives or bottles or fists or bricks or shambocks. They are designed to kill,” Taylor said.
She said access to firearms was one of the strongest and most modifiable predictors of whether violence against women became fatal, adding that their regulation presented an opportunity for governments to reduce the risk.
South Africa’s experience, she said, highlighted the need for international agencies, including the World Health Organisation and UN Women, to place greater emphasis on firearms when developing interventions to prevent violence against women.
“Access to guns is one of the strongest and most modifiable predictors of whether violence against women becomes fatal,” Taylor said.
Professor Jacquelyn Campbell of Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing told the webinar that perpetrator gun ownership increased the risk of domestic violence escalating into femicide by 5.4 times.
She called for firearms to be removed from individuals who pose a danger to their partners and for healthcare professionals to play a greater role in identifying women at risk.
The webinar also heard calls for the World Health Organisation to strengthen its guidance on firearms and gender-based violence, including improving data collection, risk assessments and prevention measures.
International speakers from Brazil and Mexico highlighted challenges in tracking firearm-related femicide, with Mexico reporting that the proportion of female homicides involving firearms had increased from 31% to 63% over the past decade.
Brazil, meanwhile, is developing a system to integrate health, police and forensic records to improve the identification and monitoring of femicide.
