South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday announced a national emergency response to femicide and gender-based violence, after the bodies of at least 11 to 12 women were found in an area east of Johannesburg over roughly two months. The discovery of the bodies, reported since July, prompted a nationwide outcry over the scale of violence against women in the country.

In an address to the nation, Ramaphosa described the response as multidisciplinary and led at national level. Four arrests have been made in connection with the killings. The president acknowledged public fear that the deaths so close together might point to a single perpetrator, but said police have so far found no evidence establishing that. He admitted the country has "not done enough" to protect women and girls, and said gender-based violence "cannot be accepted as a normal part of life in South Africa."

Among the main measures, every municipality must begin a women's safety audit "without delay" to identify and address high-risk areas. These audits are to look for broken streetlights, overgrown public spaces, abandoned buildings, unsafe transport routes and facilities, poorly secured parks and other conditions that put women at risk. Ramaphosa also announced an "enforcement package" to reduce alcohol-related violence. He stressed that alcohol does not cause gender-based violence and can never excuse it, and that responsibility always lies with the perpetrator, but described harmful alcohol use as a significant aggravating factor.

The president also argued that lasting change must go beyond policing and legislation. Violence against women, he said, "does not begin when a fist is raised" but earlier, in attitudes that treat women as inferior, in the belief that a man has a right to control a woman, and when jealousy is mistaken for love or coercion for affection. He called on men and boys to take the lead in ending it. "We have placed the burden of male violence on women," he said. "That must change. The solution to violence against women cannot be to make women less free."

The announcement comes in a country with one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world and one of the highest homicide rates overall: 5,427 people were murdered between April and June this year. Police statistics do not break down victims by gender, but the South African Human Rights Commission said recently that 569 women were killed and 1,052 others survived attempted murder in that period. Those figures underline why campaigners and ordinary citizens have pressed for more decisive action, and why the audits and enforcement steps will be watched closely for results.