MAKING A MURDER SCENE
Two rapes and murders that happened worlds apart have the same tragic thread that unites them. Both Sinoxolo Mafevuka and Franziska Blochliger were young women whose lives were cut short by senseless brutal violence. On either side of the divides of race, class and location, two families have experienced the sudden and unexpected loss of loved ones whose lives had barely just begun.
While many commentators have been quick to point out the glaring disparity between the media coverage, the difference in efficiency of policing and the progress made (or lack thereof in the case of Sinoxolo Mafevuka) in these two murders, one cannot weigh the life of one woman as more or less valuable than that of another. We should be angry in both cases and we should all pray for justice to prevail for both Sinoxolo and Franziska.
However, Sinoxolo Mafevuka was raped and murdered in circumstances that are created and maintained by the City of Cape Town. Patricia de Lille's administration has created the conditions whereby merely doing your ablutions is a perilous task. Simply put, Sinoxolo Mafevuka may have paid with her life for going to the toilet at night.
Service delivery and the provision of basic sanitation services is the responsibility of government. Sanitation services for all is a right, yet these blocks of township communal toilets are simply not safe for men, women and children.
People are vulnerable late at night and early in the morning. These toilets are filthy, some are poorly serviced, and almost all of them are unsafe at certain hours, leading to some form of the perpetuation of the bucket system.