Johannesburg - UCT vice-chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng yesterday threw down the gauntlet to men in a challenging response following the sentence of the killer of student Tshegofatso Pule.
“I especially call on men to rise up and help to hold each other accountable for their attitudes, unconscious behaviour and direct actions that contribute to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV),” Phakeng told the Sunday Independent.
On Friday, the Gauteng High Court sentenced Ntuthuko Shoba to life imprisonment for conspiring with a hitman in 2020 to kill his 28-year-old girlfriend, who was eight months’ pregnant. In March 2022, Shoba was convicted of premeditated murder. Pule had been shot and hanged from a tree in Durban Deep, Roodepoort, in June 2020.
“Every year, across our country, in all kinds of communities and homes, women and girls face sexual and gender-based violence from the men they look to for love and protection. We should all be making a commitment to the continued fight against SGBV, and to making our contribution in any way we can in our own spaces,” she added.
Phakeng acknowledged that the devastating murder of Tshegofatso Pule struck too close to home, both at UCT in particular and in the higher education sector as well.
“We at UCT felt the same heartache we felt in 2019, when we were left shattered following the rape and murder of our humanities student Uyinene Mrwetyana. In higher education, there have been other similar devastating cases, including the murder of University of Fort Hare law student Nosicelo Mtebeni just last year,” Phakeng said.
She said the sentencing of Pule’s murderer sent a number of messages: first, the justice system should be seen to be working for victims and survivors in a society where sexual and gender-based violence incidents had become rife.
“Having an outcome of this nature, where the perpetrator received a life sentence, goes a long way towards boosting survivors’ confidence in the justice system and this in turn will lead to more courage in the reporting of such cases whenever they occur,” she added.
But Phakeng said the sentencing was also a reminder that we should continue relentlessly in the fight against SGBV. It was a scourge that had to be dealt with, and although the courts should always handle cases swiftly and justly, it started with a. united society working to rid the country of SGBV.
“Every woman whose life is lost or deeply changed by SGBV has something to offer her family, community and country. Through SGBV we lose that significant potential. It is our responsibility to do everything we can to end this,” she said.
Yesterday, President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed the sentencing of Pule’s murderer describing it as “befitting, appropriate, and justice for the two innocent lives he took so cruelly”.
He said the sentence sent the strongest of messages that perpetrators of violence against women and children would face the full might of the law, and that it should serve as a warning to those who conspired with others to commit acts of violence against women and children.
“This was a crime of particular callousness, by a man who had made several attempts on the life of a woman who was carrying his child. The discovery of Tshegofatso’s body hanging from a tree was a horror from which we are still struggling to recover as a nation,” the president said.
With National Women’s Month commemorated in August, Ramaphosa said, gender-based violence remained the biggest obstacle to achieving real and meaningful gender equality in the country. He called on law-enforcement authorities and the entire criminal justice system to act without fear or favour to ensure that victims of gender-based violence were protected, and that perpetrators were dealt with appropriately.
In a statement, the Commission for Gender Equality said the life sentence handed to Shoba was a welcome step that signalled the willingness of the judicial system to combat gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
“The commission has been concerned with the long periods it takes the courts to finalise GBVF cases before them. Although we are pleased that justice has been served in the Tshegofatso Pule murder case, the deceased’s family had to wait for two years for this conclusion.”
The commission’s court monitoring processes over the years have discovered mounting frustration as the justice system continues to be plagued by deeply embedded systemic constraints such as poor investigative capacity by the police, the absence of crucial witnesses leading to cases collapsing due to lack of evidence, frequent changes of prosecutorial teams, a failure to set court dates on time and many other factors.
The commission is aware of the laudable policies, procedures and legislative frameworks put in place by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to ensure an effective administration of justice. Yet these systemic constraints continue to undermine the policy intentions. The commission urged the Justice Cluster to prioritise GBVF cases and address these systemic challenges in the administration of justice.
On Friday, Acting Judge Stuart Wilson told the Joburg High Court that the offence was one of the worst he had come across. “A contract killing that exploited the dependency of a young woman and the death of an unborn baby. Shoba attempted to kill Pule at least twice. It’s clear that Shoba was the prime mover in bringing her death. Pule’s killer was hired by Shoba. Pule was vivacious but she was vulnerable.
“Her vulnerability was emotional and material. As her pregnancy progressed she relied financially on Shoba. Shoba wanted to get rid of them because they were an inconvenience,” Judge Wilson said.
He said from the evidence before him that it was clear that Shoba had planned and took part in the demise of his girlfriend.
He did not show Shoba the same leniency afforded to accomplice and hitman Muzikayise Malephane, who is currently serving 20 years in jail.
“Shoba’s role as the prime mover in commissioning the offence makes his situation different. Shoba would have carried on looking for a way to kill Pule with or without Malephane. You will spend the rest of your natural life in prison,” said the judge.
In 2018 in the aftermath of close to 50 incidents of rape and sexual violence on South Africa’s campuses, Ramaphosa launched a national strategic plan to tackle gender-based violence.
But there is no clarity on how it operates or who is driving it.
The tertiary sector has a gender-based violence policy document out but many believe that it needs a long-term, societal approach.
The Policy and Strategy Framework Addressing Gender-based Violence in the Post-School Education Sector is regarded as an important step towards addressing GBV at higher education institutions in the country. However, it needs to address the acute specific challenges of under-reporting, the gender-discriminatory nature of much of the existing legislation and policies to address GBV at universities and a dearth of scholarly research on the subject of GBV in higher education institutions.