---
title: "Women in the dark — how broken cities make us unsafe"
description: "From Johannesburg’s darkened highways to the unlit streets of Ekurhuleni, we found a landscape of broken streetlights, long grass and abandoned public spaces. But there is a way to turn the lights back on – and make the city safer for women."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "EAST RAND MURDERS"
authors:
  - name: "Ferial Haffajee"
    url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/ferialhaffajee/"
  - name: "Nonkululeko Njilo"
    url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/nonkululeko-njilo/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-15-women-in-the-dark-how-broken-cities-make-us-unsafe/"
published: "2026-09-15T22:26:12"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1622
---

# Women in the dark — how broken cities make us unsafe

> From Johannesburg’s darkened highways to the unlit streets of Ekurhuleni, we found a landscape of broken streetlights, long grass and abandoned public spaces. But there is a way to turn the lights back on – and make the city safer for women.

By Ferial Haffajee and Nonkululeko Njilo · Published 16 September 2026, 00:26 SAST

## Key points
- Another body in Ekurhuleni – Elizabeth “Tsontso” Mosalekgomo – has become the face of national fury as police and the Presidency launch manhunts amid growing fear in the East Rand.
- Our reporting finds whole corridors of Johannesburg‑to‑Ekurhuleni roads in near‑total darkness, long grass, cracked pavements and scant policing – conditions that make women easy prey (the only illuminated spots are taverns and strip joints).
- Urban safety experts argue the fix isn’t just policing: quick municipal wins – consistent streetlighting, trimmed verges, maintained pavements, mapping of risky routes and place‑making – would immediately reduce danger.
- The National Council on GBVF is barely six weeks old and says it will urgently raise Ekurhuleni at its next board meeting, but capacity gaps and slow criminal‑justice reform mean citizens must demand municipal accountability – especially ahead of elections.

## Content

Another murdered woman, another wave of fury sweeping across the nation. This time [Ekurhuleni](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-14-we-are-scared-as-women-say-kempton-park-residents-after-fifth-body-is-found/?dm_source=blocks-list-item&dm_medium=card-link&dm_campaign=inform&dm_position=2) and the wider East Rand are the killing fields. Because she is the only victim – out of eight in the past two months – publicly identified so far, the mom, runner and linchpin of her family, Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, is the face of our fury.

A police manhunt has been declared not only by the police but also by President Cyril Ramaphosa, as Reitumetse Pilane reports [here](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-15-stand-up-for-womens-rights-ramaphosa-urges-as-another-body-is-found-in-ekurhuleni/?dm_source=blocks-grid-wide&dm_medium=card-link&dm_campaign=inform&dm_position=1).

### Looking for answers

What is the urban context that allows women to be hunted? We set out to find the answers.

One reason that women in all our big cities are so vulnerable (when running, travelling, walking, fetching, carrying, working, posting), as they have declared in the past few days, is that South Africa’s urban infrastructure is not designed for women’s safety. It is an under-reported reality: women are extremely vulnerable at night in South Africa’s cities.

![Fer-Nonku-GBV](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/C2Nrk0TuEokHUh8LwxzyPsowp24=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Women-die-in-the-dark_610071.jpg)

*A map of where Elizabeth ‘Tsontso’ Moselakgoma ran and was murdered.*

As we head out at night to visit the crime scenes, the darkness is complete. From Jan Smuts Avenue in Johannesburg to the freeway leading into Kempton Park – and right through to Ekurhuleni – neither main nor secondary roads have working streetlights.

The M1 South is engulfed in near-total darkness, as is the R24 highway leading to the airport. Once you branch off to the R21, where Tsontso embarked on her last run, lamp-posts stand useless for kilometres – their double-globe fixtures empty.

For women who run or walk after work, night falls early in winter and in early spring, when Tsontso was murdered. Turning into the residential streets of Rhodesfield – Jones, Voortrekker, and the surrounding roads where four bodies were discovered – a few streetlights glow a feeble orange that does almost nothing to illuminate the night.

Police presence is nonexistent, and overgrown grass blankets the roadside. Deep ditches lie in wait like open traps. Women continue to die in the shadows of urban environments that should serve as their first line of protection.

### **Creating safe cities for women**

“What’s quite sad is that the police are blamed and take responsibility. \[Yet\] the city should be doing so much more,” says feminist urban safety practitioner Dr Barbara Holtmann, who is with the consultancy [Fixed.Africa](http://Fixed.Africa).

“Of course, there is a whole separate stream of work that needs to be done in the long term to protect women. \[But\] in the short term we can’t rely on the police to change the behaviour of men in circumstances where the worst behaviour is possible.”

The short-term strategy must be to make cities safer.

“In a year of municipal elections and action, we need to look at our environment and what it is conducive for,” says Holtmann.

“How do we make it easier for women to do what they want to do and need to do without being put at risk? The police need to identify \[by mapping\] places that are unsafe, and municipalities should be responsive. \[Often\] the police and the city don’t work together. These are things we need to be much more demanding about as we exercise our vote.”

[Fixed.Africa](http://Fixed.Africa), led by Holtmann, collaborates with cities to pinpoint areas where women’s safety and mobility are compromised, coordinating multi-team solutions to ensure local governments fulfil their responsibilities.

“Parks and maintenance services are absolutely essential. People \[responsible for\] maintenance don’t see themselves as having a safety mandate,” says Holtmann.

![A family-supplied photograph of Elizabeth Moselakgomo during one of the races she participated in. (Photo: Supplied / Family)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/rjx3sd0gW3G1HleFcUlP6Eba8xY=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/MC-TheTotalShutdown-KemptonPark4_825472.jpg)

*Elizabeth ‘Tsontso’ Moselakgomo during one of the races she participated in. (Photo: Supplied by Moselakgomo family)*

In Ekurhuleni, as in Johannesburg, the municipal mandate to protect women has gone down the drain alongside basic city services. Overgrown grass, cracked pavements and non-functional streetlights severely restrict visibility and mobility – severing a basic building block of urban safety recognised worldwide.

“We need to know where women want to go and where they need to go and make sure that they can. Women use the city in ways more complex than men: women need to traverse the city with children or with babies in prams or strollers. They tend to have more chores. For leisure, they seek safe places. \[You have to cut\] seasonal tall grasses. Visibility and light are the key things,” says Holtmann.

Place-making with light and public art are also recognised as means to create urban safety.

“When a place is not well-managed, it makes it clear that people are less vigilant there. The fact that these women were found in very similar circumstances means that someone or perhaps a gang realised it was a place that women used as a route and that it was not well looked after.”

Holtmann says that it will take a long time for the criminal justice strategies to bring down rates of gender-based violence and that providing a different environment for women’s safety is essential.

In Ekurhuleni, as we leave the killing fields in the dead of night, the only lights come from taverns on the R21, busy on a Monday night.

Anti-alcohol abuse activists have long pointed out that too many taverns are licensed in Gauteng and are often associated with violence. And while the streets are so dark and so badly marked that they are a hazard for commuters and drivers alike, the only spot that was bright and alive on a hazardous street was a strip joint called Cheeky Tiger.

> **Nine parameters for women’s safety in cities**
>
> The [Safetipin safety audit](https://safetipin.com/what-is-a-safety-audit/)assesses public spaces according to nine parameters that affect women’s safety:
>
> 1. **Lighting –**Is the space adequately and consistently lit, particularly after dark?
> 2. **Walk path –**Are pavements, pathways and crossings usable, even, accessible and unobstructed?
> 3. **Openness –**Is the space sufficiently open, without concealed or enclosed areas that can create opportunities for attack?
> 4. **Visibility –**Can people see and be seen, allowing for passive surveillance?
> 5. **Public transport –**Is safe and accessible public transport available nearby?
> 6. **Security –**Is appropriate formal or informal security available?
> 7. **People –**Are there enough other people using the space to provide activity and natural surveillance?
> 8. **Gender usage –**Are women and girls using the space, and does this change according to the time of day?
> 9. **Feeling safe –**Do women themselves feel safe in the space?
>
> The last three parameters are particularly useful because they measure how a public space actually works for women, rather than simply whether infrastructure is present.

![Fer-Nonku-GBV](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/5CIDkJvq_JdgNt5ZmDqzl-luZXU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/WOMANINDARKNESSHEADERIMAGE1_677145.png)

### **Violence against women was declared a national state of disaster — what’s happened since?**

South Africa’s war on women (also called a gender-based violence pandemic) was declared a state of disaster in November 2025 – and the mandate to manage the disaster lies in the Presidency with an interministerial Cabinet committee. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s board of experts and the public’s representatives were appointed to a National Council on Gender-Based Violence in 2024, but only started working six months ago.

![Dr Lebogang Ramalepe , Chairperson of the National Council on Gender-based Violence and Femicide. (Photo: PUKfm / Wikipedia)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/MOp_3XfQ3wvpE2J-Zyb-GLrUpiE=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Fer-Nonku-GBV1_312255.jpg)

*Dr Lebogang Ramalepe, chairperson of the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide. (Photo: PUKfm / Wikipedia)*

> **Nonkululeko Njilo** asked the council’s chairperson, **Dr Lebogang Ramalepe,** what the council has done so far.
>
> **Question:** Talk to me about what the council has done since the declaration of GBV crisis as a disaster.
>
> **Answer:**All right, so I’m going to answer this question in twofold. So, the declaration of the national disaster was declared a while ago by the President. It’s been almost five years now since that declaration \[to establish the council\] was made at the \[2022 Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide\].
>
> Now, the council was only announced in 2026, on the 31st of July, and we started our duties on the 1st of August. So, in essence, we are six weeks in office. I’m bringing these things up so that you also understand some of the limitations that we currently have as a council in terms of what we have done and what we are doing.
>
> Also, I also want to be a little bit clear in terms of the position of the council. The position of a council is we are not implementers. Our role and our mandate is to oversee, to coordinate, and to ensure that there is accountability within all the stakeholders.
>
> So, now what would be our plan in this regard? Our plan, firstly, would be to place the Ekurhuleni issue on the agenda of our next board meeting.
>
> **Q: And when is that?**
>
> **A:** The next board meeting will be held on 29th September. We’ll place this issue of Ekurhuleni on the agenda of our next board meeting as an urgent item. And within the council – maybe let me back-step a little bit – within the council, there are a number of government role-players that sit there, and Deputy National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili sits on the board as a board member.
>
> So, at that board meeting we will then be able to request a formal briefing, an internal briefing from SAPS regarding the handling of these cases.
>
> We’ll also then be seeking some kind of formal engagement with the Gauteng provincial government, as well as the City of Ekurhuleni, so that we also now understand some of the issues and environmental factors.
>
> I need to be honest, we’ve only been in office for six weeks. And this is a very new council. So even some of the systems, the operational issues, we don’t have a CEO currently.
>
> We are working through an interim secretariat. So, some of the foundational things are not yet there. I don't want it to seem like we’re not doing anything, but I also want to be honest and transparent that we’ve only been there for six weeks. **DM**

[Media on Daily Maverick: "Woman safety"](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-15-women-in-the-dark-how-broken-cities-make-us-unsafe/)