In 2019, after the murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana by a postal worker, and faced with ongoing outrage at the incidence of femicide, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of a country traumatised and promised to tighten laws on violence against women.
He finally signed three amendment bills into law late in January 2022.
But researchers are concerned about the ill-disciplined South African Police Service’s (SAPS) dismal record of implementing existing laws and the disconnect between some of the new ones and what they were drafted to cure.