Uyinene "Nene" Mrwetyana (20 April 2000 – 24 August 2019) was a South African student at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

. On August 24, 2019, she was raped and murdered in the suburb of

Claremont, Cape Town Claremont is a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. It is situated 9 kilometres south of the city, and is one of the so-called " Southern Suburbs", it is situated alongside Lansdowne. It is an important commercial and residential area, which is cur ...

. Her murder highlighted the broader national problem of

gender based violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner v ...

and

femicide Femicide or feminicide is a hate crime which is broadly defined as "the intentional killing of women or girls because they are female," but definitions of it vary depending on cultural context. In 1976, the feminist author Diana E. H. Russel ...

in South Africa, and is credited with "shifting the South African collective consciousness" and "igniting a movement".

Background

Mrwetyana was born in

East London, Eastern Cape East London ( xh, eMonti; af, Oos-Londen) is a city on the southeast coast of South Africa in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality of the Eastern Cape province. The city lies on the Indian Ocean coast, largely between the Buffalo River ...

to parents Noma and Philip Mrwetyana. She grew up in the suburb of Beacon Bay in East London and attended Hudson Park Primary School in incent where she chaired the school's student council and was awarded the "Hudsonian of the Year" award. Mrwetyana attended high school at Kingswood College where she graduated in 2018, posthumously receiving the school's own

Neil Aggett Neil Aggett (6 October 1953 – 5 February 1982) was a doctor and trade union organiser who was killed, while in detention, by the Security Branch of the Apartheid South African Police Service after being held for 70 days without trial. Life a ...

Memorial Award in 2020. She began studying film and media at the University of Cape Town soon after graduating high school.

Incident and legal proceedings

Murder and disappearance

On 24 August 2019, Mrwetyana had been told by a post office attendant and her future killer, Luyanda Botha, that her parcel was not ready for collection and that she should come back later in the afternoon, despite the post office closing at 1pm. Botha had planned his attack in advance, arranging with his post office colleague, Soraya Abdullah for her to leave work earlier. When Mrwetyana arrived after the official closing time, Botha locked the door behind her and began to violate her. He raped her and attempted to strangle her, before ultimately bludgeoning her to death with a two kilogram weight targeting her head and eventually knocking her unconscious. He returned the following day to retrieve her body and drove to a nearby field where he doused her body with petrol and set it on fire. Mrwetyana was last seen in Claremont leaving a

minibus taxi A minibus, microbus, minicoach, or commuter (in Zimbabwe) is a passenger-carrying motor vehicle that is designed to carry more people than a multi-purpose vehicle or minivan, but fewer people than a full-size bus. In the United Kingdom, th ...

outside Clareinch Post Office soon before her death. She was missing for nine days and received a large amount of media coverage and public attention in Cape Town. It was during this time that the

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...

#BringNeneHome started trending on social media. Mrwetyana's body was found in a hole beside an unused railway track in the

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

of Lingelethu West in

Khayelitsha Khayelitsha () is a township in Western Cape, South Africa, on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. The name is Xhosa for ''New Home''. It is reputed to be the largest

. It was discovered on the 26th but was only identified as hers a few days later.

Trial

A suspect, later identified as post office employee Luyanda Botha, was arrested and confessed to the Wynberg Magistrate's Court of committing the murder at a post office in Claremont. Following his arrest and subsequent confession, Botha was found to have raped and strangled her, before ultimately bludgeoning her to death. On 15 November 2019, Luyanda Botha received three

life sentences Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...

for the rape and murder of Mrwetyana. He will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years of his sentence.

Response

Cape Town anti-femicide demonstration 05

National reactions

Following Botha's arrest, remembrances and memorial services were held at the University of Cape Town, and

University of Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

. A large protest occurred at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town on 4 September where South African President

Cyril Ramaphosa Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African businessman and politician who is currently serving as the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa. Formerly an anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader, and ...

was present. Ramaphosa also attended an even larger protest outside

Houses of Parliament, Cape Town The Houses of Parliament of South Africa are situated in Cape Town. The building consists of three main sections: the original building, completed in 1884, and additions constructed in the 1920s and 1980s. The newer additions house the National A ...

the next day which gathered an attendance of several thousand people. The

#AmINext gained prominence during this time and was a major motive behind several of the protests. Mrwetyana's death as well as the rape and death of other women precipitated widespread public outcry that led to a two-day campus shutdown at the University of Cape Town. Mrwetyana's death "ignited a movement" and is known to have "shifted the South African collective consciousness".

Implementations

On 29 November 2019, The Uyinene Mrwetyana Foundation was founded in

Makhanda, Eastern Cape Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana Loc ...

in celebration of her life. The Uyinene Mrwetyana Scholarship was also founded for female students in the

Humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

faculty at the University of Cape Town, and was later first awarded to Luhlanganiso Majebe in July 2021. Following protests and uproar after Mrwetyana's death, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced reforms such as harsher punishments for sex offenders and the public disclosure of the

National Register for Sex Offenders The National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO) is a sex offender registry in South Africa which contains the details of people convicted of sexual offences against children or mentally disabled people. Those listed on the register are prohibited fro ...

to stem sexual and physical violence against women and children.

International reactions

In September 2019,

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (; born Rachel Meghan Markle; August 4, 1981) is an American member of the British royal family and former actress. She is the wife of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, the younger son of King Charles III. Meghan was ...

secretly visited the post office where Mrwetyana was murdered, while touring South Africa with her husband,

Prince Harry Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984) is a member of the British royal family. He is the younger son of Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. He is fifth in the line of succ ...

. In that same month, hundreds of South Africans gathered to protest against gender-based violence in

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

, New York City after the news of Mrwetyana's death.

External links

Official website
of the Uyinene Mrwetyana Foundation *
#IamNene: How Uyinene Mrwetyana's murder ignited a movement
– a mini-documentary by News24

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mrwetyana, Uyinene Hate crimes People murdered in South Africa 2019 murders in South Africa Violence against women in South Africa Women deaths Incidents of violence against women Alumni of Kingswood College (South Africa)