3 SA women killed by partner each day

2013-03-08 14:15

Reeva Steenkamp (Picture: AP)

Johannesburg - Reeva Steenkamp, the model and law graduate shot and killed by Oscar Pistorius, was statistically just one of three women killed on Valentine's Day by an intimate partner, according to a study on violence against women.

The study, published in August and co-authored by Professor Rachel Jewkes of the South African Medical Research Council, found a woman is killed by an intimate partner every eight hours in South Africa.

The report damns South Africa as having "the highest rate ever reported in research anywhere in the world".

As the world marks International Women's Day, South Africans are locked in public soul-searching over the high level of murders and rapes perpetrated against women.

That murder rate is double that in the United States, according to the report.

- SAPA