Ntuthuko Shoba Found guilty of premeditated Murder of Pule

The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg has delivered a judgment in the trial of the alleged mastermind behind the killing of Tshegofatso Pule. Pule was 8 months pregnant when she was murdered.

A family member was heard saying, ”If this judgment can send a message to other perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence”

In 2021, Statistics South Africa released a report, Crimes Against Women in South Africa, indicating that one in five women (21%) had experienced physical violence by a partner. It is saddening to note that, between 25% and 40% of South African women have experienced sexual and/or physical IPV in their lifetime. In 2020 President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the scourge of gender-based violence a second pandemic

In the five-year period between 2015 and 2020, a total of 13,815 women over the age of 18 years were murdered, according to the South African Police Service (Saps). That’s an average of 2,763 murders a year, or about seven women a day.

The Johannesburg High Court has successfully proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Ntuthuko Shoba murdered his pregnant girlfriend Tshegofatso Pule.

He participated in the planning and killing of Pule, he hired Muzikayise Malephane to kill his girlfriend and Muzikayise is currently serving a 20-year sentence for Pule’s murder after he turned state witness and implicated Shoba as the alleged mastermind.

We have seen many non-governmental organizations joining hands in fighting Gender-Based Violence; South Africa is facing a gender–based violence and femicide epidemic that has reached frustrating and worrying proportions

One of the organizations THOMI AFRICA decried that the law should be tightened on granting bail to suspects and enforcement of long sentences for offenders.