Her body was discovered in Kempton Park this week.

Thirty-eight-year-old Moselakgomo disappeared last Wednesday after leaving her eight-year-old daughter at home to go for a run.

The runners say they are angry and are calling on the authorities to take urgent action to protect women in the country.

Renegade Search and Rescue Spokesperson Nicky Esterhuizen says, “Women across SA are not safe; they fear  leaving their homes and we shouldn’t live in a country where that is the reality for everyone.”

“Women should be able to go and run. If they want to go run, they must go walk their dogs. Our girls should be able to walk to school without fearing for their lives and this is the reality for thousands of women and girls across SA, and we would really like to see some change in that.”

Runner Thembela Ngcengeni is calling for greater protection of women.

Ngcengeni says, “We can’t always run as a group because of our work environment and all of that. So seeing people being killed while they’re running, while they are walking, while they’re in their houses as well. So we don’t know where we are safe. So doing this awareness is to say, please, we need protection in our country because we are not safe. Running is a therapy. Running makes us feel good and it also good for your health as well. So what must we do? Where must we run? Where must we go? We are not safe. So we demand and we ask the government to really protect us and find those perpetrators.”

Another runner Thobeka Nsevu says she joined the gathering in honour of women who have been killed in places where they were meant to feel safe.

Nsevu says, ” We are doing this in support of all the ladies who have been killed on the road, in their homes, in their safe environments that they expect to be safe. We’re doing this to raise awareness and to say to the world and to the perpetrators, we will not be silenced. We will not stop jogging; we will not stop existing. We are doing this as an awareness to all the people who think that it’s acceptable to treat ladies as such. We’re doing it to say, stop this, GBV.”

Zweli Mthembu, one of the male runners, says he hopes the initiative will send a strong message to men who abuse women.

Mthembu says, “I chose to come and support this initiative because we run with women. We are also fathers. We are also brothers. This initiative will send a message out there to all other men so that they can stop abusing women. We all have to live in South Africa the same way as men are living in harmony. We pray and hope that the government will take hard initiatives to curb the scourge.”

—SABC—