A case against a 41-year-old Soshanguve woman accused of stabbing her husband to death, has been remanded.
The Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court ordered that the woman accused of killing her husband should remain in prison.
The accused has not been asked to plead.
Police spokesperson, Captain Rheineth Motlana said the case was remanded pending further investigation. The offence was committed on Sunday 5 March, at about 06:10.
According to Motlana, the counsel who led a team of lawyers at the court, applied to the court that the accused should remain in police custody.
The woman allegedly killed her 34-year-old husband in Extension 4, in Soshanguve.
Police spokesperson Captain Reineth Motlana said the couple apparently had an argument around 04:00 on Saturday, in their Soshanguve Extension 4 house before the incident.
“The woman allegedly took a knife and stabbed her husband in the chest. It is not clear how many times, but the man died as a result of the stab wounds. He lost a lot of blood,” said Motlana.
Motlana said a case of murder was being investigated.
In a separate incident, on Sunday around 16:30, a 40-year-old woman from Rosslyn, north of Pretoria stabbed her husband following an argument.
“It is alleged the couple also had an argument, and the wife took out a knife and stabbed her husband in the chest,” said Motlana.
She was also expected in the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court soon.
A recent study supporting abused women found that women who kill their partners can expect to receive almost double the sentence their male counterparts get.
According to the Justice for Women Campaign (JWC) in Pretoria, more campaigns were needed to address domestic violence in the community.
The JWC’s aim is to secure the early release of women imprisoned for killing their abusive partners at a time when there was little or no other way to escape their situations.
“The very lengthy sentences some women have received, as well as comments made by some judicial officers, indicate that the effect of the abuse is not understood or adequately taken into account by the courts,” the campaign said in a statement.
The JWC reckons the law does not adequately take into account differences in physical strength between men and women.
“For a successful defence of provocation or self-defence to succeed, it must be shown that the attack occurred immediately after the provocation, or threat to life,” the JWC says.
According to a report on JWC’s website, people who kill in a rage during a sudden and temporary loss of self-control, or who are able to defend themselves in hand-to-hand combat, are more likely to be male.
“Women may be too terrified or powerless to fight back in the heat of the moment, and often lack the physical strength to beat adult men to death. Consequently, they sometimes use weapons or a third party to defend themselves, or wait until the man is asleep or otherwise vulnerable,” says JWC.
The study found that in 56% of the cases, female killers were abused by their victims. Men who killed their wives also abused them in 31% of the cases.
Out of 125 men convicted of killing their partners, 8% received more than 21 years’ imprisonment while 21% of women convicted of killing their husbands received such sentences.
The women who fare worst at the hands of the judicial system are those who kill their abusive partners using atypical methods like employing third parties or killing the man while he is asleep or otherwise vulnerable.
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