The recent death of a Zimbabwean woman in the United Kingdom has left many people shocked and heartbroken, particularly within the Zimbabwean community. As legal proceedings continue, it is important to respect the judicial process and allow the courts to determine the facts. My thoughts are with her family, friends, and everyone whose lives have been touched by this tragedy.
Like many others, I have followed the conversations that have emerged in the days since her death. They are conversations marked by grief, disbelief, anger and an overwhelming sense of loss.
They are also filled with familiar questions.
How could this happen?
Could it have been prevented?
Were there warning signs?
These are important questions.
But as someone who researches violence against women, I find myself asking a different one.
Why do we only begin paying attention when a woman's death becomes a headline?
We often think of femicide as the final act of violence.
It is not.
By the time a woman is killed, the violence has often travelled through months—or even years—of coercive control, intimidation, isolation, emotional abuse, financial control, surveillance, threats and fear.
The murder is the final act.
It is rarely the beginning of the story.
This matters because if we only begin asking questions after a woman has died, our opportunity to prevent that death has already passed.
Prevention does not begin with homicide investigations.
It begins much earlier.
It begins when women first report abuse.
It begins when coercive control is recognised for what it is.
It begins when professionals understand that domestic abuse is rarely a single incident but an escalating pattern of behaviour.
Individual perpetrators must always be held responsible for their actions.
Nothing in this argument changes that.
But if our analysis ends with the perpetrator, we risk overlooking the wider systems that shape whether violence is recognised, interrupted or allowed to escalate.
Every woman lives within a network of institutions.
Police.
Healthcare.
Social services.
Family courts.
Housing providers.
Employers.
Schools.
Immigration systems.
Domestic abuse organisations.
These institutions make decisions every day that influence whether women receive protection, whether disclosures are taken seriously, whether risks are identified, and whether intervention happens before violence becomes fatal.
This is why preventing femicide is not solely a criminal justice issue.
It is also an institutional one.
In my recent article, Femicide as Infrastructure: A Comparative Feminist Analysis of the United Kingdom and South Africa, I deliberately use the word infrastructure because I believe it changes how we think about violence.
When we hear the word infrastructure, we usually think of roads, railways, bridges or hospitals.
But societies are also held together by institutional infrastructure.
The organisations responsible for safeguarding women are themselves part of the structures that shape everyday life.
When those systems communicate effectively, recognise patterns of abuse, and respond consistently, they can save lives.
When they fail to recognise escalating danger, minimise coercive control, or leave women navigating fragmented services, those institutional weaknesses become part of the environment in which violence continues.
That is what I mean by femicide as infrastructure.
It is not an argument that institutions commit murder.
It is an argument that institutions influence whether opportunities to prevent violence are recognised or missed.
The question therefore becomes not only:
Who committed the crime?
But also:
What surrounded this woman before her death?
The purpose of asking these questions is not to comment on one particular case.
Every case must be determined by the courts on its own evidence.
Rather, it is to recognise that every tragedy invites us to reflect on broader patterns that extend far beyond one individual life.
Violence against women does not occur in isolation.
Neither should our understanding of it.
If prevention is our goal, we must become better at recognising danger before it reaches its most devastating conclusion.
That means listening when women say they are afraid.
Recognising coercive control as a serious form of abuse.
Understanding that leaving an abusive relationship is often one of the most dangerous moments in a woman's life.
And ensuring that institutions communicate, assess risk consistently and respond before violence escalates.
Why I Compare the United Kingdom and South Africa
My research compares the United Kingdom and South Africa because, despite their different political histories and legal systems, both countries continue to face profound challenges in addressing violence against women.
The comparison is not intended to suggest that these contexts are identical.
Rather, it highlights that institutional questions transcend national borders.
How do we recognise risk?
Who is believed?
Who falls through the gaps?
What forms of institutional response reduce harm and what forms unintentionally reproduce it?
These are questions every society should be asking.
Academic research should not remain hidden behind journal paywalls or confined to university seminars.
Its purpose is not only to describe the world but also to help us understand it differently.
Research cannot erase grief.
It cannot undo violence.
Nor can it bring back the women whose lives have already been lost.
What it can do is help us recognise patterns that individual cases alone cannot reveal.
It can challenge assumptions.
It can ask uncomfortable questions.
And sometimes, it can change the way we think about prevention.
That, ultimately, is why I wrote Femicide as Infrastructure.
Every time a woman is killed, we ask what happened.
We should.
But perhaps we should also ask another question.
What happened before anyone was paying attention?
Because femicide does not begin with murder.
It begins when fear is minimised.
When coercive control is misunderstood.
When warning signs are dismissed.
When institutions fail to communicate.
When opportunities to intervene are lost.
If our conversations begin only after a woman has died, we will continue arriving too late.
And that is precisely why we must start them much earlier.
Further Reading
Muchecheti, A. (2026). Femicide as Infrastructure: A Comparative Feminist Analysis of the United Kingdom and South Africa. Feminist Theory.
Read the full article:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14647001261453912
You can also read more of my public writing on race, disability, gender, higher education and institutional justice on Substack:
