Following the tragic string of murders in Ekurhuleni, the reality for South African women is clear: waiting for help is no longer an option.
As civil society protests police inaction, a new layer of personal defence is emerging. From smartwatches with built-in SOS modes to specialised apps that bypass standard emergency call centres, personal safety technology is becoming an essential shield for women navigating an increasingly dangerous landscape.
While the South African Police Service (SAPS) has deployed a specialised task team, combining detectives, forensic specialists, crime intelligence and the Investigative Psychology Unit, they have not formally confirmed whether the current cases stem from a single perpetrator or multiple copycats.
As Women For Change and Not In My Name International hit the streets in protest, public anger has reached a boiling point.
Activists criticised initial police advice urging women not to exercise or travel alone, condemning it as an admission of failure to guarantee public safety in a country where President Cyril Ramaphosa and government leaders continue to acknowledge a crisis level of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
Personal safety apps
In the face of a rising femicide crisis, smart apps, wearable alarms, and emerging tech are becoming essential tools for personal protection during daily routines.
Waiting for public emergency services can mean critical minutes lost. These personal protection apps bypass standard call centres to dispatch private emergency units directly to your GPS coordinates.
Namola: South Africa’s premier safety application. Its free tier connects users directly to public emergency services (SAPS, Metro Fire, EMS) using live location tracking. For enhanced security, its Namola Plus subscription routes emergency signals to a network of over 1,400 private armed response vehicles and medical units across the country.
Tracker CareGuard: A mobile emergency service providing on-demand armed security and medical assistance at the push of a button. Operable through a dedicated app or via WhatsApp location sharing, it calculates precise GPS data to route the nearest armed unit directly to your location, whether you are at home, in transit or exercising outdoors.
MyPanic (by Matrix): Designed to protect users across all regions, from urban metropolises to rural farming communities, MyPanic offers instant emergency dispatch along with two proactive safety features. Ride: Monitors your journey and expected travel time in the background, stepping in with alerts if your movement stops unnaturally. Meet: Logs your location and expected duration when meeting someone new, ensuring an audit trail exists if an emergency arises.
Wearable Protection
For runners, carrying a bulky phone in hand can be impractical or attract unwanted attention. Next-generation wearables turn daily attire into hidden distress signals.
SheSecure Wearables: Designed by women for women, SheSecure integrates smart textiles, gesture-based sensors and mobile connectivity into everyday athletic wear and garments. Whether walking to a vehicle or running on public routes, subtle physical gestures trigger silent background alerts to panic networks without giving away that help has been summoned.
Smartwatch SOS modes: Built into standard hardware like Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch, triple-pressing the physical side button triggers a local acoustic siren, broadcasts your live coordinates to emergency contacts, and dials local emergency numbers automatically.
Innovations on the horizon
The drive for personal safety has also sparked homegrown innovation. South African youth innovator Bohlale Mphahlele, through her company Mphahlele Alerts (Pty) Ltd, designed The Alerting Earpiece, a device built specifically to combat gender-based violence by combining a micro-camera, a GPS tracking module and a silent distress button inside what looks like an ordinary piece of jewellery.
However, although Mphahlele first developed the invention six years ago, a lack of funding has kept it stuck in development.
As such, it remains a prototype rather than a commercially available product on store shelves, a reminder of how financial barriers can delay life-saving security tools from reaching the women who need them most.
alyssia.birjalal@nationalmg.co.za