Post by @justadvocacy1

Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo left her home in Rhodesfield, Kempton Park, for a routine afternoon run and never returned. The 38-year-old mother of an eight-year-old daughter, centre manager, and active member of her community vanished on or around 9 September 2026. While her family searched desperately and her young child raised the first alarm, a clip from Podcast and Chill with MacG began circulating. In it, hosts MacG and Sol Phenduka discussed the wave of women’s bodies found in the Kempton Park area and Tsontso’s disappearance, while she was still missing. Instead of treating the subject with the gravity it demanded, the hosts turned a mother’s absence into material for laughs. MacG suggested she could simply have “kept on running” if she had noticed danger. Sol Phenduka added a pun involving race numbers on a runner’s chest and someone snatching her from the woods. The episode was recorded when Tsontso’s fate was still unknown. Her body was later identified by her family at the Germiston mortuary on 14 September. She became one of several women found dead in the area in recent weeks. Sol Phenduka has since apologised, acknowledging that joking about a missing person is distasteful, especially in a country where gender-based violence and femicide remain a national crisis. The public reaction has been fierce and justified. Many South Africans pointed out that reducing a woman’s disappearance, and the terror her child and family were living through, to banter reveals a deeper problem: the casual dehumanisation of Black women and the normalisation of violence against them as entertainment. This is not about “cancelling” a podcast or policing every joke. It is about basic human decency and responsibility. When platforms with large audiences treat missing and murdered women as content, they reinforce a culture that already fails survivors and their families. Tsontso was a real person, a daughter, a mother, a worker, a runner who simply wanted to exercise safely in her own neighbourhood. Her family described her as “the glue” that held them together. That life deserved dignity in life and in death, not a punchline while her body was still unrecovered. South Africa continues to record appalling rates of violence against women. Communities in Ekurhuleni have watched body after body appear. Families wait in anguish. Children lose mothers. In that context, “it’s just a joke” is not an acceptable defence. Media personalities and content creators hold influence. How they speak about these cases shapes public attitudes. Treating femicide and disappearances as light entertainment signals that women’s lives are disposable. We call on every platform, podcaster, and influencer to recognise that missing persons cases and gender-based violence are never appropriate material for comedy while families are still searching or grieving. Accountability means more than a belated apology after public pressure. It means pausing before the mic is turned on and choosing humanity over laughs. Rest in power, Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo. Your life mattered. Your daughter’s grief matters. The fight for women’s safety continues. #JustAdvocacy #EndGBV #JusticeForTsontso #WomensSafetyMatters