Before she was killed by Oscar Pistorius on Valentine’s Day morning, Reeva Steenkamp planned to wear black the next day. The model wrote about it on Twitter and Instagram, but this was no mere fashion choice. Steenkamp intended to join a “Black Friday” protest to put the spotlight on violence against women, especially in light of the Feb. 2 rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen in Bredasdorp, a small town in South Africa’s Western Cape province.
Booysen’s death has not received the level of worldwide attention as that of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh Pandey, the New Delhi woman raped and murdered in December. But their stories share chilling similarities in the details. Both women were gang raped. Both women were slit down the middle of their abdomens. Their attackers reached inside and ripped out their intestines. …