The tragic loss of Franziska’s life 10 years ago is what started Women For Change and gave rise to an organisation formed to protect the forest where she once ran.
Cape Town, South Africa (09 March 2026) – It happened ten years ago.
On 7 March 2016, a 16-year-old girl went for a run in Tokai Forest and never came home. Franziska Blöchliger, a pupil at Constantia Waldorf School, was found murdered in the fynbos of Lower Tokai later that afternoon.
That single, shattering phone call changed the direction of more lives than anyone could have known.
The night Franziska died, a small group of women made a choice. They refused to surrender to fear. The very next day, they posted on Facebook. A call for a memorial walk in Tokai Forest, one week later. They called it Women For Change.
More than 4000 people showed up. They walked for Franziska. And for every woman whose life had been taken too soon. That walk, that single act of grief turned into solidarity, became the founding moment of what is now one of South Africa’s most powerful GBV advocacy movements.
Something else was born from that morning, too.
In the shock that followed Franziska’s death, community members gathered and made an immediate decision that they would not retreat from the forest in fear. They would fight for it. Parkscape was formed that same day. The voluntary NPO has spent the past decade working to create safe urban parks in the buffer zones of Table Mountain National Park.
Earlier this month, on the tenth anniversary of Franziska’s death, Parkscape hosted a commemorative patrol through Lower Tokai. Community members placed ribbons along the fence that bears her memory, then walked together, through the forest she loved, to the site of her memorial cross.
“We remember the young life so brutally taken. We remember the decision to take back our beloved forest. We remember our decision to form Parkscape. 10 years… And yet it seems like yesterday. But from the brutality and senseless violence of 7 March 2016, in which young Franziska Blöchliger lost her life, from those ashes a phoenix was born. Parkscape has worked tirelessly from that day to ensure a safe space for women and children, and we will continue to do so..” shared Parkscape.
Franziska would have turned 26 this year.
In the decade since her murder, Women For Change has documented more than 1500 stories of women and children lost to gender-based violence.
“In the ten years since her murder, more than 1500 stories of women and children have been reported and shared on the Women For Change page. Jesse. Tshegofatso. Hannah. Emaan. Gaby. Ntokozo. Naeema. Olorato. And so many more.
Ten years of awareness. Ten years of protests. Ten years of petitions, campaigns, and calling for change. And still, the femicide crisis continues to rage through this country.
Ten years ago, Women For Change was simply a name we needed for a memorial walk in Tokai Forest. Today, it has grown into a movement – a safe space for survivors and families, and a force that has helped change the laws of this country.” shared Women For Change.
Last year, something changed. After nearly a decade of activism, protests, petitions and heartbreak, Women For Change helped gather over 1.1 million signatures demanding that gender-based violence be declared a national disaster. In November 2025, the president made that declaration.
South Africa’s GBV crisis was finally, formally named for what it has always been. A national emergency.
It wasn’t a finish line but a stake in the ground. The femicide crisis hasn’t ended, and activists are the first to say the declaration means nothing without budgets, shelters, trained police, and consequences for perpetrators.
Franziska’s tragic death sparked the ribbons on the fence, the thousands who walked in a forest in remembrance, the million who signed their names, the government that finally acknowledged, this is a disaster.
A life lost too soon, but never forgotten.
“The fight is not over. And while we carry deep exhaustion, we also carry something else. Hope. Hope that the voices that have risen over these ten years will continue to grow louder. Hope that the change we have been fighting for will come. Hope that one day, we won’t have to tell the story of another sister.” shared Women For Change.
Sources: Linked above.
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