‘The corpse can breastfeed the baby’: Reproductive Death in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission

In this paper I offer a new reading of selected testimonies from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and contribute to theories and scholarship on reproductive violence by introducing a Reproductive Death violence framework. Reproductive violence is often perpetrated by medical personnel in medical settings. Reproductive Death is a particular type of violence and death that is not necessarily gendered and is perpetrated by non-medical State actors and leads to severing or adverse reproductive outcomes. It is a violence on the body and the soul. The perpetrators of Reproductive Death do not rely on random selection, they are particular in who they choose as victims, and they are insistent and meticulous in achieving their purpose.