First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper. Between December 2020 and 3 March 2021, 10 South African men were sentenced to life imprisonment for rape. Those men removed from society include a 37-year-old uncle who raped his 10-year-old niece, a 44-year-old man who raped his 14-year-old stepdaughter, a man who raped a nine-year-old and an 11-year-old after luring them into his home, as well as two serial rapists who kidnapped their victims, held them hostage and raped them. Although this might seem like a drop in the ocean in a country that lives with a seemingly permanent “second plague” of gender-based violence (GBV), the sentences by courts across the country are a moment for pause and faint optimism.