Acting Minister of Police, Professor Firoz Cachalia. Photo: GCIS
Fifteen women are murdered every day in South Africa — a shocking reminder of the country’s gender-based violence epidemic.
In total, sixty-three South Africans are killed daily, according to the latest police crime statistics. Acting Police Minister Professor Firoz Cachalia reported that more than 10 000 people lost their lives across the quarterly reporting periods from April to September.
This was his first SAPS report since President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed him to replace Senzo Mchunu, now under scrutiny in a commission of inquiry over political interference in police investigations. The figures lay bare a nation still battling a culture of violence, with women and girls paying the heaviest price.
Behind that chilling statistic are names, families, and futures extinguished. Yet as the annual 16 Days of No Violence Against Women and Children campaign — from 25 November to 10 December — comes to an end next week, the violence does not. Despite government fanfare and civil-society activism, the attacks on women continue unabated, prompting activists to renew their call for a 365-day national campaign to confront what has become a post-apartheid pandemic.
As a country celebrated for its constitutional reforms and progressive legal framework, are we paying lip service to the safety of women and children?
The latest crime statistics from April to September 2025 confirm a tragic truth: women and children remain trapped in the crossfire of a violent society that claims over 60 lives daily and recorded more than 10 000 murders in just six months.
Cape Town — a city of stunning vistas and deep social fractures — is preparing to host one of the world’s largest gatherings on violence prevention and safety. Organisers expect 1 600 delegates to descend on the Mother City, a place where magical mountains and ocean views stand in stark contrast to brutal inequality, gang violence, and some of the highest GBV and murder rates worldwide.
In his debut quarterly crime report as acting minister, Cachalia warned that sexual offences and gender-based violence remain “unacceptably high”, with increases recorded in attempted sexual offences and contact sexual crimes. He noted that certain categories of crime remain stubbornly resistant to policing interventions, including attempted murder, common assault, commercial crime, and crimes driven by organised syndicates.
GBV is no longer a crisis we can claim to be “fighting”. It has become a pandemic embedded in our national psyche — a daily reality that can no longer be normalised, ignored, or managed through seasonal awareness campaigns.
This truth was starkly displayed during last month’s G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg, when women’s rights groups staged a dramatic “lie-down” protest to demand global recognition of South Africa’s GBV emergency. Their message — that women and girls in cities, small towns, and rural villages live in daily fear — confronted global leaders overseeing two-thirds of the world’s economy.
Just days later, Cape Town — consistently ranked among the world’s most dangerous cities — reported 200 murders in 100 days. It was a devastating snapshot of a city famous for its beauty and protests and political heritage, but scarred by violent inequality, gangsterism, guns, local and foreign criminal syndicates and deep neglect of vulnerable communities.
A global crisis, a South African epicentre: The World Health Organization’s Violence Against Women Prevalence Estimates 2023 reveal the immense scale of the crisis. According to the report, 840 million women worldwide have experienced intimate partner or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. A further 263 million have endured non-partner sexual violence since age 15 — a figure likely to be under-reported due to fear, stigma, and systemic failures to protect survivors.
Violence against women has become one of the most pervasive public health emergencies in modern history. It fractures families, destabilises economies, burdens healthcare systems, and leaves long-term emotional, psychological, and social scars.
Safety 2026: Can South Africa lead again?
Amid this grim landscape, preparations are under way for the 16th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion — Safety 2026, to be hosted in Cape Town from 2–4 September 2026 by the Foundation for Professional Development (FPD) and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), co-organised with the WHO.
The timing is symbolic. The conference coincides with the 30th anniversary of WHA 49.25, the historic 1996 resolution introduced by South Africa which declared violence a global public health priority for the first time.
Safety 2026 presents an opportunity for South Africa to reclaim its moral and scientific leadership in public health and social justice — leadership once demonstrated during the global fight against HIV.
Professor Shanaaz Mathews, Chair of the International Scientific Committee for Safety 2026, puts it succinctly: “The WHO report reiterates what activists, researchers, and communities have been calling for: ending violence against women requires collective action backed by evidence — and strategic investment to take programmes to scale.”
Ubuntu as a global safety framework: The theme for Safety 2026 — “Ubuntu: United for a Safer Future” — seeks to redefine the social contract between citizens and the state. It frames safety as a shared responsibility, violence as preventable, and community solidarity as a powerful public health intervention.
Ubuntu’s enduring ethos — I am because we are — becomes a new rallying cry: “We are safe because we protect one another.”
Professor Mathews draws a powerful comparison to the landmark 2000 Durban AIDS Conference, which shattered global AIDS denialism and transformed access to treatment. She believes Safety 2026 could become a similarly historic turning point for violence prevention.
The conference is expected to attract global delegates — policymakers, scientists, youth leaders, funders, community organisations, and survivors. Yet its real success will depend on what South Africa does at home, not only on global stages.
If GBV continues to be treated as a seasonal campaign issue, rather than a systemic public health emergency requiring whole-of-society mobilisation, then conferences and declarations will mean nothing to the millions of women who live behind locked gates, fear the walk to a taxi rank, dread harassment from e-hailing drivers, or never report sexual assaults that shape their lives.
GBV is not an abstract human rights issue. It is a daily headline, a national pathology, and a mirror reflecting the deep fractures of a society struggling to rebuild itself.
As the world prepares to look to Cape Town in 2026, South Africa must decide whether it will showcase its beauty — or its resolve.
Footnote to history: Though the 16 Days campaign was not created by the United Nations, the UN Secretary-General supports this long-running global civil-society initiative, launched in 1991 at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University with support from more than 20 feminist organisations. The campaign’s dates link women’s rights to human rights: 25 November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and 10 December marks International Human Rights Day. The South African campaign was first launched at the former University of Durban-Westville, followed by the establishment of the first Advice Desk for Abused Women.
A festive season warning: With 3 558 newly trained officers entering the SAPS ahead of the festive season — a move Cachalia says will strengthen capacity — South Africans must confront a hard question: How many women, girls, and children will fall victim to the traditional holiday surge in domestic violence, crime, homicides, and the binge in drinking, drug and cannabis abuse?
As December revelry approaches, so too does the reality: GBV is not waiting for next year, the next conference, or the next campaign. It is already at our doorstep.
Marlan Padayachee, a member of Sanef, is a veteran political, foreign and diplomatic correspondent from South Africa’s transition to democracy, and a recipient of awards — including from the British Council and the USIS International Visitor, and now appointed Co-Chair: Media Council of Gopio International, representing 35-million in the Indian diaspora. He is a freelance journalist, photographer and researcher.