Black power: Women throughout the country - including some men - took to the streets in a lie-down protest against femicide and gender-based
violence, which took place last Friday. They were dressed in black, and bursts of purple.
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a national heart condition, it is not always the most visible crisis, but one that can stop a country’s moral pulse in an instant. No amount of economic recovery plans, social investment and development summits, or electoral and political promises will help if the soul and heart of a nation stop beating for its women and girls, if women and girls cannot live, work, and dream safely.
South Africa has been showing symptoms of this cardiac failure for years. The sharp pains come daily in headlines announcing yet another woman’s murder whose name is turned into a hashtag; the national calmness that follows each tragedy, and the faintness that follows when we realise that despite all the talk, nothing truly changes.
A chronic crisis in a nation with progressive laws
Gender-based violence has become South Africa’s most relentless epidemic and the numbers reveal the magnitude of this reality. Three in five women experience verbal, physical, and/or sexual abuse in their lifetime. Research from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) indicated that over 35% of women who participated in the first South African National Gender-Based Violence Study (2022) had endured physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, while one in five reported having been sexually abused.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) crime statistics for the first quarter of 2025 tell an equally harrowing story: 13,453 sexual offences were recorded between January and March, including 10,688 cases of rape, 1,872 sexual assaults, 656 attempted sexual offences, and 236 contact sexual offences (May25_Release.pdf).
Although the state continues to encounter data anomalies on the disaggregation of the data on violence against women and children, previous reporting periods provide an alarming context. In the second quarter of 2024 (July-September), 315 children were murdered, a 7.5% increase from the same period in 2023. During that time, 490 children were victims of attempted murder, marking an increase of 35.7% from the previous year. Between October and December 2024, over 2000 children were victims of assault as a result of grievous bodily harm. Across the provinces, the GBV epicentres, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape continue to bear the heaviest burden.
These numbers are not mere data points; they are the country’s unspoken testimonies. Behind these numbers are echoes of fear and resilience and therein lies a silenced story, a name erased, a future cut short, and a family distorted. These are not isolated crimes, they are systemic failures of evidence that patriarchy, inequality, and poverty continue to intertwine in ways that erode human dignity and the basic human rights of the most vulnerable.
South Africa is not short of frameworks. The Domestic Violence Amendment Act (2021), the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act (2021), and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act (2021) were all meant to protect survivors and hold perpetrators accountable.
The National Strategic Plan on GBV and Femicide (NSP-GBVF), adopted in 2020, outlined a whole-of-society response anchored in prevention, protection, and care. And yet, progress remains glacial. Underfunding, the fragmentation of programmes that are currently being implemented, and weak coordination have rendered many of these frameworks little more than paper shields. Moreover, the interventions supported often lack local representation.
The newly established National Council on GBV and Femicide (2024) must be more than another technocratic structure. It must embody community representation, voices of those who have lost their loved ones to femicide, and survivor voices. Grassroot accountability must not be treated as an afterthought, but as the very pulse of its operation.
The 16 Days of Activism: Beyond awareness, towards action
Every year, from 25 November to 10 December, the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign calls for reflection and resistance. Yet, each year the call feels increasingly like ritualistic hashtags and speeches that echo for a moment and fade by New Year.
This year’s global theme highlights the growing issue of online abuse and is themed, “UNiTE to End Digital Violence against All Women and Girls.” In South Africa, the theme reflects the silent acknowledgement that the pandemic has not been addressed effectively and calls for action that addresses the root causes of GBV, which includes but is not limited to addressing misogyny and creating sustainable pathways for girls and women to actively participate in the economy, through education and training, employment and/or entrepreneurship.
This campaign should not be a commemorative moment; it should be the defibrillator that shocks us into sustained and collective action. A commitment not to seasonal outrage but to systemic transformation; in policy, in funding, intervention programme offering, and in cultural attitudes towards women, children and men alike.
Healing the heart: Redefining manhood and empowering the girl child
If GBV is a disease of the social body, toxic masculinity is the artery through which it travels. The dominant script of manhood, that strength equals control, that emotion equals weakness, that love can coexist with violence, must be rewritten.
We cannot treat GBV only at its point of eruption. We must go upstream to the formation of identity and gender norms. This means funding and institutionalising programmes that work with boys and men, teaching and empowering them that manhood is not domination, that power does not have to harm, and that accountability is a form of strength. It also means investing in the girl child, not only to protect her but to prepare her: building her sense of agency, leadership, and purpose.
Schools, community centres, and faith-based organisations must become incubators of emotional literacy and gender awareness, spaces where children can unlearn harmful stereotypes before they harden. As the HSRC’s study reminds us, entrenched cultural norms still drive GBV, and prevention must begin with reshaping socialisation itself.
The unspoken violence: reintegration and recovery
For survivors, the journey does not end at survival. Many face social exclusion, unemployment, and poverty that leave them vulnerable to further abuse.
If our policies are to mean anything, they must ensure full reintegration of survivors into the economy and society.
This includes:
- Personal and leadership development programmes to rebuild confidence and self-worth.
- Psychosocial support to address trauma and enable healing.
- Access to education, vocational training, and employment pathways that empower survivors to live independently.
- Business incubation and mentorship for women who seek to create their own livelihoods.
- Public-private partnerships that link survivors to sustainable economic opportunities, enabling them to enter, stay, and thrive in the market.
These are not acts of charity; they are investments in human capacity and national stability, and are the essence of what we mean by ‘social development’.
A call for coordinated courage
None of this will succeed without coordinated, adequately funded partnerships between government, the private sector, civil society, and communities. The heart of the GBV response cannot beat from Pretoria alone; it must pulse through municipalities, schools, workplaces, and homes.
South Africa’s GBV crisis is not a mystery to be solved; it is a reality to be confronted. The laws exist. The data, although an under representation of our reality, is clear. The moral imperative is undeniable. What remains missing is the collective will to move from rhetoric to recovery, from awareness to transformation.
A rigorous and urgent response is needed from the government. People must not guess what the government is saying and doing about the GBV pandemic, they must see it and must be part of the solution. If we fail to act decisively, the heart will fail again.
But if we treat the condition, addressing the social, cultural, and economic arteries that feed it, we can restore rhythm to a nation gasping for moral air. Because this is not only a women’s issue.
It is a test of who we are and who we still have a chance to become.
Natasha Mboyisa is a social investment specialist focusing on equity, socio-economic transformation and systemic change