Dressed in black, thousands of women, girls, and supporters lay down in a coordinated silent protest across South Africa earlier this month, turning pavements, university campuses, schoolyards, and beachfronts into sites of mourning and protest.
The 15-minute demonstration on 21 November was to honour the estimated 15 women killed every day in South Africa – one of the world’s worst femicide statistics.
“The atmosphere was powerful and honestly really emotional,” said 20-year-old student Nosihle Mdlalose, who joined the gathering in the city of Cape Town’s Sea Point promenade. “The lie-down also created a solemn silence that made the whole cause of the protest come to life, honouring every single person who has lost their lives to GBV.”
The nationwide shutdown, led by the NGO Women for Change, was timed for the eve of the G20 Summit in South Africa. The organisers asked women and LGBTQI+ people to withdraw from all paid and unpaid labour to demonstrate their social and economic contribution – and to force the government to acknowledge gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) as a national disaster.
“Every day, you have to send locations, keep a taser with you, and generally just be prepared for anything.”
“Before the G20 meets to talk about growth and progress, South African women will show them what happens when we disappear. You cannot speak of economies while women live in fear,” said a Women for Change statement. It was backed by a petition signed by more than 1.1 million people worldwide.
The rate of GBVF in South Africa is staggering. Intimate partner femicide is almost five times the world average. Over a three-month period last year, the Human Sciences Research Council – the country’s statutory research agency – found that 957 women were murdered, 1,567 survived attempted murders, and 14,366 suffered grievous bodily harm. Over 10,000 rapes were also reported to the police, a fraction of the actual number as an estimated 95% of cases go unreported.
“It has gotten to the point that you can’t even walk freely anymore,” Mdlalose told The New Humanitarian. “Every day, you have to send locations, keep a taser with you, and generally just be prepared for anything.”
In many rural areas, “GBV and rape are never addressed to the full extent because it’s masked as ‘tradition’,” she noted.
In rural KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, that “tradition” includes bride abductions. “Girls coming from school are often just abducted and forced into marriage,” said Relebohile Moletsane, a researcher on GBV in rural and peri-urban communities at the University of the Witwatersrand. “People tend not to intervene, even when the girl is asking for help.”
A national crisis
Recent killings have sharpened public anger. They include the murder in May of 30-year-old Olorato Mongale, allegedly by a man she went on a date with. There was also the double killing of two cousins on a street outside a club in Mamelodi in October; and the fatal shooting by a male relative of two young women and the wounding of a young boy in Mitchells Plain in early November. Numerous other cases rarely make national headlines.
These tragedies have fuelled a sense of national crisis, and impatience with what many see as the government's feeble response. There is a National Strategic Plan (NSP) on GBVF, developed in 2020 following a string of brutal femicides. But five years on, NGOs and charities say the plan is bogged down by insufficient funding and political inertia.
A day before the 21 November shutdown, after months of what Women for Change described as "no concrete answers, no accountability, and no meaningful action", the government formally declared GBVF a "National Disaster". Until then, officials had simply dodged the issue, leaving violence against women and girls outside the emergency provisions of the Disaster Management Act, which unlocks fast-track funding and multi-agency intervention measures.
“The volume of cases, the lifelong impact on survivors, the weaknesses across the justice system, and the lack of adequately resourced shelters point to a situation that requires urgent and coordinated national attention,” said Celeste Louw, general manager of operations at the TEARS Foundation, a GBV crisis intervention and counselling service.
More funding is a critical need. The TEARS Foundation, which handled 91,199 requests for information or assistance between October 2024 and October 2025, said its services continue to be overwhelmed.
“Funding remains a significant challenge,” said Louw. “Shelters in particular remain severely underfunded. Many operate with minimal staff, outdated facilities, limited security, and no consistent skills development or healing programmes for the women and children they serve.”
Since the launch of the NSP, the government has opened only 11 of its one-stop Thuthuzela Care Centres (TTCs), which provide support for survivors of sexual violence. It’s far short of what specialists say a country with a population of 63 million needs.
Failing to protect survivors
Delays in justice compound the sense of inaction. A South African Police Service briefing in May confirmed persistent delays in DNA processing, despite the establishment of a new forensic laboratory in KwaZulu-Natal. “Backlogs in forensic testing, which can stretch for up to two years, weaken cases, and prolong trauma,” noted Louw.
There is also a long list of needs at the National Prosecuting Authority’s Sexual Offences and Community Affairs (SOCA) unit. “More specialised investigation officers, more specialised prosecutors, and more GBVF courts are required,” said the special director of public prosecutions, Bonnie Currie-Gamwo.
She noted that victims who cannot be traced – particularly undocumented migrant women fearful of providing an address – are a major cause of case attrition. She added that pressure from perpetrators’ families, especially when the accused is the breadwinner, often forces victims to withdraw their complaints.
“A declaration of a national disaster means nothing without action.”
A Victims of Crime Survey for 2021/2022 by Statistics South Africa, the country’s national statistical service, found only 1.7% of assault survivors reported receiving any psychosocial support – a figure reflecting both service gaps, and the lack of trust in the system, women’s rights groups note.
Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, which provided free support to over 15,000 survivors in the past year, warned of a justice system that “fails to protect” survivors. The devastating numbers “are not just statistics – they are lived realities of the women and children whose lives are disproportionately altered by violence,” said director Nazma Hendricks.
In a written statement to The New Humanitarian, the president’s office highlighted the government's efforts to address the “severe and persistent national crisis”. That includes new legislation, expanded shelters, and a R21 billion ($1.2 billion) medium-term budget for the implementation of the NSP.
Women's rights groups stress that translating commitment into impact – so often a failing – is key. “A declaration [of a national disaster] means nothing without action,” said Women for Change founder Sabrina Walter. “We will monitor every step closely.”
Women for Change said a post-G20 meeting with key government ministries had been scheduled for 8 December, where it expects timelines to be set, and clarity reached on effective steps forward.
For many participants in the 21 November shutdown, the protest was a powerful display of collective visibility in a country where violence remains so routine.
Standing at the Sea Point promenade after the protest, Mdlalose was upbeat, despite the daily fear she said she lives with – like so many other women. “The aftermath left every participant, I'm pretty sure, inspired and more determined to ensure that justice will be served,” she noted.
Edited by Obi Anyadike.
