National shutdown spotlights GBV

Advocacy group Women for Change argues that South Africa 'cannot host the world's most powerful leaders while a woman is killed every two-and-a-halfhours'

- Hasina Kathrada

A public call at the G20 Social Summit in Ekurhuleni this week for gender-based violence and femicide to be declared a national disaster has set the tone for a national shutdown on Friday, where women across South Africa are stepping back from paid and unpaid work to draw attention to the country's rising levels of violence.

Women and members of the LGBTQI+ community have been urged to withdraw their labour for the day, avoid all spending and join a 15-minute stillness at noon in honour of the 15 women murdered in South Africa daily. The shutdown comes as heads of state, ministers and delegations arrive for the G20 summit in Johannesburg, which South Africa is hosting under the theme "Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability".

At the opening of the social summit on Tuesday, Deputy President Paul Mashatile described gender-based violence as one of the continent's most severe and persistent social crises, calling for coordinated international action.

"Gender-based violence continues to be one of Africa's most pressing and severe social issues, eroding the dignity, security and economic engagement of women and children throughout all communities," he told delegates.

Mashatile added that the summit offered a platform to "raise awareness, enhance accountability, and coordinate effective action" and urged countries to confront barriers to gender equality with "renewed urgency, solidarity and innovation".

Women for Change, a national women's rights organisation founded in 2016 that documents gender-based violence cases and supports survivors, used its platform at the summit that evening to argue that the scale of violence now warrants an emergency state response. Its figures show that 5 578 women were murdered in South Africa in a year.

The South African Medical Research Council has repeatedly said that the country's femicide rate resembles levels found in conflict settings.