When outrage is not enough: South Africa’s GBV crisis is now a test of leadership

SOCIETY

The measure of leadership will not be how strongly South Africa condemns the next tragedy, but how much has changed before it happens, writes Olona Majikijela

There are moments when a country is forced to confront what its institutions, communities, and leaders are prepared to do when words of condemnation are no longer enough.

South Africa is facing such a moment.

The recent discovery of the bodies of nine women in Ekurhuleni and surrounding areas has once again placed gender-based violence and femicide at the centre of the national con-versation. The deaths have left families grieving, communities fearful, and the country asking how such violence can continue despite years of legislation, strategies, institutions, and public commitments aimed at confronting it.

The investigations are ongoing, and it is important that facts are established through due process rather than speculation. But the broader question is already unavoidable.

The country has not been short of commit-ments. The National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide provides a frame-work for prevention, accountability, justice, survivor support, economic empowerment, and research and information management. The establishment of the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide has created a statutory body mandated to provide strategic leadership and coordinate a multi-sectoral response.

In addition, the classification of GBVF as a national disaster was intended to recognise the scale and seriousness of the crisis and enable a stronger national response.

These developments matter.

But institutions, strategies, and declarations are not the same as outcomes.

The leadership challenge is to turn the archi-tecture of the response into something women can experience in their everyday lives.

The crisis cannot only become urgent after tragedy

When a particularly horrific case captures na-tional attention, there is a familiar sequence. Public anger grows. Political leaders issue statements. Communities mobilise. Investiga-tions are intensified. Calls for action increase.

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The recent discovery of the bodies of nine women in Ekurhuleni and surrounding areas has once again placed gender-based violence and femicide at the centre of the national conversation

Then the news cycle moves on.

The danger is that the urgency moves with it.

Following the deaths in Ekurhuleni, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on GBVF approved a Comprehensive Emergency Strategy focused on prevention and social cohesion, law enforce-ment, protection and justice, and victim and survivor-centred support. Government has also announced intensified investigative measures.

Those interventions are important.

But leadership is not simply about responding decisively after something has gone terribly wrong. It is about building systems capable of identifying risk, preventing harm, and intervening before violence becomes fatal.

If the country only becomes fully mobilised after women have been killed, the response remains fundament-ally reactive.

Prevention must become more than a pillar in a national strategy. It must be-come a measurable part of how institutions operate.

The numbers are people

Statistics help governments understand the scale of a crisis, but they can also create dis-tance between decision-makers and the people behind the numbers.

The Department of Social Development reported that its 24-hour Gender-Based Viol-ence Command Centre received 6 782 calls between 1 and 16 September 2026, an average of 424 calls a day. That represented a 21% increase compared with the same period in August. On 16 September alone, the centre received 589 calls, the highest daily figure recorded during that period. Government has cautioned that further monitoring is required before determining whether the increase rep-resents a sustained trend.

Behind every call is a person.

It may be a woman trying to escape an abusive relationship, a child experiencing viol-ence or a survivor trying to navigate a system while already dealing with trauma.

This is why the response cannot only be measured through arrests and prosecutions, important as those are.

Can survivors access support when they need it? Can police respond effectively? Are pro-tection orders enforced? Are shelters sufficiently available? Can social workers provide sustained assistance?

These are leadership questions because they concern the performance of systems rather than the inten-tions of individual office-bearers.

A national disaster must mean more than a declaration

The classification of GBVF as a national disaster was signi-ficant because it formally acknow-ledged the ex-traordinary and per-sistent nature of the crisis.

But a declaration creates an obligation beyond symbolism.The question now is what has materially changed.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation has raised concerns about whether the disaster classification has translated into a sufficiently resourced and sustained response, including questions around implementation, funding, and measurement.

Parliament is also scrutinising the response.

Accountability should not begin and end with public statements after a tragedy. It should extend to budgets, implementation plans, departmental performance, and measurable outcomes.

The question is not simply whether more money should be spent. It is whether resources are reaching the areas of greatest need and whether there is evidence that they are produ-cing results.

Leadership requires a straightforward chain of accountability: a responsibility must have an owner, a programme must have resources, a target must have a measure, and failure to deliver must have consequences.

Without that chain, even well-intentioned policies can become administrative exercises.

The real problem is implementation

South Africa's National Strategic Plan recog-nises that GBVF cannot be solved by one de-partment or institution.

The crisis cuts across policing, justice, health-care, social development, education, economic empowerment, and community safety. It also requires engagement from civil society, busi-ness, communities, and families.

The National Council on GBVF was estab-lished to provide strategic leadership and coordinate implementation across national, pro-vincial, and local levels.

But coordination must be more than meet-ings between institutions.

It must be visible in the experience of the person seeking help.

A woman does not experience the National Strategic Plan as a policy document.

She experiences it through the police station she visits, the social worker she speaks to, the clinic she attends, the court where her case is heard, the shelter she may need, and the safety of the street on which she lives.

That is where leadership is tested.

If national policy is strong but local imple-mentation is weak, the person in need experiences the weakness, not the policy.

National leadership therefore has to ask a harder question than whether the right policies exist.

The National Council has an opportunity to change the conversation

The newly appointed National Council on GBVF enters this environment with an import-ant responsibility.

Its mandate is to provide strategic leadership and coordinate a multi-sectoral approach to implementing the national strategy. Its three-year term began on 1 August 2026.

That creates an opportunity to shift the national conversation from announcements to accountability.

South Africa does not need institutions com-peting for ownership of GBVF. It needs institutions that understand precisely what they are responsible for, how those responsibil-ities intersect, and who must answer when commitments are not fulfilled.

The Council can help create that clarity by insisting on measurable implementation, trans-parent reporting, and meaningful coordination.

The Council has called for accountability from national, provincial, and municipal insti-tutions, stronger prevention measures and effective support for affected families, while also warning against unverified information that could compromise investigations or cause further distress.

Leadership during a crisis requires urgency, but it also requires discipline.

Public anger must not replace evidence. Polit-ical statements must not replace investigations. New initiatives must not replace existing responsibilities.

Prevention has to move closer to the centre

Policing and prosecution are essential. Perpet-rators must be held accountable through a functioning criminal justice system.

But prevention must also ask what happens before a crime occurs. That means addressing harmful social norms, relationship violence, eco-nomic vulnerability, substance abuse, community safety, and environments in which violence is normalised or ignored.

It means challenging the idea that women should carry the responsibility for avoiding viol-ence by changing where they go, when they travel or how they behave.

Women should be able to walk, work, exer-cise, and travel without fear.

The broader leadership challenge is turning that principle into safer communities.

Street lighting, public transport, policing vis-ibility, functioning community structures, rapid reporting mechanisms, and accessible support services may appear disconnected from the national conversation about GBVF.

They are not.

Safety is built through systems.

GBVF is also a test of leadership beyond government

Government carries a central responsibility, but GBVF cannot be treated solely as a govern-ment problem.

It is a societal problem.

Workplaces have a role. Schools have a role. Universities have a role. Religious and tradi-tional institutions have a role. Civil society has a role. Families have a role.

Men have a particularly important role.

Men must challenge misogynistic language and abusive behaviour. Families must resist protecting perpetrators because they are relat-ives. Institutions must respond when complaints are raised rather than waiting until harm becomes impossible to ignore.

This is not about collective blame.

It is about collective responsibility.

Leadership must be measurable

Perhaps the most important shift South Africa can make is to develop a stronger culture of measurement around GBVF.

How many survivors are accessing support? How quickly are cases being investigated? How effectively are protection orders being enforced? Which prevention programmes are producing measurable results? Where are resources being spent? What happens when targets are missed?

These questions may be less emotionally powerful than public condemnation following a killing, but they are essential to determining whether leadership is working.

Leadership is ultimately about creating systems in which good outcomes do not depend on individual heroism.

A survivor should not have to find an unusu-ally committed police officer to receive proper assistance. A social worker should not have to work beyond capacity for a victim to access support. A prosecutor should not have to over-come systemic weaknesses alone.

Institutions must be designed to work.

And when they do not, leadership must be able to identify why.

The test is what happens next

South Africa is approaching another important moment

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on 24 September that government would address the nation on measures to confront GBV and provide an update on the investigation into the Ekurhuleni killings. The announcement follows weeks of heightened national concern.

Another national address can communicate urgency.

But ultimately, speeches are not the measure of whether the response is working.

The discovery of nine women's bodies should never become another moment of national outrage that eventually disappears from public consciousness.

Their lives mattered before their deaths became news.

That is the standard leadership must now meet.

South Africa does not need to prove that it is shocked by GBVF. The country has demon-strated that many times.

It needs to demonstrate that it can turn that shock into sustained action, action into measur-able outcomes, and outcomes into safer communities.

The country's leadership test lies in whether it can build institutions and communities capable of preventing GBVF, responding to it and ensuring that those who experience it are not left to navigate the consequences alone.

The measure of leadership will not be how strongly South Africa condemns the next tragedy, but how much has changed before it happens.

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Prevention must become more than a pillar in a national strategy