Written By: Matsheole Majoro
Another summit. Another year of unfulfilled commitments. South Africa’s gender-based violence crisis continues relentlessly, and the state continue to talk while women continue to die.
The numbers are astounding. South Africa’s femicide rate is among the highest in the world, around five to six times the global average. Tens of thousands more report rape, assault, and domestic violence, while thousands more continue to get murdered yearly. The state calls it a national crisis. Yet the machinery of justice grinds slowly, and too often it does not grind at all.
In November 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared GBVF a national crisis. He announced training programs, and a R5 billion emergency fund to fight it. The announcement was meant to be an inflection point, it was meant to indicate that government recognised GBV as a pressing national emergency needing cooperative action across police, prosecuting authorities and courts.
Of the countless thousands of cases reported yearly, a notable number never result in arrest or prosecution. 40% of the cases that have been reported just simply disappear into the system. No arrests, no prosecution and no justice. A survivor who gathers the strength and the courage to go report is met with a system that cannot process her case.
The state is failing to do its core job: policing and prosecuting. The state’s main function is to protect its citizens from violence; when it cannot do that, it has no excuses. More summits, more plans and more declarations do not solve the problem, a functional justice system does.
The government had declared GBVF a national disaster, yet it’s uncertain really what the extra disaster funding has been spent on since November 2025. The interim distribution of R5 million for the National Strategic Plan secretariat is a transitional measure, a grain of sand on the beach for a crisis that kills thousands of women’s lives each year. Unless treasury combines a specific GBV disaster budget for departments, the declaration is just a label. If we have no funding, no implementation and no change we have just been set up for failure.
The solution is simple: do the basics well. Increase expert GBVF courts and victim friendly police services. Reinforce free legal aid and psychological support for victims. Get rid of the delays in GBVF case processing from the arrest to prosecution to conviction. This is what the state is supposed to do. But the state cannot do it alone and it should not try. The response is to open spaces for civil society, private providers, and community organisations to fill the gaps that government has left. Across South Africa, women shelter, counselling services and legal clinics already work on donations, volunteers and faith-based networks. They do the work the state promises and fail to deliver. They should be supported, not smothered by regulation or crowded out by state contracts that favour politically connected NGOs.
The solution is to remove the barriers that prevent private and community organisation from operating at scale. Registering a shelter should not take years. Qualifying for victim support funding should not depend on political alignment. Certification for counsellors and social workers should be voluntary and portable, not a state monopoly that puts a stop on who can help. Every regulation that keeps a willing helper out of the system is a regulation that leaves a survivor without help.
The second solution is to expand alternative dispute resolution and mediation for domestic disputes. South Africa’s courts are backed up and slow, expensive, and inaccessible. Private mediation services, licensed by industry bodies and not the state, could help resolve many cases faster and with less trauma for survivors. When people can settle conflicts quickly and fairly, they are less likely to take the law into their own hands or to remain trapped in violent households because leaving is too difficult.
The third solution would be to let insurance and employer markets reward safety. Companies that provide safe transport for female employees, on-site counselling and clear harassment policies should be recognised and rewarded by the market, not required by government. Insurers should be free to offer products that protect victims of domestic violence, as well as emergency accommodation and legal cover. No government obligation is required.
The state has a responsibility to protect citizens from violence. When it fails to do so it loses its lawfulness. South Africa’s government has failed thousands of women murdered every year. It has failed the countless thousands of survivors who report violence and all the victims whose cases have never reached prosecution.
No amount of persuasive public speaking can replace a functional police service. No summit can compensate for a justice system that processes only a fraction of reported cases. But the answer is not to wait for the state to fix itself; the answer is to open the space for civil society, private providers and community organisations to do what the state cannot.
The women of South Africa have been waiting long enough. They do not need another summit, and they do not need another strategic plan. They need safety and justice and to be treated with dignity. That is the bare minimum of a free society.
Matsheole Majoro is a final year International Relations student and an associate of the Free Market Foundation.