When South Africa Turned Purple

Gender Based Violence and Femicide

A woman is killed around every 2.5 hours in South Africa. That's 15 women murdered a day. 117 women report rape cases to the police daily, and it's estimated only 5% of rape cases are reported. From April 2023 to March 2024, over 5,000 women and 1,600 children were murdered, and over 42,000 rape cases were reported. Most cases of GBVF (Gender-based violence and femicide) are by people whom the victim knows personally.

In 2020, the South African Parliament passed the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide. The NSP GBVF was meant to reduce GBVF, but with a lack of urgency and funding, rather than a decrease, South Africa has seen a 33.8% increase in the last year alone.

Women For a Change & The G20 Shutdown

This is where Women for a Change comes in. They are a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting GBVF. They push for policymakers to take action, give resources to victims of sexual assault, amplify survivor stories, and more. Most recently, they have been pushing for GBVF to be recognized as a national disaster, meaning it would receive immediate action and resources. To do this, they staged a protest on 21st November, 2025. The G20 women's shutdown, a nationwide movement that has received immense support online.

The day that the G20 met in South Africa, women across the country stayed home from work, school, and any economic activity to show their importance to the economy. At 12 PM, women gathered in the streets for a fifteen-minute lie down, one minute for each woman killed daily. They dressed in black to show mourning. The movement gained traction online as well, with international support. Any supporters of the shutdown could change their profile picture on social media to purple.

A Success

And they succeeded. South Africa has declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster. This is a great success for women and shows just how powerful people can be when they work together.