Awakening the conscience: a call to action against gender-based violence in South Africa

The scourge of gender-based violence (GBV), femicide and child abuse continues to tear through the moral fabric of South Africa. For many, these atrocities are not newspaper headlines - they are daily lived realities. They occur in homes, schools, workplaces, and tragically, within our universities.

In the rural communities, townships and informal settlements, violence against women and children is often hidden behind walls of silence, shame and patriarchy. There, survivors are made to believe that they are the problem; that their pain is their fault; that their suffering is part of life. It is in these very spaces that our collective conscience must awaken.

South Africa marked the National Women’s Shutdown yesterday, a day of non-violent protest and solidarity. It was a day that compelled us to pause and ask: How long will we allow the silence to suffocate us? How can institutions of higher learning become sanctuaries for healing rather than spaces of harm?

As a newly appointed lecturer in the Department of Psychology, I have been moved by the University of the Free State's (UFS) proactive stance in responding to social injustices. Yet, even within our walls, the question remains: how do we transform commitment into concrete protection, advocacy and care for the most vulnerable among us?

The crisis before us

The data continues to confront us. A national survey by the Human Sciences Research Council found that 33.1% of South African women – over seven million – have experienced physical violence. Nearly 10%, or about two million women, have survived sexual assault. According to the South African Medical Research Council, seven women are murdered every day, most by intimate partners.

In higher education, the statistics are equally distressing: between 20% and 25% of female students report sexual violence every year. GBV is not an external issue - it is present in our lecture halls, residences, and campuses. But these numbers are not mere data points; they are students in our classes, colleagues in our offices, and children in our communities. They are the invisible and unheard, the ones who think they are the problem because society tells them so.

Violence in the margins

In the rural and township spaces, abuse remains under-reported because systems of care are fragile. Police stations are far, counselling services scarce. Women fear stigma, disbelief, and retaliation. The cycle of patriarchy and poverty sustains the violence and the silence. These are the realities that must inform our activism. We cannot build responses that only fit the urban, resourced world. Our solutions must reach rural areas and townships where pain sits quietly in the corner, unspoken. 

At UFS, our moral responsibility as an institution goes beyond academic discourse. We must embed activism, community engagement, and trauma-informed support into the very DNA of our university life. The fight against GBV is not a women’s issue - it is a human issue, one that implicates us all.

A spiritual and intersectional call to action

As a clinical psychologist, an academic, and Igqirha (Xhosa/African spiritual healer), I am drawn to the intersection between violence, spirituality, and the human soul. Healing, in the African sense, is never isolated to the individual - it is communal, spiritual, and relational. Our interventions against GBV and trauma must therefore go beyond psychology and policy. They must reach into the psyche and spirit of our people. They must recognise that trauma is not only physical or emotional, but also spiritual and historical. It echoes through generations, shaped by colonial violence, patriarchy and inequality. 

In my own spiritual practice, I view lamentation as a sacred form of activism. To lament is to cry out collectively to name pain so it may begin to heal. Our protest, then, is not only resistance; it is also remembrance and restoration. It is an act of reclaiming the humanity that violence tries to erase. This spiritual activism demands that our response at UFS be intersectional. Faculties of humanities, theology, education, health sciences must collaborate. Healing must be understood as holistic, embracing body, mind, culture, and spirit. Our approach to GBV must draw equally from Ubuntu, feminist thought, trauma research, and African spirituality.

To invoke Ubuntu is to affirm that “I am because we are.” It is a reminder that when one student or staff member is violated, the entire university community is wounded. When one child in a rural village is silenced, our shared humanity is diminished.

Universities as safe and sacred spaces

Higher education institutions are not immune to GBV. With 26 universities and more than two million students, campuses reflect the same societal sickness that plagues the nation. For many young women, especially those who are first-generation students from rural or impoverished backgrounds, the university should be a place of hope, yet it often becomes a site of trauma.

Our role must therefore be twofold: to lead by example and to hold ourselves accountable. A truly transformative university must ensure that survivors are believed, supported and protected. Reporting systems must be visible and trusted. Lecturers, support staff and administrators must be trained in trauma-sensitive response. Perpetrators must be held accountable, regardless of position. 

But transformation cannot end at policy. It must live in our lecture halls, residence corridors, and conversations. It must become part of our pedagogy, our way of teaching and relating to one another. Healing must be as intentional as learning.

From protest to transformation

Let our protest be one of life and remembrance. Let us wear purple not as a fashion statement, but as a symbol of solidarity. Let us protest not with rage alone, but with empathy, spirituality, and moral conviction.

We protest in honour of the women whose voices were silenced.

We protest for the children whose pain was ignored.

We protest for survivors who believed they were the problem and now know they are not.

Our protest must not end on the streets; it must continue in the classroom, in policy meetings, in community outreach, and in spiritual spaces. My hope is that we continue to nurture a generation of students who do not only study transformation, but embody it, who understand that activism is a spiritual, ethical and scholarly act.

Healing from GBV and trauma demands courage, compassion, and community. It calls on us to invoke, resist, and embrace:

To invoke our ancestors and values.

To resist the normalisation of violence.

To embrace the humanity of those who suffer in silence.

Let us move from statistics to stories, from policy to practice, from awareness to transformation. Together, let us reimagine the university not only as a place of knowledge, but as a space of healing, spirit, and justice.

Anele Siswana is Clinical Psychologist and Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of the Free State