Ahead of another 16 Days of Activism campaign, Itumeleng Lets’oala writes that South Africa’s gender-based violence response must finally centre LGBTQIA+ people, sex workers, disabled people, and people who use drugs.
South Africa enters another 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF), starting 25 November until 10 December, carrying a familiar weight: the grief of lives lost, the frustration of promises unkept and the exhaustion that settles in when violence becomes normalised.
This year, a coalition led by the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), Sisonke: The National Sex Workers Movement in South Africa, and the South African Network of People Who Use Drugs (SANPUD) is refusing to let the national conversation proceed as usual.
Through a series of activities, the coalition aims to re-centre the margins and send a long-overdue message that we cannot end GBVF without prioritising everyone who is affected, including LGBTQIA+ people, sex workers, people who use drugs, and people with disabilities. And we cannot limit that work to 16 days of hashtags and statements.
“We have walked the walks, we have raised the voices, we have had the marches, we have protested outside court, but it is not impacting or bringing about change,” Julie Mac Donnell, SANPUD.
The FEW x Sisonke x SANPUD campaign, launched on November 13th, through a powerful #ThursdaysInBlack webinar, aims to build a community-driven movement that lasts beyond the annual spotlight.
The webinar brought together activists, key population groups, and community organisers to examine the real state of safety for communities often spoken about only when they are victims of tragedy.
The conversation made one thing clear: South Africa’s GBVF response routinely excludes the very people who need protection most.
Some of the things that came up included the need for a solid accountability tool to measure the implementation of what is promised.
Nomsa Manzini of FEW called for language reform, particularly as it relates to sex workers. She highlighted the need for an intersectional approach, and participants noted the urgency of integrating the queer community in rural areas as they face multiple layers of discrimination and violence.
Meanwhile, for disabled people perception and lack of access leaves them further on the margins of justice. The shared reality across these groups is structural neglect and the campaign seeks to confront it directly.
The campaign is structured around four themes that move the conversation beyond mourning and into meaningful action.
1. Prevention and Education
The campaign insists that violence is not fate but the product of social norms, systems, and choices. Prevention begins with knowledge: understanding consent, recognising abuse, unlearning misogyny, homophobia, ableism, transphobia, and the stigma attached to drug use and sex work.
2. Justice and Accountability
Justice is not a courtroom outcome alone. It is believing survivors. It is holding the state accountable when police mock, misgender, or further traumatise survivors. It is challenging systems that criminalise sex work and drug use instead of protecting the people who do these jobs or use these substances.
3. Visibility and Voice
Gendered violence thrives where silence is enforced. Sex workers, queer people, disabled survivors, and people who use drugs are often erased from national GBVF discussions, making their vulnerability even more acute.
4. Healing and Solidarity
A movement cannot survive on outrage alone. Healing is part of resistance.
The physical Healing and Solidarity Gathering in early December at Gender Links Cottages will offer trauma-sensitive yoga, art-making workshops, community conversations, and joy. A radical space for communities whose identities are often framed only through suffering.
This partnership is significant precisely because these organisations represent communities with overlapping vulnerabilities but unique lived experiences. Their collaboration signals a shift from isolated silos to united resistance.
Together, they form a frontline of lived expertise, not theoretical advocacy, which impacts the terrain of the national conversation.
One of the most striking elements of the campaign is rooted in highlighting the importance of an intersectional approach to violence. The coalition calls South Africa to see, feel and act.
Instead of relying on abstract statistics or government press releases, the campaign centres real people whose experiences illuminate the violence that rarely makes headlines. Each day, from November 25 to December 10, one case will be shared across digital platforms — a life harmed, a story silenced, a call unanswered.
This is not about shock value, but:
1. Shifting the conversation from numbers to humanity.
2. Exposing the systemic patterns that connect these cases.
3. Building public pressure for accountability and reform.
The “16 Cases for 16 Days” storytelling series aims to restore this dignity by bringing real experiences not statistics to the public. Each story is a reminder of lives cut short, dignity denied, justice withheld.
The heart of this campaign is longevity. South Africa knows how to mobilise loudly for 16 days, only to retreat into silence for the remaining 349. This campaign refuses that cycle.
Its purpose is to embed a year-round practice of justice, education, and solidarity, to make justice and accountability habits, not events.
Ending GBVF requires policy change, yes. But it also requires cultural change and that starts with ordinary people taking responsibility for the world they are shaping.
The #Don’t video series, a participatory digital movement designed to challenge the harmful behaviours and beliefs that enable GBVF.
These statements aren’t slogans, they are demands to transform everyday behaviour, shift cultural norms, and confront complicity.
The goal is to create a viral insistence on accountability, humanity, and solidarity.
The campaign leaves us with a powerful challenge:
Complete the sentence. Add your voice to the movement.
#Don’t_______________
What behaviour, belief, or silence must South Africa collectively refuse if we are serious about building a country where everyone is safe?
Read more on MambaOnline – LGBTQ South Africa online
