Zakiyya Hatia
Women across South Africa are asking a powerful question: What would happen if women just stopped running the country for one day?
That’s the message behind the G20 Women’s Shutdown, a coordinated call to treat gender-based violence (GBV) as the national disaster it is.
Making this call at the G20 Social Summit, which we attended this week, activists said as long as it is not regarded with the seriousness that it is, violence against women will never stop.
It seemed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa agreed.
"No society can thrive for as long as gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) continue and the agency of women is denied. The violence perpetrated by men against women erodes the social fabric of nations," said Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa delivered one of his starkest warnings yet about the scale of South Africa's violence against women, declaring the country to be firmly in the grip of a "national crisis"
He further noted that GBV imposes a heavy burden that constrains development and weakens inclusive growth.
When we stepped out to speak to some of the activists driving this movement, their message was simple: GBV affects women every day, every minute, and without women’s labour, this country simply cannot function.
One activist put it plainly: “I really would like women to realise that they such an important part of the economy, of the formal and informal economy… how can we ensure that, that unpaid labour becomes paid for.”
Unpaid care work, like raising families, running households and supporting communities, is the invisible infrastructure holding South Africa together. But because it’s invisible, it often traps women in cycles of dependency and risk. As one organiser explained, when women don’t have independence, time, or resources, they also become more vulnerable to violence.
And violence is everywhere. No home, street, or institution can claim to be fully safe for South African women right now, we were told.
One activist told us: “But right now, we say enough is enough and because right now we know GBV and F is a pandemic… The president knows about this and is not something that we can hide under the carpet.”
The shutdown isn’t about one symbolic day. It’s about demanding sustained, structural action.
“I’m all for national days… but I would like to extend that to say, let it be a 365 day program,” another activist said.
Over one million South Africans have signed the petition.
