Facing the shadows: the psychological toll of gender-based violence in South Africa

The recent killings in Ekurhuleni have once again placed the issue firmly in the national spotlight. In September, the government confirmed that several women's bodies had been discovered in the area, while President Cyril Ramaphosa subsequently said that 11 women's bodies had been found in Ekurhuleni since July. Authorities have cautioned against assuming that the cases are connected while investigations continue, but the individual circumstances do not change the broader reality: South Africans are once again confronting the devastating question of women's safety.

The question cannot only be how many women have been killed. We must also ask how many women are living differently because they believe they could be next. How many share their location whenever they travel, avoid certain roads, call family members when they arrive somewhere safely, or change their routines because they are afraid? How many parents experience anxiety when their daughters do not answer their phones? These may appear to be ordinary precautions, but constantly living with the possibility of violence can have a profound psychological impact.

The consequences of GBVF extend far beyond the person directly attacked. When a woman is murdered, her children, parents, siblings, friends and colleagues can experience grief and trauma. Children may lose a mother and their sense of security at the same time. Families can be left with unanswered questions, financial pressures and the psychological burden of trying to rebuild their lives. Communities can become increasingly fearful and hypervigilant, while repeated exposure to violent news can make young people believe that violence against women is an unavoidable part of life.

The World Health Organization recognises violence against women as a major public-health problem and has linked experiences of violence with serious mental-health consequences, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. This means that trauma does not necessarily end when the immediate danger has passed. It can follow survivors into their homes, relationships, workplaces and communities. It can affect their ability to work, sleep, trust others and feel safe.

This is particularly important during October's Mental Health Awareness Month. South Africa cannot continue discussing mental health as though it exists separately from the social conditions people experience. Telling someone to prioritise their mental wellbeing while ignoring the violence, insecurity and trauma surrounding them is not enough. A survivor cannot simply "move on" because a criminal case has been opened, and a child who has witnessed violence cannot be expected to process that experience without appropriate support.

Mental-health services must therefore form part of the country's GBVF response, rather than being treated as an optional intervention after a tragedy. South Africa's National Strategic Plan on GBVF already recognises the importance of care, support and healing alongside prevention, justice and accountability. The challenge is ensuring that these commitments translate into accessible services for survivors, families and communities, particularly those who cannot afford private psychological support.

At the same time, South Africa must stop placing the responsibility for preventing violence primarily on women. Women are routinely told not to walk alone, not to travel at night, to share their locations, to watch their surroundings and to take numerous precautions. While personal safety measures have value, they cannot become a substitute for addressing the behaviour of perpetrators and the social conditions that allow violence to continue. Women should not have to redesign their lives around the possibility that somebody else may choose to harm them.

Prevention must therefore begin much earlier. Boys and young men need to learn that control is not love that violence is not an acceptable response to conflict, and that consent and respect are fundamental to healthy relationships. Men must be encouraged to challenge misogynistic and violent behaviour among their peers. Schools, families, sports organisations, faith communities and civil-society organisations all have a role to play in changing attitudes before harmful behaviour escalates into violence.

Businesses also cannot afford to view GBVF as an issue that exists outside the workplace. An employee experiencing domestic violence may arrive at work frightened, exhausted or traumatised. Someone whose partner or family member has been murdered may be grieving while expected to maintain normal productivity. Another employee may be supporting a child who has witnessed violence. These experiences do not disappear when someone walks through the office door. Employers therefore need meaningful support systems, including confidential counselling and referral pathways, appropriate workplace policies and an environment in which employees can seek help without fear or stigma.

South Africa's response must ultimately move beyond reacting to each tragedy after it occurs. Government, law enforcement, healthcare professionals, businesses, communities and civil society need to work together on prevention, survivor support, mental-health services, accountability and education. The recently established National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide provides an important opportunity to strengthen coordination, but structures alone will not end the crisis. What matters is whether those structures lead to measurable change in people's lives.

Mental Health Awareness Month should therefore give South Africa a reason to look beyond the headline and confront what happens after the cameras leave. When a woman is murdered, the impact does not end at the crime scene. It continues in the child who must grow up without a mother, the family trying to rebuild after an unimaginable loss, the friend who now fears for her own safety, and the community that is slowly learning to live with violence as though it were inevitable.

This is why the response to GBVF cannot be measured only by arrests, court cases, or public statements after another tragedy. It must also be measured by whether survivors can access help, whether families receive meaningful support, whether communities feel safer, and whether women can move through their daily lives without constantly calculating the risk of being harmed. Mental health must be part of that measure because safety is not only about whether a person is physically alive; it is also about whether they are able to live without being consumed by fear.

South Africa cannot keep asking women to be resilient in the face of conditions that repeatedly traumatise them. Resilience should never become an excuse for society to tolerate violence. The responsibility belongs to all of us: government must strengthen accountability and support services; institutions must respond when people seek help; businesses must recognise the impact of GBVF on employees; communities must challenge harmful behaviour; and families and schools must help young people understand that respect, consent and healthy relationships are not optional.

Ultimately, the question is not simply how many women we will mourn next. It is what we are prepared to change so that fewer families have to mourn at all.

If Mental Health Awareness Month is about creating a society in which people can speak about their struggles and seek help, then we must also be willing to confront the conditions that are creating those struggles. We cannot separate mental wellbeing from safety, and we cannot separate safety from the fight against gender-based violence.

South Africa does not need another generation of women who are simply better at surviving fear. It needs a generation that is free to live without it.

The goal cannot simply be to mourn women better. The goal must be to build a country where there are fewer women to mourn.

By 1Africa Consulting