The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) enters the 2025 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence with burning anger and sorrow. For decades, we have repeated one truth: South Africa is a country at war with its women. Women are killed, raped, beaten, humiliated, degraded, every hour of every d
Girls are being violated on their way to school.
LGBTQIA+ people face hate and corrective rape.
Domestic, farm, cleaning, and retail workers suffer harassment from employers and supervisors. Elderly women are attacked for their social grants.
This violence is not cultural. It is not random.
It is structural, produced by patriarchy, poverty, inequality, and capitalism.
THE ROOTS OF GBV: POVERTY, INEQUALITY, UNEMPLOYMENT & AUSTERITY
GBV in South Africa cannot be understood outside the economic crisis:
• Women’s unemployment (expanded) remains above 50%.
• Young women face nearly 70% joblessness.
• Many are economically trapped in abusive relationships.
• Police stations lack vehicles.
• Shelters are underfunded.
• Social workers have caseloads of 300–500 people.
• Thuthuzela centres are collapsing under austerity.
Austerity is GBV.
Poverty is GBV.
Institutional neglect is GBV.
You cannot cut budgets and then claim to protect women.
You cannot defund public services and pretend to fight patriarchy.
THE 2025 ADDITION:
THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM
SAFTU adds this year a deeper, urgent dimension:
The abuse, neglect, humiliation,8 and deaths of women in the public health system are forms of Gender-Based Violence.
We say this without hesitation:
When women suffer avoidable harm, during pregnancy, labour, cancer treatment, emergencies, or chronic illnesses, because the state refuses to fund health care properly, that is state-sanctioned violence against women.
Examples SAFTU has exposed over the years include:
• Women delivering babies in passages and toilets.
• Mothers bleeding unattended in labour wards.
• Women are dying because cancer machines are broken.
• Misdiagnosed strokes, infections, hypertension, and birth injuries.
• Women told “you exaggerate” or “this is normal.”
• Women are shamed when reporting intimate injuries.
• Oncology units are turning women away because there are no doctors, no machines, no budgets.
These are not medical accidents.
These are not unfortunate incidents.
This is Gender-Based Violence, produced by austerity and institutional collapse.
THE EDENVALE CASE: A HORROR THAT DEFINES A NATIONAL PATTERN
During these 16 days, SAFTU draws the nation’s attention to a case that exposes the truth women face in our public facilities. On 12 November 2025, a young mother in labour entered Edenvale Hospital.
Her experience was an assault on her body, dignity, and humanity:
• Told she was 4cm dilated and prepared for emergency C-section.
• Baby unexpectedly delivered naturally in theatre, in chaos.
• Vacuum extraction failed the first time, slipped, and had to be reinserted.
• She suffered a severe vaginal tear that was ignored for hours.
• She fainted repeatedly from blood loss.
• She lay unstitched and unattended until another nurse intervened.
• Her anal sphincter collapsed, leaving her incontinent.
• When she reported this, a senior doctor asked her:
“Do you know about anal sex?”
Humiliation.
Accusation.
Degradation.
Pain.
Indignity.
Neglect.
This is violence.
This is trauma.
This is GBV.
This is not an isolated incident.
It matches a national pattern of abuse SAFTU has documented for years.
THE DEATH OF WOMEN FROM CANCER IS ALSO GBV
South Africa’s cervical cancer crisis is a national shame:
• Cancer machines are broken for months.
• Women wait 300–500 days for treatment.
• Chemo backlogs stretch over a year.
• Doctors report women dying in queues.
• Budget cuts have gutted oncology departments in Gauteng, Western Cape, KZN, and Limpopo.
When the state knows women are dying of preventable cancer
and still refuses to fix or fund oncology, that is GBV.
When women are forced to travel city to city begging for treatment, that is violence.
When austerity kills women quietly through disease, that is femicide by policy.
YOU CANNOT LIGHT CANDLES FOR GBV WHILE CUTTING HEALTH BUDGETS
South Africa cannot convincingly condemn GBV while:
• Maternity wards collapse
• Oncology units lack machines
• Clinics run without doctors
• Labour wards are understaffed
• Ambulances arrive hours late
• Nurses are overwhelmed
• And women die silently in queues.
Government must stop pretending.
A state that cannot protect women’s lives cannot claim to fight GBV.
SAFTU’S DEMANDS: 2025 AND BEYOND
1. A National Emergency on GBV, inside homes and inside public institutions
Including labour wards, oncology units, maternal health, mental health, and emergency services.
2. Reverse austerity now
Fund women’s safety, women’s health, and survivor services.
3. Rebuild maternity services
Minimum staffing ratios, emergency doctors, midwives, and functioning theatres in every district.
4. Repair and expand cancer treatment capacity
Machines must be fixed, replaced, and expanded, with no woman waiting more than 30 days for life-saving treatment.
5. Accountability for medical negligence
When women are harmed due to neglect, someone must answer: supervisors, hospital managers, heads of departments, and the Treasury.
6. Strengthen policing and survivor services
More detectives, victim friendly rooms, shelter funding, and specialised prosecutors.
7. A national working-class front against GBV
Unions, churches, student formations, feminist organisations, community structures, and progressive forces must unite.
For SAFTU, 16 Days is not a slogan.
It is a reminder of the war women face everywhere, including in the institutions that should protect them.
We say with clarity:
GBV is not only what men do.
GBV is also what the STATE does.
GBV is the violence of austerity.
GBV is the violence of indifference.
GBV is the violence of collapsing public services.
GBV is the preventable suffering and death of women.
The Edenvale mother’s story, the cancer queues, the labour ward neglect, these are the cries of a nation failing its women.
SAFTU will continue mobilising until women are safe:
• In their homes
• In their workplaces
• In their communities
•In their hospitals
• In this country
The struggle continues.
The violence must end now.
A statement was issued on behalf of the SAFTU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries, contact the National Spokesperson at:
Newton Masuku
newtonm@saftu.org.za
0785164094
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
