South Africa: President signs Act to establish a National Council on GBV

On 24 May 2024, in the days before South Africa’s national and provincial elections, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the National Council on Gender Based-Violence and Femicide Bill into law. The legislation, which was introduced to Parliament in 2022, establishes a National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (“the Council”), which is tasked with coordinating efforts to combat gender-based violence and femicide. The Council is required to do so through a multi-sectoral approach between relevant stakeholders, and to identify short, medium, and long-term priorities in addressing gender-based violence and femicide.

The Act defines femicide as “the killing of a female person or a person on the basis of gender identity as a female, whether committed by a person within a domestic relationship interpersonal relationship or by any other person”. Gender-based violence is defined as “violence associated with gender, which includes physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, economic, domestic, educational or psychological abuse or threats of such acts of abuse in public or private life”.

Unfortunately the Act does not expressly address online gender-based violence (“OGBV”), an emergent set of harms that have become an increasing policy concern domestically and internationally.

The global trend of OGBV perpetuated against women, with journalists and human rights defenders being particularly at risk, featured in a recent report by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) which documents the experiences of prominent women journalists at Daily Maverick.

The report detailed “prolific gendered disinformation, homophobic abuse, racist hate speech, and threats of extreme sexual violence” targeting women South African journalists. OGBV can result in mental, emotional, and sometimes physical harm for victims and survivors, as online violence may lead to violence in-person. In particular, OGBV against women journalists or human rights defenders may also lead to severe limits to freedom of expression, as these women may become fearful of expressing their views or withdraw from public platforms, and evidence of the abuse may discourage other women journalists or human rights defenders from sharing their views. In addition to the profound impact on individual victims and survivors, this creates a chilling effect which limits access to information and the exchange of ideas.

The Council must, in terms of the new Act, develop an action plan to implement the national strategy addressing gender-based violence and femicide, and must coordinate measures for education and training concerning the prevention and combating of gender-based violence and femicide. The Council should use these obligations to holistically address OGBV alongside other forms of gender-based violence.

• The Bill is available here.
• The ICFJ report is available here.
• End GBV Africa, an ALT Advisory special project, is available here.

Please note: The information contained in this note is for general guidance on matters of interest, and does not constitute legal advice. For any enquiries, please contact us at [email protected].