President Cyril Ramaphosa formally established the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (NCGBVF) on Friday, appointing its first members under the National Council on Gender-Based Violence Act of 2024. The statutory body carries a five-year mandate, with members serving from August 1 through July 31, 2029.
The council’s creation marks a deliberate shift toward centralized accountability in South Africa’s governance response to gender-based violence. Under its mandate, the NCGBVF is responsible for providing strategic leadership on efforts to eliminate gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), overseeing implementation of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) on GBVF across government departments and other sectors, and strengthening coordination between government agencies, civil society organizations, and communities. Its remit also covers violence prevention, survivor support, law enforcement responses, and women’s economic empowerment.
Ramaphosa appointed Dr Ramalepe Lebogang Mathibe as chairperson and designated Welheminah “Shoki” Tshabalala as deputy chairperson. The remaining council members are Keitumetse Fatimata Moutloatse, Caroline Peters, Dr Zubeda Dangor, Vuyisiwe Numalo, Anele Siswana, and TWM Limema.
In remarks following the appointments, Ramaphosa said the council would bring greater authority to South Africa’s response to GBVF, noting that the government had waited for the body to be constituted through parliamentary processes. “I have great confidence in the ability of those women that we have appointed to address the issue of gender-based violence and to lead us as a nation to ensure that we address gender-based violence much more purposefully,” he said. The president also committed to providing budgetary support so the council could execute its work effectively.
The establishment follows Ramaphosa’s declaration, made months earlier, that gender-based violence and femicide constitute a national crisis, with the president characterizing levels of violence against women and children as unacceptable and calling for a more coordinated national response.
Meanwhile, parliamentary oversight bodies had already been pressing for action beyond formal commitments. The Portfolio Committee on Social Development, chaired by Bridget Masango, welcomed the crisis declaration and subsequently urged government departments and law enforcement agencies to fast-track the National Integrated Strategy on the Prevention of Femicide and improve coordination in implementing the NSP on GBVF.
The scale of the challenge facing the new council is stark. Research presented to Parliament by the South African Medical Research Council documented an estimated 10,972 women killed as victims of femicide over a 20-year period, with three women killed every day by an intimate partner. The same research found that one in four women has experienced physical or sexual violence. The National Strategic Plan on GBVF, adopted in 2020, provides the policy framework the council is now tasked with implementing across sectors and jurisdictions.
The NCGBVF’s appointment centralizes institutional responsibility for coordinating South Africa’s response to gender-based violence and femicide in a dedicated statutory body, one formally accountable for advancing the national strategic plan. Whether the council’s authority and budget will prove sufficient to drive measurable progress against a crisis of this scale remains the question Parliament and civil society will be watching closely.