SA women go purple in national shutdown over GBV

At 12:00 on Friday, 21 November, Jewish women will join women across South Africa in lying down for 15 minutes to honour the 15 women murdered every day in this country. 

“It’s to raise awareness of the issue of gender-based violence [GBV] against women and children, particularly femicide, and to get people on board in the fight against it,” said Wendy Hendler, the co-founder and director of Koleinu SA, the helpline for victims of abuse in the South African Jewish community. 

The activism is being conducted in solidarity with the G20 Women’s Shutdown instituted by the organisation Women for Change, which calls on all women and members of the LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex) community to refrain from all work to demonstrate the economic and social impact of their absence because “until South Africa stops burying a woman every 2.5 hours, the G20 cannot speak of growth”. 

GBV is an epidemic in South Africa, one that touches all communities, including students. On the University of the Witwatersrand campus on 10 November, news broke that a student seeking help was allegedly raped by a newly elected student representative council member. 

The South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) at Wits condemned the attack, with members taking part in the 11 November rally, handing out water bottles with its logo turned purple to show solidarity against GBV. 

“I was angry about what had happened, not only at Wits, but also after hearing stories coming out of Stellenbosch and UCT [the University of Cape Town],” said SAUJS Wits Committee Member Greg Landau. 

Said Wits SAUJS Chairperson Leah Meyerowitz, “Sexual assault and GBV are global issues. There’s a reason so many Jewish girls are afraid to take Ubers alone. It’s all part of the same bigger problem.” 

Sasha Said, SAUJS national chairperson, said that it was of the utmost importance that Jewish students join the call to stand against GBV, as “students aren’t just witnesses to GBV. Often, we’re first responders; we’re the friends survivors confide in; we’re the people who see what institutions overlook or ignore. And if we don’t stand up, who will?” 

“As Jewish students who don’t live in residence, we often feel detached from campus life, but GBV affects all of us, regardless of where we live or what we study,” said Landau, “Just as off-campus students can feel removed from issues in residence, our community can feel detached from broader South African problems. But GBV happens everywhere, including in the Jewish community.” 

For Koleinu SA co-founder Rozanne Sack, the most important thing to take away from the national shutdown is greater education and awareness of GBV and the way men interpret masculinity. 

“Ninety-five percent of perpetrators are male. And this is where we believe that the most work needs to be done,” Sack said. 

Author and men’s development expert Craig Wilkinson said that though he supported the intent behind the shutdown, he believes far more needs to be done in terms of educating men about the issue. 

“Men can be passive and stay silent in the face of evil, or they can be aggressive and become perpetrators. Or they can choose a third path: to use their strength for good, to stand up against what’s wrong and defend what’s right.” 

Wilkinson believes that this can be done by not demonising masculinity, and by telling men to hold other men accountable. “When men hold each other accountable, abusive behaviour stops. An abusive man often won’t listen to a woman, but he will listen to another man who is willing to confront him. That’s why we need men to use their strength to say, ‘This isn’t acceptable. Don’t do it.’ It starts in the everyday spaces – the locker room, the jokes, the comments. When men speak up and shut it down, things change.” 

“The shutdown is more than just a symbolic moment,” said Said. “It’s a real, uncomfortable confrontation with how deeply GBV has embedded itself into university life. I hope it disrupts lectures, routines, and comfort zones because women’s lives are already being disrupted every single day. The shutdown is about honouring survivors, demanding institutional accountability, and refusing to let another statistic pass unnoticed. It’s about insisting on a future where safety isn’t a privilege, it’s a basic and uncompromisable right.”