In a country where gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) continue to leave families grieving, survivors searching for justice, and communities confronting the consequences of violence, the fight against GBVF demands people willing to look beyond the symptoms and ask harder questions about what keeps the cycle going.
It is in this national climate that clinical psychologist and University of the Free State (UFS) Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology
Anele Siswana has been
appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to serve on the
National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide. His three-year term began on 1 August 2026, as South Africa marked the start of Women's Month—a period that renews national attention on the safety, dignity and rights of women and girls amid the country's continuing struggle with gender-based violence and femicide.
For Siswana, the appointment carries both personal significance and a responsibility to contribute to a national crisis that reaches into homes, relationships, institutions, and communities. Drawing on his work as a clinical psychologist, researcher, and public intellectual, as well as his work in African spirituality, he sees the opportunity as a call to contribute to how South Africa understands and responds to violence. “I view it primarily as a call to servant leadership and public service,” he says. “This appointment represents an opportunity to contribute meaningfully to re-imagining how we understand prevention, healing, accountability, and justice.”
Understanding why violence persists
The National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide was established through the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Act 9 of 2024, with a mandate that reaches across the different parts of South African society involved in preventing and responding to GBVF.
Siswana says the scale of the crisis means the country has to look beyond individual incidents and examine the conditions that allow violence to continue. “Gender-based violence and femicide cannot be understood through a single lens,” he says. “They are rooted in deeply interconnected historical, structural, cultural, economic, and relational factors.”
That understanding shapes the contribution he hopes to make to the Council. His research has explored gender, sexuality, masculinities, African spirituality, and decolonial psychology, including the ways in which harmful constructions of masculinity can contribute to violence.
He argues that meaningful change requires interventions that begin long before violence occurs. Legislation and public awareness remain necessary, but they need to be supported by sustained investment in prevention, early intervention, education, mental healthcare, economic empowerment, and community mobilisation.
At the centre of that work is the question of how people learn to understand the contexts in which GBVF exists. “We need to cultivate healthier understandings of relationships, gender, and accountability,” he says.
That work cannot happen in isolation. Families, schools, faith communities, and traditional leadership structures all influence the values and behaviours that are accepted within communities. Institutions also have a responsibility to ensure that survivors encounter systems that are responsive, supportive, and accountable.
Siswana’s own approach brings psychological science into conversation with indigenous knowledge systems and community-based interventions. He believes that sustainable responses need to recognise people’s lived realities while creating space for dignity, healing, and belonging.
From national policy to everyday lives
The Council’s work will ultimately be judged by what changes outside formal structures and policy documents. For Siswana, that means stronger collaboration between sectors and a response that keeps the experiences of those most affected at its centre. He believes women, children, LGBTQIA+ persons, persons with disabilities, and other historically marginalised communities must play a meaningful role in shaping the country’s response.
His appointment also brings the national conversation into a university community that is itself shaping the country’s future professionals, researchers and leaders. “Psychology, for me, is fundamentally a social justice project that extends beyond the consulting room and into communities, institutions, and public policy,” he says.
That philosophy speaks directly to the role universities can play in confronting social challenges. Beyond producing knowledge, universities shape the people who will go on to influence institutions, communities, and public life. “Universities occupy a unique position in shaping ethical leadership, generating knowledge, and cultivating future generations committed to justice and human dignity,” he says.
The Presidency has similarly placed the Council’s work within the broader national response to GBVF. As the Council assumes its term at the start of Women’s Month, President Ramaphosa expects the Council to “leverage the classification of gender-based violence and femicide as a national disaster to challenge harmful attitudes and practices, and advance women’s economic empowerment, strengthen law enforcement and scale up survivor-centred support.”
Siswana says the measure of whether this work succeeds will ultimately be found in people’s everyday experiences. “Success would mean that South Africans experience tangible improvements in safety, access to justice, survivor support, prevention programmes, and public trust in our institutions. It would mean moving closer to a society in which dignity is protected, violence is no longer normalised, and healing becomes possible for individuals, families, and communities alike.”
While Women's Month often prompts reflection on the safety and rights of women and girls, Siswana believes lasting change depends on action that extends far beyond a single month. Preventing GBVF, he says, cannot be left to survivors, activists or government alone.
He concludes: “Collective action begins with each of us taking responsibility for creating environments characterised by respect, compassion, equality, and accountability.”