South Africa has classified violence against women a national disaster following an online campaign culminating in countrywide protests on Friday.
Women were urged to “withdraw from the economy for one day”, and lie down for 15 minutes at 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT) in honour of the 15 females who are murdered in the country every day.
The state had refused to make the categorisation but changed tack after “evaluating the persistent and immediate life-safety risks posed by ongoing acts of violence”.
South Africa experiences some of the world’s highest levels of gender-based violence (GBV), with the rate at which women are killed five times higher than the global average, according to UN Women.
The National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) has classified GBV and femicide a disaster following “a thorough reassessment of previous reports and updated submissions from organs of state as well as civil organisations”, said Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa.
The NDMC had earlier said calls to make the categorisation did not meet legal requirements.
Warning: This report contains descriptions of sexual assault
Fridays “lie downs” happened in 15 locations across South Africa, including major cities such as Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.
Allies in Eswatini, Kenya and Namibia have also expressed their support for the protest and say they joined in.
The demonstrators wore black as a sign of “mourning and resistance”.
The protest, dubbed the G20 Women’s Shutdown, has been organised by Women for Change, which has also been spearheading the online campaign that has seen many people, including celebrities, change their social media profile pictures to purple – a colour often linked to GBV awareness.
