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RELEASE DATE: 18 June 2025

Understanding that youth are a particularly vulnerable group that is affected by gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), many End GBVF 100-Day Challenge teams are working closely with young people to address GBVF at a grassroots level.

From training 500 ECD teachers as first responders, to building a culture of accountability in higher education institutions, to hosting moot courts to teach youth about the legal responses to GBVF. The End GBVF 100-Day Challenges are driving rapid, results-oriented action within three critical ecosystems: courts, municipalities, higher education institutions. With over 200 End GBVF 100-Day Challenges planned for 2025, this initiative is rapidly expanding as one of the country’s largest and most action-oriented movements to end GBVF.

“Youth engagement isn’t about campaigns or one-day events – it’s a commitment to show up and respond. What’s been powerful to see through the 100-Day Challenge teams is how they’re showing up consistently in the spaces where young people spend most of their time such as preschools, classrooms and college campuses.” says Nomgqibelo Mdlalose, Movement Navigator for the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges.

GBV Interventions must start in the earliest school years

In the Drakenstein Municipality in the Western Cape, an ambitious effort is underway to train 500 Early Childhood Development (ECD) teachers as GBVF first responders. Over the next 100 days, 15 preschools will become part of a network of care where teachers are trained to identify early signs of abuse and respond in trauma-sensitive ways. The importance of this work lies in its timing – these are the years when children first learn what safety feels like, when trust is built, or broken. And because many survivors never disclose what happened to them as children, interventions at this stage could be life-altering.

“GBVF prevention starts with the relationships and environments that shape how young people understand harm and support avenues,” adds Mdlalose.

Building a culture of accountability in higher education institutions

In the post-school education sector, colleges like Taletso TVET in Mahikeng are building a culture of accountability and legal literacy through hands-on workshops in partnership with the National Prosecuting Authority. With hundreds of GBVF-related misconduct cases reported in higher education over recent years, there’s a pressing need to stop normalising harmful behaviour on campus. Taletso’s recent sessions have unpacked the Sexual Offenses Act, the Domestic Violence Act, and other laws – not as theory, but as tools that young people can use to navigate power dynamics, report abuse and understand their rights.

These legal education sessions are exciting because they don’t just deliver information, but they also change the atmosphere. This is especially important in vocational spaces like TVETs, where many students are away from home for the first time, facing economic and social pressures that can silence or isolate survivors.

In other TVET institutions across the country, the 100-Day Challenge teams are also focusing on three key areas: 1) breaking the silence by encouraging more survivors to report their experiences of GBVF; 2) healing the wounds by ensuring that those who do come forward receive high-quality care, counselling and support; 3) and creating deterrence by ensuring that perpetrators are held accountable through both disciplinary processes and the courts. These interventions recognise the complex realities many students face and aim to build TVET campuses that are places of safety, response and care.

Practical insight into the justice system

In Limpopo, previous 100-Day Challenge teams have taken this even further by hosting Moot Court sessions for high school learners. In these sessions, students witness how sexual offence cases are conducted and what minimum sentences apply when someone is found guilty of rape. It is one thing to teach young people that violence is wrong, but it is another to show them, step by step, how justice unfolds. This kind of learning makes the law tangible, and it plants the idea that fairness is not abstract or unreachable, but something that can and must be demanded.

Each of these frontline projects, whether led in a college, court or municipality tells a story of what becomes possible when young people are actively involved in efforts to address GBVF. They matter because they meet young people where they are, while offering a model for what a community-led, responsive GBVF strategy can look like when prevention, support and accountability are treated not as separate tasks, but as parts of a unified whole.

This Youth Month, the message from these 100-Day Challenge teams is clear: if we want to end GBVF, we cannot wait until violence has already happened. We must start in the spaces where young people are learning, growing, and forming their first ideas of justice.

RELEASE DATE: 11 June 2025

Drakenstein Municipality has once again focused its efforts to foster communities where violence has no place, and healing has room to grow. For this year’s End GBVF 100-Day Challenge, the Municipality is building on last year’s work that saw the municipality train 40 social work students from Hugenote College with specific GBV response skills, establish an anonymous digital reporting system, and create more safe houses for victims of domestic violence.

This year Drakenstein Municipality has set ambitious goals that include training 500 early childhood development (ECD) teachers as GBVF first responders, capacitating 1,000 men in gender justice, positive masculinity, and violence prevention, and mobilising 500 women as community ambassadors.

The End GBVF 100-Day Challenges are locally led initiatives that drive rapid, results-oriented action within three critical ecosystems: courts, municipalities, TVET colleges and Universities. With over 200 End GBVF 100-Day Challenges planned for 2025, this initiative is rapidly expanding as one of the country’s largest and most action-oriented movements to end GBVF.

 “Last year we focused our efforts on two impact areas: capacitating future social workers and creating safe spaces for survivors in vulnerable communities, specifically Simondium,” says Geduld Veldsman, Senior Social Development Officer at Drakenstein Municipality.

The team partnered with Hugenote College to train 40 social work students in trauma-informed GBV response. They activated the campus environment by establishing a dedicated safe room for survivor support and introduced a digital reporting system using QR codes, allowing students to report cases anonymously and discreetly.

In Simondium, an area facing socio-economic hardship, overcrowded housing, and a lack of access to safe recreational and care spaces, children are particularly vulnerable to neglect and domestic violence. In response, the Municipality has repurposed containers into child-friendly safehouses with the presence of a full-time social worker. These safe spaces have become beacons of hope for young survivors.

A NEW CHAPTER: 2025 GOALS FOR THE NEXT 100 DAYS

Building on this work, the Drakenstein Municipality have launched their End GBVF 100-Day Challenge for this year with three strong focus areas:

• Train 500 Early Childhood Development (ECD) Teachers as GBVF First Responders: within the next 100 days, 500 ECD teachers across 15 preschools will be trained to identify and respond to child abuse and GBVF. These frontline caregivers will be equipped to detect early warning signs and ensure survivors receive immediate, trauma-sensitive support. The municipality aims to ensure that that 100% of survivors receive care without secondary victimisation.
• Equip 1,000 Men through Educational Workshops: taking a decisive step to build gender accountability and shift everyday behaviours, Drakenstein aim to capacitate 1,000 men in gender justice, positive masculinity, and violence prevention.  This intervention builds on last year’s commitment to involve men and boys in violence prevention. By expanding its reach, Drakenstein is strengthening its focus on primary prevention and placing greater responsibility on those who hold social power to drive change.
• Mobilise 500 Women as Community Ambassadors: recognising the critical role women play in care and community support, Drakenstein also aims to train 500 women in GBVF-focused workshops. These ambassadors will be equipped to assist survivors, provide referrals, and promote the use of local counselling services.

“In tandem with these headline goals, the Municipality also remains committed to increasing the number of families registering for restorative justice programmes. Where only 11 families previously enrolled, we now want to reach at least 50 families by the end of the challenge, helping break intergenerational cycles of harm,” shares Veldsman.

Court teams across the Free State have officially kicked off their End Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) 100-Day Challenges, setting ambitious targets to reduce case backlogs, speed up the resolution of GBVF-related cases, and improve the court experience for survivors.

“Our court teams are actively rethinking how we work. We are improving collaboration, applying new technology in our courtrooms, and streamlining processes to ensure that survivors don’t have to wait months for justice,” says Joyce Mokoena, Chief Public Prosecutor in Welkom Cluster. “GBVF cases can be complex and involve multiple players such as NPA officials, SAPS, DOJCD, Correctional Services, the judiciary, Legal Aid South Africa and private practitioners. So, having everyone at the table and working toward shared goals is key to faster resolutions and enabling survivors to start healing.” 

The Free State court teams are now working towards clear, time-bound goals aligned with Pillar 3 of the National Strategic Plan on GBVF (Justice, Safety, and Protection). These goals include reducing the backlog of GBVF cases, increasing the monthly case finalisation rate, reducing case withdrawals, and improving the court experience for survivors.

Looking at some of these goals.

In Kroonstad court, the team aims to increase case finalisations from 7 to 40 per month and reduce backlog cases (older than 9 months) from 15 to 5. The Welkom team plans to increase monthly finalisations from 9 to 20. In Parys court, the goal is to move from finalising 1 case per month to 10. Harrismith’s goal is to reduce the backlog of GBVF cases from 7 to 3 and to clear the backlog of sexual offence cases entirely. Bethlehem aims to cut backlog cases in half, from 10 to 5. Brandfort plans to finalise one case per court sitting, to reduce backlog cases from 14 to 4 and to reduce the entire court roll from 46 to 20 at the end of the 100-Day Challenges

This cycle End GBVF 100-Day Challenges launched on 12 May and will run until 19 August 2025, and forms part of a rapidly growing national movement, now in its fourth year, that is accelerating results across the justice, education, and local governance sectors.

Since its inception, the End GBVF 100-Day Challenge programme has demonstrated that rapid, systemic change is possible. In 2022, 11 courts reduced their GBVF case backlogs by 98 percent. In 2023, domestic violence courts in Limpopo increased their case finalisation rate from 42 to 78 percent. In 2024, Limpopo teams again cut their backlog of domestic violence cases by 86 percent.

With more than 200 new challenges getting underway for 2025 across court, municipality, University and TVET college ecosystems, the programme is now one of the country’s largest and most results-driven responses to GBVF.

The urgency of this work is aligned with the government’s recent launch of a 90-day acceleration programme to intensify the national response to GBVF. This initiative aims to fast-track the implementation of the National Strategic Plan on GBVF, addressing systemic bottlenecks and ensuring measurable progress.

“The End GBVF 100-Day Challenges are about doing things differently. They are about action, not just intention,” says Nomgqibelo Mdlalose, Movement Navigator for the programme. “By focusing on what can be achieved in 100 days, we are showing that meaningful change is not only possible but already underway.”

RELEASE DATE: 05 MARCH 2025

Last week (25 – 26 February 2025), over 40 local system leaders from municipalities and TVET colleges across South Africa were trained to organise, facilitate and support End Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) 100-Day Challenges in 2025. This training marks the first of five cohorts that will take on the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges – scaling up the movement from 137 End GBVF 100-Day Challenges in 2024 to over 200 in 2025.

The End GBVF 100-Day Challenges are locally led initiatives that drive rapid, results-oriented action within three critical ecosystems: courts, municipalities, TVET colleges and Universities. These multi-stakeholder teams – which can include (include but are not limited to) representatives from SAPS, NGOs, social workers, traditional councils, local government departments, and GBVF survivors – work towards bold, time-bound goals aligned with the National Strategic Plan on GBVF.

Highlight from past End GBVF 100-Day Challenges:

Over the past three years, the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges have catalysed real, measurable change:

• 2022: 11 courts in South Africa reduced their backlogs of GBVF-related cases by 98%.
• 2023: In Frances Baard, the team focused on creating safer public spaces, leading to a 45.5% reduction in sexual offence cases.
• 2023: In Greater Tzaneen, GBVF case withdrawals dropped by 70%, while reporting increased by 37%.
• 2023: Seven new rapid response teams were launched in the Free State, and Mossel Bay established four new GBVF hotlines.
• 2024: 1,200 women participated in an economic empowerment initiative, with 60 women-led businesses securing funding and supply chain opportunities. Of 52 municipal contracts awarded, 39 went to women-owned businesses.
• 2024: Drakenstein Municipality trained 40 new student social workers and converted buildings into safe spaces for GBV victims.
• 2024: Waterberg District Municipality reached 5,900 people through awareness campaigns, contributing to a significant drop in GBV case withdrawal rates as survivors gained greater trust in the justice system.

Scaling Up South Africa’s Response to GBVF

South Africa remains in the grip of a GBVF crisis, with recent crime statistics revealing that over 53,000 sexual offences were reported in the 2023/24 period—equating to 145 incidents per day. Many suggest that the real figures are much higher due to underreporting. These statistics underscore the urgency of coordinated, high-impact interventions like the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges.

“The training that took place is the first step in equipping leaders to drive change in a fast-paced, results-driven environment,” says Nomgqibelo Mdlalose, Movement Navigator for the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges. “This initiative is about moving from intention to impact. With each Challenge, we are strengthening South Africa’s capacity to respond to GBVF in ways that are immediate, community-driven, and sustainable.”

A Growing, Multi-Sectoral Movement for Change

With over 200 End GBVF 100-Day Challenges planned for 2025, this initiative is rapidly expanding as one of the country’s largest and most action-oriented movements to end GBVF.

Court teams will focus on reducing case backlogs, lowering withdrawal rates, and accelerating case finalisation.

Municipal teams will create more safe spaces, enhance support services for survivors, empower women-led businesses, and reduce GBV incidents in high-risk areas.

TVET college teams will break the silence on GBV, increase survivor access to care and support, and drive deterrence on campuses by holding perpetrators accountable.

The momentum behind the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges continues to build, with growing support from the government, civil society, and the private sector. This movement proves that rapid, measurable change is possible – and that communities, when empowered, are at the forefront of ending GBVF in South Africa.

The training was done at Anglo American – Centre of Experiential Learning, which generously provided the participants with the venue, food and accommodation. 

Follow these important developments on the 100-Day Challenges social media pages:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/endgbvf_100daychallenges/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gbvf100days 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/endgbvf100days