Women and the LGBTQI+ community in South Africa are preparing for a historic national shutdown on November 21.
The shutdown’s organisers, Women For Change, called on all participants to stop all paid and unpaid labor and to stop spending for the day in protest of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
Across workplaces, universities, schools, homes, public institutions, kitchens, WhatsApp groups, taxis, and boardrooms, women are being called to step back.
According to the shutdown organisers, GBVF must be declared a national disaster in order for the government to act immediately, on par with Covid-19.
15 women murdered each day
“South Africa buries a woman every 2.5 hours. Each day, 15 women are murdered. We are done waiting for panels, summits, task teams, and apologies. We are withdrawing our labour because our lives are not negotiable.
“On November 21: Women and LGBTQI+ people are urged not to go to work, including unpaid domestic, emotional, sexual, and caregiving labour.
“No Spending: No purchases. [There will be] no online orders. No taxis. No tills. No economic stimulation; the national standstill will take place at noon,” reads the Women For Change’s statement circulating across social media platforms
Participants are asked to lie down for 15 minutes to honour the 15 women who are murdered each day.
Women across the country are also encouraged to wear black as a form of mourning, defiance, and memory, while participants are asked to change their profile photos to a purple background to make the shutdown visible across digital platforms.
The organisers say the shutdown is designed to demonstrate not only the human toll of violence but also the economic reliance the country has on women’s labour, especially invisible labour that goes unacknowledged and unpaid.
South Africa continues to rank among the most dangerous places in the world for a woman.
Despite commissions, dialogues, and strategic frameworks, women’s bodies remain battlegrounds, their safety treated as negotiation and their deaths as statistics, according to organisers.
You strike a woman, you strike a rock
The shutdown organisers argue that the government has consistently responded to GBVF as a social issue rather than a national emergency.
“We cannot consider ourselves a developing nation as long as we continue to face harassment, violations, and disappearances. You cannot discuss economic growth when the foundation of the economy is crumbling at home.”
The movement is founded on a straightforward and radical truth: when women stop participating, the country comes to a halt.
If women do not show up to offices, hospitals, classrooms, factories, farms, kitchens, WhatsApp groups, and beds, South Africa will feel the weight of what it takes for this nation to function, according to the movement.
The shutdown is expected to trigger legal questions, political debate, and corporate discomfort; however, the organisers say that discomfort is overdue.
“We have marched, we have begged, and we have buried. Now we withdraw,” reads the statement.
