Colonialism, xenophobia and SGBV — SA must reclaim ubuntu

As I reflect on the ongoing crisis of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against women and girls in South Africa, my mind is occupied with visceral images of women – mothers, caregivers, community nurturers – sitting displaced on dirty pavements, their children and babies huddled close by, looking forlorn, fearful and bewildered. 

These images formed part of the media coverage of the most recent wave of xenophobic violence sweeping across South Africa. I frame this opinion piece on violence against women and girls in South Africa within the broader context of localised xenophobic and border violence, as I ask: are these not acts of violence perpetrated against marginalised women and children? 

The African Union (AU) adopted the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls in February 2025. This landmark, legally binding framework reflects a collective commitment across Africa to work towards the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls. The framework does well to include violence in digital spaces, in addition to private and public spaces. 

Yet, as a continent and a nation, we continue to commit acts of violence that target women, girls, children and other marginalised groups, often in less explicit ways that go unnoticed. Thus, while recognising modern forms of violence is necessary, we must also be mindful of the historical roots of violence perpetrated against women and girls (children) in South Africa and indeed across the African continent.  

Gender-based violence in South Africa and xenophobic violence both reflect troubling practices rooted in a legacy of coloniality, which imposed hierarchical racial and gendered systems and produced a matrix of power that constructs and positions women, especially Black African women, as non-human. 

Being constructed as “outside” what it means to be human within a system built on socially constructed hierarchies enables the enactment of multiple forms of violence against women and those perceived as different. Women’s bodies become sites accessible to those with power, sites for cheap labour, and sites where violence and trauma become acceptable and normalised. In other words, women’s bodies become borderless – not in a liberatory way, but in ways that constrain women’s freedom and autonomy. 

Violence against women in South Africa and xenophobic violence share deep roots in systemic inequalities, economic exploitation and a cis-heteropatriarchal culture that normalises dehumanising practices to assert power, control, and dominance over vulnerable people, practices that resonate with colonial legacies. 

These were the very same issues that the women who pioneered the women’s movement in South Africa fought against – the systemic and structural inequities that position women as inferior and vulnerable, including poverty, unemployment and lack of access to quality education and healthcare.

Other forms of violence

There are, of course, less explicit but equally damaging and divisive forms of violence that persist. Land and its linkages to a colonial past of plunder, access, ownership, citizenship and belonging represent a complex form of geopolitical and socioeconomic exclusion and marginalisation of women. Structural inequalities that deny women the means to own property and land have become so taken-for-granted that the violent and forceful eviction of women and children from their homes (because they do not own the property) and of women from countries (because they were not born there) has become acceptable and commonplace. 

In South Africa, violence against queer women, especially Black lesbian and trans women, is a particularly targeted form of violence. In the current South African context, queer women from countries other than South Africa are at increased risk of violence, both overt and covert, including limited access to police protection, legal aid and healthcare. 

How, then, do we continue to demand an end to gender-based violence in South Africa, amid the realities of localised racism, systemic othering and dehumanisation of fellow Africans?  

As we cast a gendered lens on what is unfolding in our country and continent this Women’s Month, we must acknowledge that gender-based violence is not an isolated occurrence distinct from xenophobic violence. We must recognise and respond to the structural inequities and colonial legacy that underpin gender-based violence. We must recognise the linkages and similarities between all forms of violence towards all women and all marginalised people. More than that, we need an urgent turn to a (South)African cultural grounding of what it is to be human. 

The profound African concept of ubuntu – “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu"  (“a person is a person through other persons”) – reminds us of our collective responsibility to uphold the human dignity of all people, especially those marginalised by society. 

Strategies centred on ubuntu, feminist leadership and positive masculinities offer powerful opportunities to challenge unequal power dynamics, dismantle rigid cis-heteropatriarchal hierarchies, and shift the focus towards collective care, shared decision-making, and structural accountability. 

Mental health practitioners and critical scholars have a role to play in challenging and disrupting the ways in which power manifests in nuanced forms in the spaces where they work and collaborate with others, especially those positioned as vulnerable. Gender-based and xenophobic violence are forms of the same violence. If we challenge the various forms of power that maintain and uphold violence, we can begin to disrupt the power that underlies all forms of violence.

The second edition of the Psychological Society of South Africa’s (PsySSA) Practice Guidelines for Psychology Professionals Working With Sexually And Gender-Diverse People and OUTRIGHT International’s Toolkit for Mental Health Providers – Working with Survivors of Conversion Practices in Africa are strong examples of how professional and community-based organisations work to dismantle harmful, discriminatory practices and to create environments and practices that embrace human diversity and lived experience. 

At the level of individual practitioners, acknowledging the power dynamics inherent in therapeutic relationships between practitioner and client, engaging in reflexive praxis, and working in ways that move away from pathologising the person towards approaches that recognise agency and are context-sensitive, are apt starting points for practitioners.