The Soup Kitchen: No One Asks Why It Gets Longer

My Beloved Nation

As the Mother of the Nation, my duty is to comfort, educate, and spread love and kindness.

As I write this article, I find myself thinking about the women who have lost their lives at the hands of intimate partners. I think about the women and children who continue to face gender-based violence in their homes, workplaces, and communities.

What comes to mind is that merely declaring GBVF a national crisis without a concrete and effective plan is little more than lip service. It is an attempt to appease those who marched and protested during the G20 period while presenting the illusion of progress. Yet, despite the speeches, declarations, and campaigns, women are still losing their lives.

South Africa continues to face one of the highest rates of femicide in the world. Studies show that the country’s femicide rate is approximately five times higher than the global average. Government and research data further indicate that millions of South African women have experienced physical abuse, while millions more have experienced sexual violence. Most importantly, the overwhelming majority of perpetrators are known to their victims. They are not strangers lurking in dark corners. They are husbands, boyfriends, partners, family members, colleagues, and acquaintances.

Domestic violence remains widespread. Nothing substantial has changed because the South African system continues to place a bandage on GBVF instead of addressing its root causes.

The bandage is sending a woman for counselling and then sending her back into the very conditions that trapped her in the first place. She is often sent home without skills, without economic opportunities, and without the means to build an independent life.

At Abafaziphambili training programmes, survivors repeatedly tell the same story that they stayed because of poverty, unemployment, and economic dependence. The perpetrator was the breadwinner. Leaving meant hunger, homelessness, or uncertainty for themselves and their children.

South Africa’s unemployment crisis cannot be separated from the GBVF crisis. The official unemployment rate remains above 30%, while the unemployment rate among women is even higher, standing at approximately 35.9%. Millions of women are locked out of meaningful economic participation.

The system has become comfortable imprisoning women and children in facilities called “shelters” while perpetrators continue moving freely through society. We keep creating new terminology, new campaigns, and new awareness programmes. We soften the language. We hold conferences. We issue statements. Yet GBVF continues…

What will help end GBVF is addressing gender inequality through meaningful economic empowerment. Economic empowerment creates the power of exit. It gives women choices. It gives them independence. It gives them dignity. And when women have the power to exit abusive situations, something else happens; the “soup kitchen” line gets shorter.

Many organisations and professionals working in the social sector are funded to manage the symptoms of poverty rather than challenge its causes. “Soup kitchens” have become permanent fixtures in communities. They feed people today, but few ask why the line keeps getting longer. That is the question we should all be asking.

Why is the soup kitchen getting longer?

It is getting longer because we keep applying bandages instead of treatment. We keep funding dependency instead of empowerment. We keep investing in crisis management instead of prevention.

Gender equality is not a slogan. It is an economic issue.

If we are serious about ending GBVF, we must be serious about ending the poverty and economic exclusion that trap women in abusive environments. We need large-scale investment in skills development, entrepreneurship, employment creation, and sustainable economic opportunities for women.

The Government of South Africa must begin requiring meaningful empowerment contributions from multinational corporations seeking to invest in the country. These contributions should be directed towards skills development, entrepreneurship, and economic empowerment programmes for marginalised communities, particularly women at the grassroots level.

For too long, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment has largely benefited a small political and capitalist elite while millions of women remain trapped in poverty, unemployment, and economic vulnerability. The true measure of empowerment should not be how many connected individuals become wealthy, but how many ordinary women gain the economic power to sustain themselves, support their families, and exit abusive environments.

If South Africa is serious about ending GBVF, empowerment must reach the grassroots. Economic justice cannot remain concentrated at the top 1% while women at the bottom continue to carry the burden of poverty and violence!

Furthermore, the South African government must start funding empowerment instead of pity parties.

Women do not need endless sympathy.

Women need jobs.

Women need skills.

Women need economic power.

Women need justice.

And until we address those realities, the “soup kitchen” will continue to grow longer, while society pretends not to know why.