{"id":844154,"date":"2025-11-21T14:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=844154"},"modified":"2025-11-21T14:19:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:19:33","slug":"national-disaster-officially-called-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/844154\/national-disaster-officially-called-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"National disaster officially called in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Gender based violence and feminicide (GBVF) have officially been classified a National Disaster following widespread protests across South Africa.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Head of the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC), Dr Bongani Elias Sithole, has classified GBVF as a national disaster.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, 21 November 2025, thousands have protested across South Africa as part of a national shutdown to highlight the nation\u2019s rampant GBVF.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A demonstration has been organised by NGO Women for Change, which called on the government to declare GBV a national disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Minister of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA, Velenkosini Hlabisa, welcomed the decision.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis decisive action follows a thorough reassessment of previous reports and updated submissions from organs of state as well as civil organisations,\u201d said COGTA.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAfter evaluating the persistent and immediate life-safety risks posed by ongoing acts of violence, the NDMC has concluded that GBVF now meets the threshold of a potential disaster as defined in the Act.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The National Executive now bears the primary responsibility for coordinating and managing national disasters.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government will use existing legislation and the contingency arrangements already established across government.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The classification calls on all organs of state to strengthen their support for existing GBVF response structures to implement their contingency arrangements fully.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They will also need to ensure that all necessary mechanisms are activated to enable the National Executive to manage the disaster effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Section 22 of the Disaster Management Act allows for the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Organs of state, the private sector, communities and individuals are urged to intensify their risk-reduction and prevention practices through the implementation of GBVF-related standards, procedures and legislative measures.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Individuals are strongly encouraged to refrain from any acts of gender-based violence or femicide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>National, provincial, and municipal authorities have been told to implement multisectoral prevention, mitigation, relief and rehabilitation plans to address the effects of this disaster holistically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Notably, the classification does not invoke emergency powers and instead reinforces and strengthens the systems already in place.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a notable distinction between a state of disaster being &#8220;classified&#8221; and a state of disaster being &#8220;declared&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Classifying a state of disaster allows the government to co-ordinate and manage disaster response by assigning responsibility to specific spheres of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A national state of disaster is classified when more than one province is impacted where response cannot be managed effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where existing legislation and contingency measures are <strong>inadequate<\/strong> to deal with the situation, or other special circumstances exist, the government would declare a state of disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All organs of state will need to report to the NDMC to enable the monitoring of interventions by government departments, municipalities, NGOs and communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis effort pulls together every sphere of government and every critical sector: policing, social development, justice, health, education, economic development, and traditional leadership,\u201d said Hlabisa.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAbove all, it confirms a fundamental truth: GBVF is not a women\u2019s issue. It is a national crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s rampant gender based violence and feminicide has been classified a National Disaster following widespread protests. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":834407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[10395],"class_list":["post-844154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cogta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":844159,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844154\/revisions\/844159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}