Will Godongwana back SA’s fight against GBVF in the MTBPS? Here’s what the minister needs to address

With gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) continuing to claim women’s lives across South Africa, all eyes will be on Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to see whether he will put money behind the government’s promises to address the crisis when he delivers his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on Wednesday, 21 October 2026.

GBVF was classified as a national disaster in late 2025. Still, the crisis has since worsened, with at least 11 bodies of women reportedly discovered across the Ekurhuleni region in Gauteng over the past weeks.

The grim discoveries have renewed questions about whether the government is committing sufficient resources to prevent violence against women, protect vulnerable communities and bring perpetrators to justice.

Godongwana previously said the MTBPS would outline the resources the government intends to allocate to address GBVF, raising expectations that the announcement could finally turn promises into funded action. Will he deliver on his promise?

Calls for funding to fight GBVF

Craig Wilkinson, founder and CEO of Father A Nation (Fan), has called on Godongwana to fund the fight against GBVF in support of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s four-point action plan against the crisis.

“Each action in Ramaphosa’s four-point plan was given a deadline, and some came with targets and funding. Yet prevention, the thing that matters most, still has no deadline, target or budget,” he added.

Fan is a non-profit company founded in 2011 to combat GBV, crime, and fatherlessness. Wilkinson is calling on Treasury to ring-fence funding for prevention in this week’s MTBPS, so that it is treated with the same urgency as the president’s other points.

Ramaphosa’s action plan against GBVF questioned

Ramaphosa’s four-point action plan includes:

• Reopening and recovering stalled criminal cases
• Reducing forensic evidence backlogs
• Making public spaces safer for women
• Cracking down on alcohol-related violence

Wilkinson said the measures put forward in the president’s plan are necessary and urgent, but they largely respond to violence after it has occurred or address the conditions surrounding it.

“They fail to deal with the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that lead to men abusing women. A streetlight won’t protect a woman from an abusive partner behind a closed door.”

The president correctly acknowledged the home as the primary hotspot for GBVF and said that prevention must begin with how we raise our sons and what they learn from watching the men around them, said Wilkinson.

Raising boys differently could help prevent GBVF

Wilkinson said boys need to be raised in the right way to prevent GBVF, because they grow up to be the men that are perpetrators of this crime.

“How we raise our sons and mentor our men is the single most important factor in preventing GBVF in the medium and long term. Anything else treats the symptoms and not the cause.

“Because boys become the men they see, South Africa must implement a proactive, properly funded and well-staffed programme to tackle the mindsets of the men who perpetrate GBVF. Men should be taught how to speak up, rather than just be told to speak up.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, when the government needed the public behind it, its messaging was strong, clear, and constantly reinforced; it made funds available and acted with urgency to save lives. Wilkinson said the same level of commitment and resources must apply now to make SA safe for girls and women.

Points Wilkinson wants Godongwana to address

Wilkinson gave five points he believes Godongwana need to address during his MTBPS concerning GBVF:

• Allocate dedicated funding to the prevention pillar of the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, starting with the MTBPS
• Implement national programmes that promote engaged fatherhood and positive, healthy masculinity
• Provide practical education about consent, respect, emotional health and healthy relationships to boys and young men
• Partner with experienced civil-society organisations already working with men and boys
• Lead a national prevention campaign that matches the unprecedented urgency and scale of the Covid-19 response

He highlighted that the link between fatherlessness and destructive masculine behaviour is well documented.

Referencing the State of South Africa’s Fathers 2024 report, Wilkinson said: “Boys look to their father or a father figure to model masculinity. In a country with over 60% of children growing up without a present, engaged father, it is no surprise that GBVF has reached such high levels.”

Will Godongwana deliver on his promise?

In August 2026, Godongwana promised to include monetary support for the fight against GBVF in the MTBPS; however, he did not say how much.

This followed the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) handing over a memorandum arguing that the government had failed to allocate resources to address GBVF, despite Ramaphosa classifying the crisis as a national disaster.

The league said the classification should lead to improved access to survivor services, emergency support, prevention programmes, monitoring, reporting, and oversight.

“In the medium budget speech, there will be a statement to the effect that, I don’t know the numbers, to the fact that there’s some work which has been done and therefore needs to be an allocation in the budget,” said Godongwana.

“But what is being discussed in Cabinet is an attempt to come to a deal with that issue, whether it’s going to be a specific fund or is going to be in the different departments with some coordination.”