This year, Sonke Gender Justice marks 20 years of confronting one of South Africa’s most urgent and enduring challenges.
When Sonke was founded in Johannesburg in 2006, it advanced a premise that was both radical and, to some, uncomfortable: gender justice could not be achieved without working with men and boys.
The idea took shape against the backdrop of the rape trial of former president Jacob Zuma, a painful moment for gender justice that deeply divided South Africa. Patriarchy was on stark public display, exposing once again how relentlessly women’s lives are placed at risk. It was an era saturated with images and expressions of toxic masculinity on steroids.
At a restaurant in Constitution Hill, Dean Peacock, Shamilla Wilson and I confronted the scale of gender-based violence in South Africa and felt compelled to act. Sonke Gender Justice was born from that urgency, as a vehicle for a holistic response to gender inequality disfiguring our society.
South Africa was, and remains, a nation of profound contradictions. We have one of the world’s most progressive constitutions, yet one of its highest rates of gender-based violence. We have won critical policy battles on paper, yet women, children, LGBTIQ+ people, sex workers, people with disabilities, and people living with HIV and AIDS continue to face violence in homes, clinics, prisons and streets.
Sonke stepped into that gap.
What began as a small initiative has become one of Africa’s leading feminist organisations, working across South Africa and in more than 23 countries on the continent. Its journey offers three powerful lessons about what it takes to build justice and entrench a culture of human rights.
- It moved the conversation from blame to responsibility
Sonke’s flagship programmes—including One Man Can, MenCare and the CHANGE Trial—did something simple but difficult: they went to where men are, in taxi ranks, schools, prisons, mines, initiation schools, churches and mosques.
Sonke did not tell men they were inherently bad. It told them they were responsible: responsible for unlearning patriarchy, embracing active fatherhood and challenging other men. In a country where manhood is too often defined by control, dominance and silence about pain, that message was transformative. It turned accountability from an accusation into a call to action.
The MenCare campaign, for example, helped shift South Africa’s debate on parental leave from a labour issue to one of gender equality—arguing that caring for children is not a favour men do, but a right children have and a responsibility we all share.
- It understood that rights mean nothing without access to justice
Awareness campaigns cannot protect a woman from a violent partner when the police station turns her away. Sonke understood early that community mobilisation must be backed by legal muscle, and that rights without enforcement are promises without protection.
Over the past 20 years, Sonke has combined community education with strategic litigation, advocacy for stronger laws and adequate budgets to prevent GBVF, and direct support for survivors navigating the justice system. Its work with the Detention Justice Forum, challenging inhumane conditions in facilities such as Pollsmoor Remand Detention Facility, has reminded us that dignity does not stop at the prison gate. Prisons should be places of correction, supported by appropriate rehabilitation programmes.
It has also consistently defended those the state too often chooses to forget: LGBTIQ+ people facing hate crimes, sex workers fighting criminalisation, and people living with HIV and AIDS demanding health equity. This is difficult work in a conservative climate. It is also indispensable.
- It evolved as South Africa’s democratic project did
In 2006, Sonke spoke largely about engaging men and boys. Today, it defines itself clearly as a feminist organisation committed to women’s rights, the rights of gender-nonconforming people, and an intersectional approach.
That evolution matters. As co-founder Bafana Khumalo and long-time chair Sisonke Msimang have noted, Sonke had to move from asking, “How do we get men involved?” to asking the deeper question: “How do we transform power?” That question confronts all of us. The misuse and abuse of power are incompatible with the constitutional promise of equality, human dignity and non-sexism.
That shift is visible in its current agenda: pushing for a fully funded National Strategic Plan on GBVF; advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights; advocating for positive parenting and children’s rights; and holding the powerful—including our own government—to account when court rulings and judicial appointments undermine transformation.
The unfinished work
An anniversary is more than a moment of celebration. It is a demand for honest accounting, and for renewed commitment to the unfinished work of building a just and equitable society.
Yet 20 years after Sonke’s founding, more than 40,000 rapes are still reported to the police in South Africa each year. Many more go unreported, so the true figure is far higher. Young women continue to bear a disproportionate burden of HIV. Backlash against gender justice, both here and globally, is well funded and increasingly sophisticated. The geopolitical climate is bleak, and the stakes could scarcely be higher.
Sonke’s next decade must therefore confront a harder question: How do we move from changing attitudes to transforming systems? How do we move beyond reaching millions with messages to ensuring that budgets, clinics, courts and schools deliver safety and equality for all?
The answer, as in 2006, will not be found in any one organisation. Sonke’s greatest impact has never come from its programmes alone, but from the coalitions it has built—with women’s movements, government officials willing to listen, 50 community action teams across the country, and the MenEngage Alliance regionally and globally. Creating a world in which no one is left behind will require all hands on deck.
If the first 20 years proved that men must be part of the solution, the next 20 must prove that feminist justice can be embedded in our institutions, so that no survivor’s safety depends on which police officer or health official happens to be on duty.
A cause for hope
At a time of deep cynicism about NGOs, and about whether anything truly changes, Sonke’s 20-year record offers a stubborn, evidence-based argument for hope.
It reminds us that change is not an event. It is a discipline: the unglamorous, daily work of running a workshop in Agincourt, filing court papers in Cape Town, supporting a community dialogue in Gugulethu, assisting marginalised communities across the region, and returning the next day to do it all again. That persistence is not optional. It is the work justice demands.
Justice. Equality. Dignity for all. The words are easy to print on a banner. For 20 years, Sonke has worked to make them real in people’s lives. That struggle is far from over.
We should celebrate the gains of the past 20 years; there have been many. But celebration must not become complacency. More people and institutions must join this vital struggle for gender justice. It needs all of us. We owe future generations a better world, one in which gender equality, equity and human rights are not aspirations, but established norms. Sonke remains committed to playing its part.
