Section 9 (3) of the Bill of Rights in South Africa’s Constitution, introduced in 1996, prohibits unfair discrimination on the grounds of ‘race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth’ (Constitutional Court of South Africa n.d.). This legal framework offers protection, and formal recognition as equal citizens, to women and to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and more (LGBTQI+) people (South African government 1996). It also positions South Africa as an important regional place of refuge for LGBTQI+ Africans (Marnell, Camminga and de Gruchy 2023), despite the country’s high rates of gender-based violence (GBV) (Gouws 2024) and xenophobia (Dratwa 2024). Conversely, South Africa is also a ‘launchpad’ for backlash actors, and has hosted a number of regional convenings of (for example) Family Watch International (FWI) and the World Congress of Families (WCF) (Igual 2016). Anti-rights actors active in the country include affiliates of the WCF such as the Family Policy Institute, a ‘pro-life, pro-family think-tank’ (Roxburgh 2024; Family Policy Institute n.d.). Two of South Africa’s political parties, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and Al Jama-ah, a Muslim conservative organisation, are explicitly anti-LGBTI.
Anti-gender actors ‘plug into’ and exacerbate existing resistance to gender justice. Ratele (2015) has attributed this to a combination of economic marginality, racial discrimination, and cultural tradition. This risks augmenting the already high levels of GBV and rape, which Gqola (2015) argues have become normalised in the country. Amanda Gouws (2024) suggests that women in South Africa are unable to attain full citizenship because GBV is endemic. Much of the advocacy work around GBV has focused on law reform, but despite progressive laws and policies, incidence remains high (laws and policies include: the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (The Presidency n.d.); the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 (South African government 2007); the Domestic Violence Act (South African government 1998); and the new hate crimes legislation. Studies suggest that significant work is needed to implement these policies and to change social norms (Mkwananzi and Nathane-Taulela 2024).
The legalisation of sex work, abortion, LGBTI rights, and comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) are currently the leading gender rollback issues in South Africa (expert review pers. comm.) (Chalmers-Mmolai 2023; McEwen and Francis 2023). The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), for example, has petitioned against the legalisation of sex work in South Africa, in direct opposition to arguments from sex workers themselves (National Center on Sexual Exploitation 2023; Human Rights Watch and Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce 2019). LGBTQI+ individuals and their rights, as elsewhere on the continent, are often characterised as ‘unAfrican’ (Kariuki 2025). Family Watch International has played a leading role in recent years in driving an anti-LGBTQI+ Christian lobby group protesting the inclusion of gender and sexuality units (which aim to reduce teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS transmission, and GBV) in CSE curricula in schools (McEwen and Francis 2022; Family Watch International 2019). There are a number of anti-abortion non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in South Africa, including (for example) Doctors for Life. Freedom of Religion (FOR SA) also campaigns against CSE, abortion, and same-sex relationships (Freedom of Religion SA n.d.). Lynch (2024: 7) identifies the four primary strategies deployed by anti-gender actors in South Africa as: co-opting religious narratives; co-opting decolonisation narratives; popularising trans*[1] denialism; and closing down of civic space.
Landscape of anti-rollback actors
South Africa has a long and well-documented history of feminist and LGBTQI+ organising. Actors countering anti-gender rollback are varied and work across themes, levels of scale, and membership. Many well-established organisations have an explicitly feminist agenda – for example, the Women’s Legal Centre in Cape Town, and Just Associates (JASS), which work regionally in southern Africa. The African Gender Institute, based at the University of Cape Town, has nurtured numerous feminist scholars, activists, and publications (University of Cape Town n.d.). Another organisation, Sonke Gender Justice, works with men and religious and cultural leaders to counter GBV (Sonke Gender Justice 2024). Several important pan-African LGBTQI+ organisations are based in South Africa, such as The Other Foundation, Iranti, Gender Dynamix, the Coalition of African Lesbians (Sika and Okech 2019), and Pan Africa ILGA. These groups, both new and old, rely extensively on international funding from development sector agencies and private philanthropy. Grass-roots organisations like the Uthingo Network, which engages with conservative religious and political leaders in rural South Africa to protect LGBTQI+ community members, conduct their programming with the support of grants from foreign states, global development firms, and some local government departments (Uthingo Network n.d.).
Counter-rollback strategies
Feminist and LGBTQI+ organisations deploy a wide variety of tactics to counter rollback, including legal and policy interventions, discursive and narrative strategies, and community mobilising. Feminist advocates at the AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) International Forum 2024, for example, emphasised the importance of collaboration, grass-roots advocacy, and creative strategies (from cultural storytelling to digital literacy) as critical tools for defending sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) (Hivos 2024).
The Centre for Applied Legal Studies, for example, in June 2024, proposed a law to prevent Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits, aimed at protecting activists and journalists (Mafata 2024). Equal Education (and its sister organisation) have done important advocacy and policy work around CSE and SOGIESC (sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics) guidelines in schools (Equal Education Law Centre n.d.). Additionally, South Africa’s Department of Basic Education has continued its rollout of the proposed changes and additions to the CSE curriculum, utilising its position to hold consultations with anti-gender actors (Christian lobby groups in particular) and assuage fears (Department of Basic Education 2019; Ellerbeck 2019). The recent passing of the Preventing and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill represents an important milestone in the use of law and policy reform to tighten protections against discrimination (The Presidency 2024).
Several organisations have focused on research to challenge misinformation and shift narratives – for example, The Other Foundation’s 2024 study on the LGBTI market and on the role that families play in advocating for the human rights of LGBTI people in southern Africa (Araújo and Botha 2024; The Other Foundation 2024; Kessman and Pimental 2020). Other examples include the work of the Global Interfaith Network (GIN) for People of all Sexes, Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Expressions, and of Inclusive and Affirming Ministries (IAM) in challenging faith discourses. South Africa also has a rich history of ‘visual activism’ through which artists such as Zanele Muholi (with FEW), Inkanyiso, and, more recently, the Muholi Art Institute (Art Review 2021), as well as organisations such as Iranti and MambaOnline, use art and media to actively advocate for queer liberation from homophobia and hate crimes.
Several organisations, including The Other Foundation and PFSAQ (Parents, Families and Friends of South African Queers) support grass-roots work in which they actively convene and engage with LGBTQI+ allies, such as friendly religious leaders, and the families of queers.
There is a rich history of community mobilisation against GBV in South Africa – for example, the #TotalShutDown movement, which played a key role in the development of the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (which takes an inclusive approach when it comes to violence facing LGBTIQ persons) (The Presidency n.d.).
Gaps and areas for future research/work
Lynch (2024) identifies five primary entry points to counter anti-gender organising in South Africa: the development of a collective and coordinated strategy; investing in narrative change (against a gender-restrictive worldview); building ‘disinformation resilience’; engaging diplomatic and foreign policy structures; and transforming funding practices to offer long-term, flexible funding to ‘local grassroots SRHR and gender justice organisations and movements, which have decades of experience in developing context-specific responses’ (Lynch 2024: 22).
There is also scant evidence on how feminist and LGBTQI+ activists identify and begin to coordinate with one another. Although larger, more established organisations work with smaller entities across South Africa, a lack of documentation of funding flows obscures the financial pipeline from global funder to local implementers. More work on this could highlight crucial funding gaps and help funders channel direct support to these areas, democratising grant-making and countering backlash more effectively at its distinct sources across the country.
Notes
[1] We use trans* to indicate the inclusion of gender identities such as non-binary, gender-fluid, agender, etc., alongside transsexual and transgender.
Credits
This Country Brief was written by Chandni Ganesh. It was supported by the project Rapid Scoping Review – The Nature of Feminist and LGBT+ Movements in a Range of Selected Countries, funded by UK International Development from the UK government. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of IDS or the UK government’s official policies.
First published April 2025.
Suggested citation: Ganesh, C. (2025) ‘Rapid Scoping Review 2025: South Africa’, Countering Rollback Country Brief, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2025.033
© Institute of Development Studies 2025.
This is an Open Access brief distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited and any modifications or adaptations are indicated.
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