South African researchers are driving innovation and shaping the future in combating the scourge of gender-based violence, with some of their work already informing the country’s policy.

These emerging researchers are with the South African Medical Research Council’s (SAMRC) Gender and Health Research Unit (GHRU). Notably, they are all PhD candidates.

Nangipha Mnandi, a research technologist, said that the Siyaphambili Youth Project and Stepping Stones Creating Futures+ (SSCF+), which he has worked on, are research initiatives aimed at benefiting young people in resource-strained communities who are at risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), poor mental health, substance misuse, and HIV acquisition driven by several contextual factors. 

“Through understanding the relationship between these contextual drivers, we designed and developed a scalable intervention that will reduce IPV and poor mental health risk among young people and strengthen their agency in challenging contexts. The key challenge we encounter with implementing such a project is the structural challenges of poverty and unemployment, which are mostly beyond our control but largely influence or shape IPV and poor mental health outcomes in marginalised community settings,” he said.

Mnandi added that socio-structural challenges such as poverty, unemployment, and broader social hardships significantly influence the effectiveness of the interventions.

“Many young people face daily pressures to secure income or food for themselves and their families, which often takes precedence over attending scheduled sessions. Even though we strategically deliver interventions within communities to reduce barriers to access, attendance remains inconsistent.

“This is not due to a lack of interest or engagement, but rather the urgent need for participants to ‘hustle’ for survival. These realities highlight the importance of designing flexible, context-sensitive interventions that acknowledge and adapt to the lived experiences of the communities we serve,” Mnandi highlighted.

He is currently working on the Zithandani (Couples) project, which aims to reduce violence in young heterosexual couples from urban informal settlements. 

“Our data from the Siyaphambili Youth Project and Zithandani Project shows how poverty, violence, and masculine norms intersect to shape the poor mental health of young men. Our work reveals that while young women may experience higher rates of mental health challenges, however, young men are more likely to engage in substance misuse and suicide ideation, often as a result of unaddressed trauma and social expectations. 

“The absence of fathers further compounds these issues, as many young men grow up without male role models in contexts shaped by apartheid and HIV/Aids. Young men’s lived experiences are also likely driven by a desire to challenge harmful gender norms and promote healthier, more equitable masculinities,” Mnandi said.

He added that two interlinked promising findings could be scaled up to other communities. 

“First, the importance of engaging young people in a meaningful way in the development of projects and interventions. In both projects, we have worked hard to ensure young people are engaged. In SSCF+, we hired young people as Youth Peer Research Assistants (YPRAs) to co-create and deliver SSCF+, and this has emerged as a powerful strategy. 

“This approach cultivates trust, ownership, and contextual relevance of the final intervention. Moreover, peer-facilitated community-based interventions can be very effective in improving health outcomes in communities with limited access to public healthcare services. Young people tend to be far more responsive to public health initiatives that involve their peers based in the same communities that they come from,” Mnandi said.

Nonhlonipho Bhengu-Simelane, a senior research technologist, said the Masibambane Ladies Chat, which she worked on, showed that digital platforms can increase access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) information and make peer support more reachable for young women. 

PrEP is a medicine that people at risk for HIV take to prevent getting HIV from sex or injection drug use.

“One of the biggest lessons from the Masibambane Ladies Chat was that a gender-empowerment approach, delivered through an accessible platform like WhatsApp, can do far more than share information; it can shift mindsets. 

“As facilitator and project coordinator, I saw how creating a safe, women-only space online encouraged honest conversations about HIV prevention, broke down stigma, and helped young women see PrEP as a personal choice they could own. The combination of peer recruitment, relatable content, and open dialogue built confidence, challenged harmful norms, and motivated women to take the next step towards protecting their health,” Bhengu-Simelane said.

For the Ntombi Vimbela Study, she facilitated a sexual violence risk reduction programme for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, addressing mental health and resilience.

Bhengu-Simelane said lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ) women need safe, identity-affirming spaces and trained providers. Group sessions built confidence, improved help-seeking, and highlighted gaps in mainstream services.

She added that meaningful youth participation in every phase of the design, delivery, and evaluation is an important aspect.

Zamakhoza Khoza, a research technologist at SAMRC’s Fedisa Modikologo Durban site, whose research engages young men incarcerated for sexual offences to understand their experiences, social contexts, and belief systems that led to their actions, said prevention and the eventual elimination of gender-based violence are impossible without tackling its root causes. 

She specialises in the rehabilitation and reintegration of male juvenile sexual offenders, and is running a SEED project within the GHRU.

Khoza added that the Competitive Seed Funding Initiative is linked to her PhD, which focuses on co-developing a gender-transformative intervention for young men (18–25 years old) incarcerated in juvenile or youth correctional centres for sexual offences in South Africa. 

Valuable evidence over the past three decades has shaped the global understanding of GBV perpetrators, with much of this evidence being produced by the SAMRC’s GHRU, she said. 

“But for younger offenders, particularly those who enter the justice system and are incarcerated, there’s still much we don’t know. Most of the dominant theories in this area still come from the Global North; these theories may not capture the critical contextual, socio-cultural, and economic realities of the Global South. 

“We need to incorporate local theories with the established theories from the Global North. We also need to broaden our lens beyond male perpetrators and heteronormative understanding, while recognising that the majority of offenders are male. Continued efforts should include research and prevention work with women and LGBTQIA+ perpetrators,” Khoza said.

She added that correctional centre-based research demands careful navigation of trust, ethics, and power, which means ensuring participants don’t feel further persecuted, while still holding space for accountability. 

Her long-term vision is for perpetrator-focused research and interventions to be recognised as a non-negotiable component of GBV prevention.

Asiphe Ketelo, a project lead at the GHRU, who is dedicated to investigating gender-based violence (GBV), femicide, injury mortality, and male victimisation, said that during the Covid-19 period, there was a small but statistically significant increase in intimate partner femicide cases. 

“Our 2020/21 study highlighted the critical role of alcohol in femicide risk during the pandemic. Periods of a complete alcohol sales ban saw a decrease in both overall femicides and intimate partner femicides, but once the bans were lifted, cases rose again. This ‘natural experiment” demonstrated the substantial impact of alcohol on femicide rates and underscored the urgent need to address alcohol use in prevention efforts,” Ketelo said.

Since 2020, Ketelo has contributed to high-impact studies, collecting data under the leadership of Professor Naeemah Abrahams on two national femicide surveys (2022, 2024), which have made significant contributions to national policy.

Ketelo said the GHRU of the SAMRC has developed a Femicide Prevention Strategy, commissioned by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. 

“This strategy draws on over three decades of GHRU research into gender-based violence and femicide. Although it has not yet been formally adopted, it has been presented at multiple government meetings, and we remain hopeful it will soon be implemented as a much-needed step toward reducing GBV and femicide in South Africa,” Ketelo said.

Regarding her PhD research on women’s use of violence against male partners, she said, as GBV researchers, in different spaces, they are often asked, ‘What about men?’

“I realised that although this is a sensitive question, especially because I have worked and seen how much violence women experience at the hands of men, in reality, we don’t know much about the violence men experience, the drivers of this violence, and the pathways between the violence experienced by women and their perpetration of violence. I also observed dynamics of heterosexual relationships in my circles, and these all contributed to my interest in pursuing this topic for my PhD,” Ketelo said.

She highlighted that her research is not meant to discount the legitimacy of women’s high burden of victimisation at the hands of male partners; however, it is designed to provide multifaceted accounts from critical sources needed to advance this knowledge, which will help to develop GBV impactful prevention interventions and policies that are comprehensive and tailored to address IPV for different genders.

gcwalisile.khanyile@inl.co.za

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