Why the workplace has a bigger role to play in addressing gender-based violence in South Africa than most organisations realise.
She drove to work this morning.
Made coffee. Opened her laptop. Joined the meeting. Said she was fine when someone asked.
And maybe she was, at least in the way most of us usually mean it.
But something happened last night. Or last week. Or it has been happening for months. She carried it through the front door with her this morning, placed it quietly beside her desk, and got on with her day.
Most people around her will never know.
I think about this a lot because I know what it feels like.
It's one of the reasons I do the work I do today. I know what it means to carry something no one else could see.
I also know what it's like to keep pretending everything is normal. And I know what a difference it makes when someone creates a space that feels safe enough to stop pretending.
South Africa declared GBV a national disaster last year.
Over a million people signed the petition. Women lay in silence outside the Union Buildings for fifteen minutes, one minute for every woman killed in this country every single day.
Fifteen women. Every day.
Those numbers will not change through legislation alone.
Government has an important role to play. So do our courts and our police. But there is another place where women spend most of their waking hours, and I think we underestimate the influence it has.
Work.
Many organisations see GBV as something that sits outside their walls. Something that becomes their concern only when someone asks for help.
By then, she has often spent months deciding whether it is safe to say anything at all.
She is in your office right now.
She is the colleague everyone relies on. She meets deadlines. She replies to emails. She keeps showing up.
What nobody sees is how much energy it takes to hold everything together before she even walks through your front door.
In my work, I've learned that women rarely stay silent because they don't need support. They stay silent because they're trying to work out whether it's safe to trust the people around them.
That is why addressing gender-based violence in the workplace matters more than many organisations realise.
For many women, work is one of the few places where they spend time away from an abusive partner. It may be the only environment where someone notices that they seem quieter than usual, more anxious, or no longer quite themselves. A trusted colleague or manager may become the first person they ever consider speaking to.
That opportunity is easily missed if people don't know what to look for or how to respond.
The question is not whether people care. Most do.
The question is whether the way leaders respond, the conversations they have, and the culture they create give someone enough confidence to believe she will be met with understanding instead of discomfort if she chooses to speak.
That is something every organisation has the power to shape.
No workplace can solve gender-based violence on its own. But every workplace can become one more place where someone feels seen, supported and informed.
Sometimes that is enough to change what happens next.
As Women's Month approaches, many organisations are deciding how they'll mark it. My hope is that more of us use it as an opportunity to give women something they can carry with them long after August is over.
That's why I created my GBV Agency and Empowerment Workshop.
The workshop helps women recognise the warning signs of abuse, strengthen their sense of agency, and leave with practical knowledge they can carry into their own lives.
At the same time, it helps organisations create workplaces where people feel safer asking for help before a crisis escalates.
If your organisation wants to use Women's Month to do more than raise awareness, I'd love to explore how we can work together to create a conversation that has a lasting impact.
Contact me on ann@flagacademy.co.za or 078 458 5338
In your corner
Ann
Ann du Plessis is a human behaviour and performance specialist with a decade in self-defense, GBV prevention and anti-bullying work.
She holds a black belt in Goju Ryu Karate and has a background in trauma-informed coaching and post-incident debriefing.
She is also a survivor of sexual assault, emotional abuse and workplace harassment, lived experience that shapes this work as a professional lens, not a personal statement.