- Communication for Development (C4D) shifts PR from awareness campaigns to participation, dialogue and long-term social change.
- South Africa’s gender-based violence crisis shows that widespread awareness alone has not translated into reduced violence.
- Effective communication on gender-based violence requires collaboration between government, NGOs, corporations, media and communities.
- PR should address the social norms, behaviours and barriers that enable gender-based violence rather than only responding after incidents occur.
- Success should be measured by behavioural and community change, not only campaign reach, engagement or media visibility.
A gender-based violence tragedy occurs. The public demands justice. Politicians issue statements. Organisations condemn the violence. Social media fills with outrage. Marches are organised. Petitions circulate. Interviews follow.
Then, as public attention moves elsewhere, the underlying conditions remain. The question is not whether these responses are necessary. Some are. The question is whether we have mistaken the visibility of a response for evidence of progress.
For Ekurhuleni, and many other communities across South Africa, the response to gender-based violence must extend beyond what happens after violence occurs.
A society can become highly aware of a problem without becoming better at solving it. South Africa has run the 16 Days of Activism campaign against gender-based violence and femicide for 27 years. The SABC says its platforms alone reach over 50 million South Africans daily.
Yet the South African Human Rights Commission reports that between April and June 2026, 1 052 women survived attempted murder, and 8 814 rape cases were opened in the first quarter of 2026.
Is exposure to messages translating into reduced violence?
The press releases we draft, campaigns, social media hashtags and influencers all play a significant role in raising awareness of the issues. But the question is: what happens afterwards?
A march can mobilise people; a petition can create political pressure; a hashtag can amplify survivors’ voices; a media interview can expose an issue. But none of those activities inherently guarantees social change.
If awareness were enough…
If awareness were enough, South Africa’s decades-long conversation about gender-based violence should have produced a very different reality. This is where Communication for Development (C4D) offers a useful lens.
At its core, C4D moves communication beyond simply delivering messages to audiences and towards using communication as a process for participation, dialogue, collective action and social change. Awareness can be an entry point, but it is not the destination.
Between knowing that gender-based violence is wrong and creating communities where violence is prevented lies a much more complicated process involving attitudes, behaviours, relationships, institutions and social norms.
Traditional PR campaigns can position communities as recipients: here is the information, do not tolerate gender-based violence, speak out and report it. C4D asks different questions: What social norms enable violence? What prevents people from seeking help or reporting abuse? Who do communities trust? What role can men and boys play in prevention?
And, perhaps most importantly, are communities being involved in developing the solutions themselves?
Responding to the problem … together
An NGO may understand the realities facing survivors but lack the resources to reach thousands of people. A corporation may have resources but lack the community knowledge to design an appropriate intervention. Government may have policy responsibilities and public infrastructure but require stronger community feedback mechanisms.
Media organisations have reach, while communities possess lived knowledge of the problem. C4D provides a framework for connecting these different capabilities rather than allowing them to operate in isolation.
The complexity of gender-based violence means that no single institution can reasonably be expected to address it alone. Yet these contributions often exist alongside one another rather than with one another. Organisations launch their own campaigns, release their own statements and pursue their own initiatives, often with little connection to what others are doing.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply getting more organisations to respond to gender-based violence. It is getting them to respond to the same problem together.
A campaign has a beginning and an end. Gender-based violence does not. Attention peaks after an incident, then fades until the next tragedy. What happens when media attention disappears?
Moving the conversation from awareness
Measurement matters here too. A campaign reaches five million people, a hashtag generates thousands of engagements, a march attracts thousands of participants. Communication travelled, but so what? What changed?
The further an intervention moves from exposure towards participation and change, the more useful its evaluation becomes. This does not mean every intervention can reduce national gender-based violence prevalence; social problems are complex. It does mean organisations should be clear about the change they are contributing to and measure whether their communication is helping to achieve it.
So, how does PR help end gender-based violence? Not by treating communication as the solution itself, but by using it to connect people, organisations and resources towards meaningful action.
PR can help move the conversation from awareness to participation, from isolated campaigns to collaboration, and from public attention to measurable change.
