The Purple Movement unites Africa in a bold stand against Gender-Based Violence, demanding justice, dignity, and urgent political action.
The colour purple filled social media timelines across South Africa and beyond over the past week. This is not a fleeting online trend. It is a deliberate and coordinated campaign led by the activist group Women For Change. The aim is to confront South Africa’s deepening crisis of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Femicide, while demanding urgent political accountability.
Following recent Gender-Based Violence (GBV) cases in South Africa and across the continent, the fight against GBV is finally getting the attention and pushback it deserves. This movement carries on the legacy of Ochanya, whose story inspired Nigerians to speak out and share their own experiences with gender-based violence in their everyday life. What started online has now erupted into a continent-wide call for justice. African survivors and allies are standing together, demanding accountability, solidarity, and real change.
Known as the Purple Movement, this campaign is mobilising women and allies to participate in the upcoming G20 Women’s Shutdown on Friday, 21 November 2025. The day of action calls for South African women to pause their work, economic activity, and daily routines to expose the scale of the GBV crisis and highlight the essential role of women in society.
What the Purple Movement stands for
At the heart of the Purple Movement is a call for systemic change. Historically, purple has represented dignity, justice, and remembrance within women’s rights movements around the world. By turning their profile photos and public spaces purple, South Africans are uniting under a single visual message: solidarity with survivors and remembrance for those who have been lost.
Women For Change and allied organisations are demanding that Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) be declared a national disaster. Such a declaration would allow emergency funding, coordinated national response, and stricter accountability mechanisms, similar to those used in natural disasters or public health crises.
Other key demands include:
Transparent tracking of government spending on GBV prevention and survivor support
Strengthened legal enforcement and protection for survivors
Increased funding for shelters, hotlines, and trauma care services
Education and awareness programs to dismantle gender-based discrimination and misogyny
Although the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) has rejected the call to classify GBVF as a national disaster, activists argue that existing frameworks have failed. Every day that the government delays, more women are silenced by violence.
The G20 women’s shutdown
The organisers designed the shutdown as a powerful act of collective protest. Participants are encouraged to stop all forms of labour, refrain from spending, wear black and purple, and observe a 15-minute national silence at 12:00 PM, with each minute symbolising one woman killed every day by gender-based violence in South Africa.
Through this symbolic standstill, organisers hope to send a clear message to leaders attending the G20 Summit in Johannesburg from 22 to 23 November 2025. Their message is that South Africa is living through a humanitarian emergency, and the government can no longer treat GBV as a secondary issue.
Nigeria’s fight against gender-based violence
The significance of the Purple Movement has already begun to resonate beyond South Africa’s borders, particularly in Nigeria, where the fight against gender-based violence has been growing steadily over the past few years.
The statistics
Nigeria continues to face alarming rates of GBV. According to the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, the country recorded 27,698 cases of sexual and gender-based violence between 2020 and October 2023, across only a sample of states. Within that period, 1,145 deaths were linked to GBV, yet only 393 convictions were recorded. National surveys reveal that 63% of Nigerians have either experienced or know someone who has experienced gender-based violence.
These figures reflect not only the scale of the problem but also the depth of impunity and institutional failure surrounding it.
Protests & public mobilisation in states
Across Nigeria, activists have been mobilising in the streets and online.
In Abuja, hundreds of women marched during the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, carrying placards reading “No Tolerance for Rape and Sexual Violence” and “Say No to Exploitation.”
Similarly, in Anambra State, over a hundred women took to the streets in March 2025 to protest Gender-Based Violence and ritual killings.
Hundreds in Enugu also participated in a road walk, taking to the busy Abakpa-Texaco route while carrying banners that read: “There’s no excuse for violence,” “Say no to rape,” “Stop female genital mutilation.”
In Lagos, the movement against Gender-Based Violence has gained strong visibility through both street protests and coordinated digital campaigns. In recent years, women’s rights groups, youth collectives, and civil society organisations have staged peaceful marches and public awareness drives demanding justice for victims and accountability from authorities.
Mobilisation among groups and hashtags
Civil society groups, including Stand To End Rape (STER), Mirabel Centre, and Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), have also led demonstrations and public dialogues. They have been urging stronger implementation of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (VAPP) in all states and approval for sustainable funding for survivor support services.
Online, movements like #StateOfEmergencyGBV have become rallying points for Nigerian activists. The hashtag, first popularised in 2020 after the murder of university student Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, continues to unite citizens demanding that the government declare a national state of emergency on GBV. Other related hashtags, such as #StopTheSilence, #JusticeForAllWomen, and #TurnNigeriaPurple, trend during national awareness campaigns, creating an ecosystem of digital solidarity similar to South Africa’s Purple Movement.
At the policy level, organisations like FIDA Nigeria and state-level Domestic and Sexual Violence Agencies (DSVAs) are driving advocacy for full implementation of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (VAPP) and better access to justice for survivors. Yet, activists continue to emphasise that legal frameworks mean little without enforcement, survivor protection, and cultural change.
A continent united in the fight against GBV
The Purple Movement in South Africa and the anti-GBV campaigns in Nigeria reflect the shared urgency of women advocating for safety across Africa. Both countries demonstrate that when citizens unite through visible symbols, coordinated action, and digital solidarity, change begins to happen..
Together, these parallel efforts signal a growing continental movement, one that recognises gender-based violence not as an isolated national issue, but as a global crisis demanding united resistance and reform.
The Purple Movement is more than a campaign. It is a moment of reckoning and a demand that governments treat gender-based violence as the emergency it is. As purple spreads across South Africa, Nigeria, and beyond, it symbolises both grief and defiance: grief for the lives lost, and defiance against the systems that continue to enable such violence.
Read more: Tawakalit Kareem believes Gender-Based Violence is not just a women’s issue
