The Cost of Silence: Transparency, Power and the Fight Against GBV

It is a grim world women inhabit. Whether she is outspoken or reserved, dressed to impress or simply to exist, someone somewhere will convince himself that her body, her voice, or her peace belongs to him. A walk to the taxi rank becomes an invitation. A rejection becomes an insult. A promotion comes with conditions. For countless women, violence is not a possibility—it is an ever-present shadow.

South Africa knows this shadow all too well.

The numbers are devastating, but they have become so familiar that they risk losing their sting. Women continue to be murdered, raped and assaulted at alarming rates, while conviction rates leave many wondering whether justice is merely a word we utter when tragedy trends. We have become experts at mourning women after they have died. We have become less skilled at asking why they were made vulnerable long before their names became hashtags.

Women’s Month is a celebration of resilience, but resilience should never become another burden women are expected to carry. It should compel us to ask uncomfortable questions—not to blame victims, but to challenge the systems, cultures and conversations that leave them exposed.

One of those conversations is transparency.

Social media has become a stage where luxury is applauded and appearances often outweigh reality. Expensive dinners, designer labels and lavish holidays fill timelines, quietly shaping what success is supposed to resemble. Behind many of these carefully curated lifestyles, however, are stories we rarely discuss: unequal power, financial dependence, transactional relationships and expectations left deliberately unspoken.

The issue is not that women desire financial security or a comfortable life. Everyone does. The concern begins when silence replaces honesty, when intentions are hidden, when power belongs overwhelmingly to one person, and when desperation is mistaken for opportunity.

The documentary Unreported World explored the lives of women who identify as “slay queens,” with Habiba Makgatho describing relationships built around affluent men and financial gain. For some, these arrangements are viewed as survival. For others, they represent aspiration. Yet beneath the glamour lies an uncomfortable truth: where money determines power, consent, dignity and safety can quickly become negotiable.

That reality should disturb us.

It should disturb us because gender-based violence does not begin with bruises. Long before physical violence arrives, many women encounter emotional manipulation, coercion and financial control. As anti-GBV advocate Dr Lesley Anne Forster has argued, psychological abuse often becomes the doorway through which financial abuse enters. When women are reduced to commodities rather than equals, violence has already begun—only its form has changed.

Recent tragedies have once again ignited public debate. The murders of two young women from Mamelodi became another reminder of how quickly lives can end and how swiftly society chooses sides. Some blamed the women. Others condemned only the perpetrators. Yet somewhere between those opposing reactions lies a conversation we seldom have.

How do unequal power dynamics place women in danger?

Why do so many young women believe dependence is empowerment?

Why are young men still socialised to believe that financial provision entitles them to control another human being?

These are not questions that excuse violence. They are questions that seek to prevent it.

No lifestyle, no disagreement and no deception justifies murder. Responsibility for violence rests solely with the individual who chooses to commit it. That truth must remain unwavering. Yet if we are serious about reducing GBV, we must also become serious about examining the conditions that predators exploit.

Economic vulnerability remains one of the greatest of those conditions.

Too many women stay in abusive relationships because leaving means homelessness, unemployment or hunger. Others enter unhealthy relationships because society has taught them that dependence is a shortcut to security. In that environment, financial control becomes another weapon. Prevention therefore cannot stop at awareness campaigns that tell women how to identify abuse. Prevention must also include creating opportunities that make independence possible.

Imagine a young woman who knows the warning signs of abuse but has no income, no qualifications and nowhere else to go. Awareness alone cannot rescue her.

Empowerment can.

This is perhaps where many GBV programmes unintentionally fall short. They teach women about violence, but too few equip them with the economic tools needed to escape it. Financial literacy, entrepreneurship, mentorship and employment opportunities are not separate from the fight against GBV; they are part of it.

Transparency matters here too.

Young people deserve honest conversations about transactional relationships, social media pressures, consent, manipulation and power. We cannot continue glamorising lifestyles without acknowledging the risks that sometimes accompany them. Neither can we shame women into silence once those risks become reality.

Silence has never protected anyone.

The silence that tells boys not to speak about healthy masculinity.

The silence that tells girls their worth is measured by what someone else can buy for them.

The silence that keeps families from discussing abuse until it is too late.

The silence that waits for another funeral before demanding change.

Women’s Month should remind us that protecting women is about more than condemning violence after it happens. It is about building a society where exploitation struggles to find fertile ground.

Transparency alone will not end GBV. Economic freedom alone will not end GBV. Better laws alone will not end GBV.

But together they begin to weaken the foundations upon which violence thrives.

The fight against gender-based violence is not only about changing the actions of perpetrators. It is also about changing the environment that allows manipulation, dependency and unequal power to flourish unchecked. Perhaps that is the conversation South Africa has been avoiding. Because while violence may begin with one person’s decision, prevention begins with all of ours.

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About the Author:

Tebogo Mokgadi is an Activator of the 2025 cohort. Writing was a hobby that gained a strong voice as he wrote for an arts organization, SistaBoss Academy, in the beginning of 2024. Now, he plans on sharpening this tool to tackle societal views that perpetuate the preservation of stereotypes.