Never give them hell. Just tell the truth and they will think it’s hell.

A passionate activist for women’s rights, Brenda Madumise-Pajibo has never practiced as a lawyer but says her legal background has stood her in good stead in her 30-year career spanning the public and private sectors as well as civil society.

Her first baptism of fire and experience of working in an environment full of patriarchy and machismo was when she was recruited by the ANC Women’s League in 1991 to join their fledgling policy unit. The party was heading towards its first policy conference and Madumise-Pajibo, despite not being a member of the women’s league, worked on their gender strategies.

She says it was difficult in the early 1990s to be a gender activist in the ANC structures. “Being open and forthright was frowned upon; you can’t challenge leadership. “I never stopped, I see things for what they are, it rubs people up the wrong way.”

Madumise-Pajibo spent many years in the public and private sector before becoming part of the Wise Collective, a women-run NGO that opposes gender-based violence and provides legal advice to women.

“We hold their hands in obtaining [child] maintenance and protection orders. It is intimidating to go to the magistrate’s court alone. All of the people there are men, from the clerk of the court to the translator, and men have a rapport together,” she comments.

Madumise-Pajibo was among the thousands of women in the #TotalShutDown march to the Union Buildings on August 1 last year and worked with a team of organisers prior to the protest to draft the nine key demands, among them a national action plan to end gender-based violence, consistent sentencing and enforcement of laws relating to sexual and domestic violence cases.

Minister Naledi Pandor met the marchers to accept their memorandum but Madumise-Pajibo and others refused to leave until President Cyril Ramaphosa accepted their memorandum. He arrived at 9pm.

Their stance on only the president receiving their memorandum “sent a message that we mean business”, she says.

A national gender summit was then held at the end of October last year. Madumise-Pajibo says a national action plan is close to being finished and will be released in October. “The plan will address the issue of government working in silos to the detriment of all us; there’s no co-ordination of activities and plans.”

Women affiliated to the #TotalShutDown drafted the national action plan and have been part of the ongoing work. Despite previous plans and policies to deal with gender-based violence having failed, Madumise-Pajibo believes there is greater political will under the Ramaphosa administration — and a stronger civil society — to tackle this social problem.

Twitter: @MadamPaj