The wider impact of generational fatherlessness is well-known in academic research. Early positive father involvement during the first 1000 days of a child’s life, from conception to two years old, is critical not only to child development but also in addressing gender-based violence in South Africa. Heartlines (2020) formative research on fatherhood in South Africa demonstrates that children who grow up without positively present and/or engaged fathers are at a greater risk for negative consequences such as:
Conversely, Heartlines (2020) research shows that positive father involvement can: Considering South Africa’s crisis of gender-based violence in which the rate of female deaths due to intimate partner violence is five times higher than the global average (Govender, 2023; World Bank, 2019), the need for positive fatherhood and manhood has never been greater. According to the South African Police Service, an average of 11 women were murdered every day in 2023; half of victims were killed by an intimate partner or someone they knew (Outlier, 2024). Despite the known benefits of positive father involvement, there is a lack of understanding and awareness about positive fatherhood among fathers themselves and at a wider systemic level hindering potential governmental and religious interventions. In order to change the cycle of fatherlessness, socio-culturally relevant interventions are needed which are based on the many known barriers to positive father involvement in South Africa. These barriers include the wider impact of poverty and unemployment, labour migration, institutional barriers, substance abuse, and cultural and traditional practices such as lobola (bride price) and paying ihlawulo (damages) for children born out of wedlock.
