Director-General at the Office of the KZN Premier, Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize, resigns after she allegedly fell victim to gender-based violence. Image: IOL.
(The Post News)– Director-General at the Office of the KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize, has resigned from her position after allegedly being subjected to gender-based violence (GBV) in the workplace perpetrated by a younger male colleague.
Dr Mkhize has served at the Premier’s office since 2017 and has been a government official for decades. She started as the first female Director and Chief Director of Human Rights in the KZN Office of the Premier and was later appointed to be the Director-General for the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities in the Presidency.
In a statement, Mkhize shared that she has always been vocal with the conviction that the state becomes an instrument of hope and protection for the most vulnerable people. She expressed that her address to the nation as a senior public servant, a mother, a woman, and a lifetime supporter of equality, justice, and dignity was with a “heavy heart”.
Mkhize said that throughout her career she has marched side by side with women in communities across the country against the plague of gender-based violence, citing having raised her voice in policy rooms even when her physical safety was compromised.
Sharing a series of events, Mkhize claims the incident occurred after she refused to comply with a demand to sign off on “unverified” Youth Fund documents or process them according to government protocols. According to Mkhize, any divergence from these established standards would have represented irregularities, which would have reflected poorly on the organisational frameworks of the office that I filled as well as relevant oversight authorities.
She highlighted that what would have remained a professional exchange escalated into an aggressive and violent outburst, which led to verbal attack and physical intimidation. Additionally, she claimed to have been shouted at and gestured at with a fist and finger by a senior director in the department in a way that was humiliating, terrifying, and totally inappropriate.
There is currently no available official statement from the Office of the Premier publicly addressing the ordeal.
Mkhize also added that she ended up running for her life after getting away from a colleague who wanted to assault her in the presence of other colleagues. She went through counselling before handing her resignation letter explaining the ordeal, in which she said nothing was done to address the issue.
She said that the absence of empathy followed by silence made her realise that the system was never built to protect women like her, adding that this is not only about her but about every female employee who suffers quietly in toxic environments and also the dangers of allowing silence to prevail.
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