The launch included the first public screening of television public service announcement featuring well-known actor Patrick Shai. At the launch, he described how he has transformed himself from a wife-beater to an activist against gender-based violence.
The campaign, launched by Brothers for Life, the national men's movement, has a four-pronged strategy.
Studies had shown that one in four South African women experience violence at some point in their lives, that a woman is murdered by her intimate partner every six hours and 28% of South African men have admitted to sexually assaulting a woman and 75% of such men had done so by the age of 20.
Mayende-Sibiya called for a united response to gender-based violence and committed her ministry's support and that of the government as a whole, to the Brothers Against Violence campaign.