Pastoral Care Responses to Gender-Based Violence in Southern African Higher Education Institutions: Toward Healing and Effective Implementation
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In Southern African higher education, gender-based violence (GBV) is still a major public health and human rights issue that has a significant impact on students' psychological health, academic achievement, and life paths. Integrative frameworks that direct the successful implementation of prevention and support programs in line with social and emotional learning (SEL) are lacking, despite rising prevalence. To close this gap, this study offers a conceptual framework for examining variables that affect how the Resilience, Rights, and Respectful Relationships program is implemented in academic settings. It promotes a comprehensive strategy that incorporates pastoral care and psychological support by drawing on interdisciplinary viewpoints. Pastoral care uses techniques like story counseling and logotherapy to support meaning-making, spiritual resilience, and identity rebuilding while psychological interventions concentrate on emotional healing. The study highlights the significance of pastoral care in fostering justice-oriented, life-affirming interpretations by critically examining cultural and religious narratives that may sustain gender inequity through the application of theological viewpoints. In the end, it advocates for interdisciplinary, survivor-centered, contextually grounded institutional responses that go beyond policy commitments to address the existential as well as structural aspects of GBV.