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The second State of South Africa’s Fathers' (SOSAF 2021) Report will be launched on 18 November 2021.
SOSAF 2021 is produced by a group of authors, including academics from different universities, practitioners from various organisations, postgraduate students, and young people writing about their own fathers, led by Wessel van den Berg of Sonke Gender Justice, Tawanda Makusha of the Human Sciences Research Council, and Kopano Ratele of Stellenbosch University.
SOSAF 2021 is the second edition of reports on fatherhood in the country. SOSAF 2018 established a reference point for further research and advocacy related to fatherhood. The SOSAF reports offer rational, well-informed, and factual countermeasures to policy decision-making and development driven by vested interests.
The reports further act as a xxxxxx against uninformed and false narratives about fathers and fatherhood. The reports are envisaged as a central plank of multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary, longitudinal and cross-sectional, large and small, quantitative and qualitative studies aimed to support and produce a long-term monitoring and tracking mechanism for changes in fatherhood.
The SOSAF 2021 report includes the findings of the first-ever, specially dedicated and largest survey conducted on fathers and fatherhood in South Africa. The SOSAF 2021 survey on the state of fathers and fatherhood in South Africa was commissioned by the SOSAF project team and conducted by an international research company. The survey covered a sample of 1,003 men from all the provinces of the country, who have biological children or act in the capacity of fathers for children. The main survey goal was to get insights into a range of attitudes and practices related to the lives of fathers and the current state of fatherhood in the country.
SOSAF 2021 is the latest contribution to the vision planted in SOSAF 2018. That vision is to cultivate increased, positive involvement of men in their own children’s lives so that every child has nurturing, nonviolent, and engaged adult men around them. From inception, the hope that has underpinned the SOSAF project has been to connect research insights, effective programme-implementation, policy choices, and advocacy toward involved fatherhood.
The long-term vision of the SOSAF project is to facilitate heightened awareness, state policies and programmes, public engagement and psychosocially beneficial change concerning men as fathers and would-be fathers. The SOSAF 2021 report is intended to support men’s contribution to gender equal and non-violent parenting.
UNICEF SA and Sonke have been working with the Department of Social Development and other partners to strengthen fathers and other male caregivers' involvement in the care and protection of children in South Africa, including through the implementation of the MenCare South Africa, and MenCare 50:50 projects.
The report is affiliated with the MenCare Global Fatherhood campaign, and complements the State of the World’s Fathers reports produced by Promundo for the MenCare Global Fatherhood Campaign. SOSAF 2021 was made possible with the generous support of DG Murray Trust, Oak Foundation, and UNICEF SA.
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