Shanaaz Mathews

Shanaaz is a professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Cape Town, and past director (2012 to 2023) of the Children’s Institute at UCT. She has more than 30 years’ experience in the women’s and children’s sectors and have worked within civil society organisations, as an academic, and technical advisor to government programmes specializing in violence against women and children. She has led the national study on Femicide and Child Homicides in South Africa with a focus on pathways to violent masculinities. Her current research focus is the intersections of violence against women and children with a focus violence prevention programming. She is a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on GBV, a member of the International Advisory Board for the UNICEF Innocenti Research Office’s Multi Country Study on the Drivers of Violence, and a managing committee member for the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence on Human Development, at the University of the Witwatersrand. Shanaaz serves on the programme management team for the What Work 2, research component, as technical evaluation co-lead.