In conversation with Bianca Knight

In honour of South Africa’s National Women’s Month, Africa Rights Talk presents “Breaking the Silence: Women, Rights, and Mental Health in Africa”, a powerful conversation exploring the overlooked but urgent intersection of gender justice and mental well-being. Across the continent, women face compounded challenges gender-based violence, poverty, systemic inequality, and cultural stigma  that profoundly affect their mental health, yet these realities remain largely absent from policy and rights-based discourse.

Bianca Knight, Project Officer at the Centre for Human Rights’ Women’s Rights Unit, joins host Victoria Amaechi to unpack why mental health is not just a personal struggle but a fundamental human rights issue. Drawing from her advocacy work on the Maputo Protocol, Bianca sheds light on the cultural taboos, under-resourced systems, and generational patterns that perpetuate silence. Together, they imagine a feminist future where care, healing, and psychosocial well-being are at the heart of gender equality movements.

This candid conversation blends personal vulnerability with policy insight, challenging us to destigmatise mental health, integrate it into Africa’s women’s rights agenda, and create spaces where women can thrive, not just survive.

Bianca Knight completed her BA LLB and LLM in Multidisciplinary Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. In 2024, she obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration from the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), and she is set to begin her MBA at Hult International Business School in Boston in September 2025. Bianca practiced as an attorney for three years before transitioning into academia and advocacy, driven by her passion for education and social justice. From 2021 to 2023, she lectured constitutional law and the law of succession at Varsity College in Pretoria. During her LLM studies, Bianca sharpened her focus on women's and children's rights, which led her to join the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. Since 2022, she has served as a Project Officer in the Women’s Rights Unit (WRU), where she supports efforts to advance the implementation of the Maputo Protocol across Africa. Her work includes coordinating state and shadow report trainings, and
contributing to projects focused on child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), obstetric violence and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

This conversation was recorded on 7 August 2025.