This effort is part of a wider national campaign, known as the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges, where multisectoral teams across South Africa take on ambitious challenges to end GBVF in their communities. “When the domestic violence team at the court in Lenyenye started their challenge, they set the goal to reduce the turnaround time of domestic violence cases from six to four weeks in 100 days.
Committing to this goal, the team started exploring ways to increase efficiency within the court system. As a result, the team has managed to completely clear their entire backlog of 102 domestic violence cases,” said Chris Bischoff of End GBVF 100-Day Challenges. The Nkowankowa Magistrate’s Court set a goal to reduce the backlog of maintenance cases by 60% from 158 to 95 in 100 days. The team has exceeded this target and reduced its backlog to 33 remaining cases.
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“This wave of End GBVF 100-Day Challenges started on Women’s Day and is set to run until the 16 Days of Activism against GBV in December, giving all teams an opportunity to dive deeper into ending GBVF over this commemorative period. “To achieve these results, many of the Limpopo courts have adopted virtual technology to avoid delaying cases and increase the efficiency of processing individual cases.
Through their 100-Day Challenge journey, the divorce team at the court in Polokwane learned that using virtual technology can speed up trials by 50%. “Evidence can be shared virtually, and witnesses can give evidence virtually,” he said. He said the advancement of courtroom technology improves access to justice and makes justice more accessible to parties. There is also a reduction in travel expenses for parties, court officials, and witnesses, he concluded.
