Shocking study of violence against SA’s women
February is the month of love but statistics suggest approximately 84 women will die at the hands of an intimate partner in South Africa.
While February is widely regarded as the month of love, statistics suggest that approximately 84 women will die at the hands of an intimate partner in South Africa this month.
This is according to the National Shelter Movement of South Africa (NSM) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF), which have embarked on a three-year research project in an attempt to highlight the importance and fundamental value of shelters for abused women and children, in the hope of strengthening the State’s response to Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
According to a statement released earlier this month, while the research clearly establishes the valuable role shelters play in stemming intimate partner violence, the findings reveal a number of serious gaps which significantly undermine the efforts of the interventions geared at protecting and empowering women.
The reports, which were produced with the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre (TLAC) to End Violence against Women, set out existing policy and practice in relation to the provision and funding of shelter services by the Department of Social Development (DSD) and consider whether they have sufficient resources to meet the legitimate needs of the women and children accessing their services.
According to Claudia Lopes, Project Manager at HBF, the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998, as well as the corresponding National Instructions (7/ 1999) to the police, clearly assert the right of victims to access shelters. A key criticism of this legislative framework however, is that it does not stipulate whose statutory duty it is to provide for and fund these shelters.
“There is currently no national government directive or funding model on the distribution of funds to shelters. This has resulted in the haphazard and inadequate resourcing of shelters throughout the country,” said Lopes.
The reports’ top findings confirm that:
• Shelters play an important role in the prevention of intimate partner violence.
• The DSD’s approach to the funding of shelter services varies from province to province – mostly being based on a daily unit rate contribution (per person or per bed).
• Most women seeking refuge at a shelter are younger than 35, have limited education, are unemployed with limited to no income and often have serious psycho-social, health, and legal support needs.
• Due to the lack of funding for programmes, the majority of women remain vulnerable when leaving the shelter.
• Funding constraints limit shelters’ efficacy.
According to Zubeda Dangor – a director of a shelter for abused women and the head executive member of the NSM – in 2013, HBF and the TLAC released two similar shadow reports on shelters. She said that it is very disheartening and a major concern that five years later, a number of the issues still exist.
Dangor said, “For example, DSD continues to provide about 1 to 2 per cent of its overall budget to the Victim Empowerment Programme (VEP), the programme under which shelters are funded. From there, depending on the province, allocations to shelters for women may range from 25 per cent to 49 per cent of the entire VEP budget. Non-profit organisations (NPOs) working on VEP tend to be funded less than other NPOs providing services in other social welfare areas, this despite government stating that shelters are a ‘national priority’.”
She added, “The funding that shelters receive from the department seldom meets their operational costs, meaning that shelters have to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy seeking funding elsewhere. This is inadequate considering that many shelter managers are also responsible for client case management.”
One shelter manager, who plays the dual role of social worker added, “This job is not easy! It takes hard work and dedication and you have to be willing to give of your time, more than anything else. It needs a person with a big heart to do this job – being a social worker or concerned citizen is not enough, because there’s a lot required of you.”
“The funding shelters received from the department during the research period of 2015/ 2016 ranged from about R50 to R63 per person per day. With this, shelters were required to cater for the practical needs of the women and their children, which includes food, school-related costs, transport, healthcare and toiletries. These amounts increased dismally in 2016/ 2017, with provinces like KwaZulu-Natal only receiving a R4 increase, while the Western Cape and Gauteng received only R1 more,” added Dangor.
The project, entitled Enhancing State Responsiveness to GBV: Paying the True Costs, is supported by funding from the European Union and ends in October 2018. The reports are available online at https://za.boell.org/ or check out the HBF Facebook and Twitter feeds for more information –@boellza @NSM_ZA #TrueCostOfGBV
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