Shelters need more funding to provide safety and refuge for abused women
MELROSE ESTATE – Various organisations and shelters came together for the launch of the research report which provides a framework for the government to pay the true costs of sheltering for abused women.
After much research into the costs involved in sheltering abused women, a report providing the proposed framework for the government to pay the true costs was presented.
The Hlanganisa Institute for Development in South Africa (Hidsa) the National Shelter Movement of South Africa and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, launched a report which proposes new costing framework for shelter facilities and programmes at the Glenhove Auditorium in Melrose Estate.
Emcee and poet, Vangile Gantsho said this was a much-needed initiative as shelters not only provide safety and refuge for abused women but an opportunity for them to get back on their feet.
“They are also given the structural support to be able to take control of their own financial wellbeing. In that way, they can find ownership of their lives and find a meaningful way of moving forward. Therefore, we can’t underestimate the work that is being done by the various organisations and shelters here today,” said Gantsho.
Executive director for Hidsa, Bongiwe Ndondo said in the past 10 years the issues on gender violence had been put on a back banner and the mid-term budget didn’t do much to cater for the issues.
A representative from the European Union, Manuel Iglesius said he hoped the findings and outcome of the report, which would also be presented at the upcoming summit, would help steer the government in the right direction.
Daughter of former first lady Graca Machel and Mozambique’s first President, Samora Machel, who is a survivor, activist and founder of Kuhluka Movement, Josina Machel, gave an account of her ordeal with gender-based violence,
“I began to think about talking on behalf of the other women who [have suffered the same thing]. We live in a society of perpetrators, victims and survivors. Victims are those who die because of gender-based violence but the cause of death is not written on their graves. Perpetrators are the ones we fight against every day, also the ones we love but who the system protects,” said Machel.
The richly detailed report by a researcher at Wits University, Lisa Vetten provides a clear framework and logic for a set of standard service offerings and core costs that can be derived for which the Department of Social Development ought to be responsible for.
Some of these include:
- More adequate client-to-staff ratios such as three housemothers instead of the current practice of two or even one in some provinces
- More appropriate subsidies towards the employment of shelter personnel; again, using housemothers as an example, the framework proposes a monthly subsidy of R3 840 (based on the national minimum wage of R20 per hour) instead of the near-standard provincial allocations of R2 500 or at worst R600
- More equitable funding distribution towards the running of the shelter and to cover direct costs related to sheltering of women and their children
- Policy clarity and harmonisation of sheltering facilities and programmes, with clearly defined target groups, minimum operating standards and a spectrum of services that more adequately address the needs of women and their children.
Details: Hlanganisa Institute for Development in Southern Africa 065 965 0289; www.hlanganisa.org.za
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