TLAC project

Project: Women survivors of violence access justice

Location: South Africa

Duration: 2010 -2011

Partner: Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre (TLAC)

The situation

In South Africa, despite the existence of legislation such as the Domestic Violence Act (DVA), women survivors of sexual and domestic violence struggle to get appropriate support and protection:

• Every 17 seconds a woman is raped, yet less than 1% of rapes end in a successful prosecution
• The Government has dismantled specialist police units that deal with family violence, child protection and sexual offences. This has resulted in even lower conviction rates for these types of crimes
• South Africa’s police services are not fulfilling their duties under the DVA, ultimately failing the women they are supposed to protect

What Womankind is doing

Womankind and our partner are working to ensure that women survivors of violence in South Africa are able to access a responsive justice system.

On average there are over 67,000 reported cases of sexual violence annually. However, thousands more women do not report such crimes due to embarrassment, trauma, fear of not being believed or of victimization.

By ensuring that the South African Police fulfill its duties in compliance with the law, we are working to guarantee that all women survivors of violence will access their right to support and protection.

We are achieving this by:

• Lobbying the government to re-establish the specialist police units that deal with gender based violence
• Calling for the Independent Police Watchdog to ensure they properly monitor that the Police are fulfilling their duties towards women survivors of violence
• Supporting the Police to improve the quality of investigation and to achieve justice for survivors of violence
• Coordinating a sustained campaign by 15 key organisations to put pressure on the Police to fulfill its duties

What we have achieved so far

• In part as a result of the sustained efforts of our partner TLAC, the specialized Police units for sexual and domestic violence are being re-established
• Preventing the wholesale repeal of the oversight mechanism which monitors and disciplines Police who do not fulfill their duties towards women survivors of violence