The government hopes a meeting with entities running shelters that accommodate vulnerable groups will help come up with solutions for Gender Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF).
The social development department is scheduled to host a two-day Shelter Indaba in Sandton, Johannesburg where experts from both the public sector and civil society who are organised under the National Shelter Movement are expected to exchange ideas on how to tackle GBVF.
The scourge of GBVF, is a national problem which is deeply rooted in a patriarchal system which manifests through multiple socio-economic and cultural behavioural patterns such as high levels of inequality, poverty, racism, unequal gender power relations, hostile gender relations and intolerance to gender diversity.
The department says it has already distributed well over R200 million rand to shelters that it says are caring for victims of abuse.
“In the current financial cycle, the department allocated more than R211 million for a period of four years towards 134 shelters rendering victim support services across the country,” said spokesperson Lumka Oliphant in a statement.
“These shelters render multiple services to victims of GBVF including, accommodation, clothing, transport, food, life skills as well as psychosocial services, in the form of Support, Counselling, Play Therapy and Therapeutic intervention, Healing and Restoration Programmes,” said Oliphant.
The meeting is also expected to come up with ways to generate solutions out of existing policies that were meant to protect vulnerable groups.
Oliphant said the government was particularly concerned about GBV cases that involve women and children being violated by those close to them.
“Most concerning is that those who bear the brunt of GBVF are women, children, persons with disabilities and the LGBTQIA+ community, whose rights are often violated. Often than not, it is women and children who lose lives at the hands of their loved ones. Some of the GBVF cases go unreported because women and children may be dependent on their perpetrators’,” said Oliphant.
The Indaba is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday and will be this year’s third edition.