GBV in SA: Unpacking the failures of the justice system

IT WOULD not be an understatement to make the claim that gender-based violence (GBV) has become an epidemic in South Africa, and has been one for some time now. Virtually every day, the media carries stories of women and children who have been sexually assaulted, abused, violated, raped, harassed and, in the worst case scenarios, murdered by an intimate partner, a family member or a sexual predator.

- DR LUBNA NADVI

Alongside these news reports are further stories of how those who actually survived their attacks tried to report the incident, open cases at a police station, seek justice through the courts, and just simply attempted to negotiate the criminal justice terrain, but were repeatedly failed by the justice system as well as the judiciary.

In the recent past, cases such as that of Sasha Lee Monique Shah, who was murdered by her boyfriend in 2022 in the parking lot of a shopping mall, or Cheryl Zondi and her co-accusers, who testified against the Nigerian evangelist Timothy Omotoso on charges of rape and human trafficking, among other crimes, are evidence of the failures of the South African criminal justice system, which includes the SAPS, criminal investigators, the National Prosecuting Authority and the courts, which are meant to deliver justice for those who seek it.

However, this is not because we don’t have good laws to protect the vulnerable in our society. A quick perusal of the legislation that is meant to protect us from incidences of GBV such as the Domestic Violence Act (DVA), Sexual Offences and Related Matters Act and amendments to them (among other sets of legislation) will reveal some of the most sophisticated and advanced provisions in law that are available anywhere in the world.

For example, the protection order (whether it is interim or final) contained in the DVA as a legal measure, is meant to ensure that an applicant (someone who is being abused, harassed or violated) can seek protection from the courts by applying to have her (or his) perpetrator legally removed from being in physical proximity to her/himself, as well as stipulate other requirements to fortify the protection.