Economic Justice & Civic Freedoms

In S v Baloyi the Constitutional Court placed a clear duty on the state to address domestic violence. Shelters disrupt this violence in significant ways but are significantly under-funded. This brief examines existing policy around shelters for abused women and recommends how this can be expanded and costed to more effectively uphold women’s rights and needs.

Shelters provide critical services to abused women, yet, most are chronically under-funded and highly variable. Current government allocations to shelters are not informed by a costing framework. This results in services being driven by resources rather than best practice. A new report aims to address that short-coming.

This publication is the first of a series of shadow reports that the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the National Shelter Movement of South Africa have produced in relation to their ‘Enhancing State Responsiveness to Gender Based Violence: Paying the True Costs’ project. The publication was partly produced with the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence against Women.  

This publication is the second of a series of shadow reports that the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the National Shelter Movement of South Africa have produced in relation to their ‘Enhancing State Responsiveness to Gender Based Violence: Paying the True Costs’ project. The publication was partly produced with the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence against Women.This report was produced with the financial support of the European Union.

This policy brief considers the provision of shelter services to victims of domestic violence and is done in relation to the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF) and the National Shelter Movement of South Africa‘s (NSM) “Enhancing State Responsiveness to GBV: Paying the True Costs” project. Funded by the European Union, this project aims to support state accountability for adequate and effective provision of domestic violence survivor support programmes, specifically those associated with the provision of shelter for abused women.