Page 18 - SCAT GBV Report - Addressing Gender-Based Violence - 2021
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for remedy. This role of accompaniment also facilitates access to victim support services. These organisations also advocate for the rights of victims in both formal and customary legal systems, and support them through the process of seeking justice (Dugan and Drage, 2013). At the interface with the criminal justice system – the police and the courts in particular – and with social services, there are significant obstacles to a GBV case proceeding to conclusion. Drawing on a network of entry points into various government department and services, LDAs seek to push their clients’ cases through the system.
The main role is access to justice and providing dignity in this service.
Jonathan van der Westhuizen, SALDA.
A court interdict doesn’t work alone, unless you have support. Because if you are walking and you meet this ex-boyfriend or husband who is abusing you, that paper won’t help you. So, you need a support system, someone you can call and all that.
Nobuzwe Mofokeng, ILDA.
My work is to advocate for the people so that they can know their rights, how to approach the courts or SAPS when they are trying to lay a charge or open a case ... and also to link the lawyers from Legal Aid South Africa and make sure that the cases that are laid are followed up.
Sophia Booysen, KSDF.
We must make sure that she is supported, and to make sure that the state organs do their job.
Wendy Pekeur, Ubuntu.
The secondary victimisation GBV survivors face at the hands of the criminal justice system is well documented (Müller and Meer, 2018; Nel and Judge, 2008; Smythe, 2015). In light of this, the assistance of paralegals when survivors do approach the police, the courts, or health and social services, offers some degree of safeguarding. However, it is frequently only through dogged follow-ups and persistent pressure by LDAs that the authorities tasked with responding to survivors’ needs and claims do so in practice.
Especially women and children, because they are the ones who are the most affected by the implementing of the laws and they also experience secondary victimisation, and that is why I support them when they go and open the file and every time they go back to court I must be around to support them – to hear the outcome of the case and to see that they get justice ... I make sure that every department involved in such issues must play their role, until the end of the case.
Sophia Booysen, KSDF.
The police must accommodate victims and help them in a meaningful and dignified manner, so that they are not feeling they are being secondary victimised when they get to the police station in terms of laying the charges, and that there will be enough help and sympathy. Jonathan van der Westhuizen, SALDA.
In addition, LDA paralegals also employ alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods to help GBV survivors negotiate within households and with traditional authorities, by playing a conflict mediation and monitoring role in the interests of a survivor public.
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“Finish this Elephant”: Rural Community Organisations’ Strategic Approaches to Addressing GBV



















































































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