Mapping of services for survivors of violence amongst women and children

Detailed description of project Back

South Africa has a number of laws and policies in place to address violence against women and children (VAWC). However, the expressed intentions captured within these legal instruments consistently fail to materialize into practices that facilitate access to justice for those affected.

The global objective of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding of why the system of the South African government has inadequately responded to the core service needs of women and children victims of violence.

The specific objective of the assignment is to contribute to the implementation of the Improvement Plan5 by the Inter-Ministerial Technical Task Team for Violence Against Women and Children through the mapping of existing services offered by all government departments to women and children victims of violence.

The expected results are that a comprehensive package of services responsive to the needs of women and children in all their diversity is defined and positioned to inform, in particular, the ways in which government’s response to victims of violence can be improved.

Type of services provided

• Analysis of what research has been done on services that are available in response to violence against women and children;
• Identification of what gaps exist in the current knowledge about these support services;
• Desktop research, identifying what are minimum service requirements as per the existing legal South African frameworks, international Human Rights frameworks, international best practices;
• Facilitation of workshops that bring together a key group of stakeholders to identify critical services in response to the needs of victims of violence;
• Further analysis to identify whether there are additional gaps in available evidence that hampers understanding of services in response to the needs of victims of violence;
• Based on the analysis, development of a framework to guide research aimed at exploring these evidence gaps within a provinces/district/municipality;
• Information gathering at provincial level/district level/rural, with consideration given to extent to which services are accessible according to AAAQ Framework;
• Facilitation of final workshops to review the analyses of evidence, define the comprehensive package of support and identify strategies to address gaps, and assess the cost.

Main staff provided:

• Team leader (96 w/d);
• Research expert in social services (87 w/d);
• Economic modelling and costing expert (50 w/d);
• Gender based violence field researcher (44 w/d).