Press Release – The national shelter movement calls for the president to address funding of women’s abuse shelters

The National Shelter Movement of South Africa has published an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Department of Women and the Department of Social Development to urgently address the underfunding of shelters and poor service delivery in the funding of and payments to women’s abuse shelters in South Africa.

Zubeda Dangor Head of the Executive of NSM says, “We have heard President Ramaphosa refer to gender based violence as a “second pandemic” and as “a war being waged” on women. Despite these strong statements, one of the major services that assists victims of violence to leave abusive and dangerous situations - women’s abuse shelters - continues to be overlooked and underfunded. The situation in the Eastern Cape has reached boiling point and can no longer be ignored.”

According to Dangor, within the National Shelter Movement, five women’s abuse shelters in the Eastern Cape have reported dealing with delayed funding for several years and, as a result, have faced staff resignations, increased costs to the shelter from loans to cover the late payments and reduced funding over the years because the DSD will not accept backdated receipts after funding is finally disbursed.

Western Cape’s NSM Bernadine Bachar Representative says, “The underfunding of women’s shelters is a longstanding issue. Last year, we issued a memorandum to the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, in which we implored her to, among other things, urgently address the underfunding of women’s abuse shelters and late payments by the DSD. Our recommendations are based on the results of the Commission for Gender Equality’s (CGE) investigation into shelter services, which found what we already know, that late payment of tranches severely undermines the functions of shelters.”

The 2019 report, The State of Shelters, recommends that DSD takes urgent action to put systems in place that safeguards against late payment, such as the pre-warning of required payments. It is also important that those officials responsible for effecting the payments are held accountable when these are late.

NSM’s alternative funding model, “What is Rightfully Due? Costing the Operations of Domestic Violence Shelters” - developed in partnership with the Heinrich Boell Foundation - clearly illustrates the actual cost of running a shelter, compared to how they are currently funded. It also emphasizes the risks posed by the shortfall.

This year, with the added pressure of the global pandemic and national lockdown, the delay in payments continues. A report composed by Lisa Vetten representing the Care Work Campaign and Margaret Grobbelaar from the National Coalition of Social Services showed that, in some provinces and most notably in the Eastern Cape, the issue of late payments by the DSD persists and affects a range of sectors, including services to older persons, disabilities and child protection. The NPO Financing Report, published in July 2020, lists a total of 138 organisations, 103 of which are based in the Eastern Cape, who had not yet received their first quarter funding tranches.

“The inadequacies and inefficiency of the Department of Social Development’s payment policies for shelters is failing survivors of gender based violence,” says Bachar. “Another example from last year was the announcement that R100million would be allocated from the Criminal Assets Recovery Account (CARA) as financial support for organisations that provide direct services to victims of crime and abuse. Many shelters have applied but so far, only 1 out of 14 in the Western Cape were approved.”

Women’s abuse shelters form an integral part of the response services to victims of violence. The state’s responsibility to provide these sheltering services is enshrined in the Domestic Violence Act (1998) and the service also forms an integral part of the National Policy Guidelines for Victim Empowerment.

“Shelters disrupt violence in at least two ways. First, they provide immediate sanctuary and protection to women and their children. Second, as places of reflection and support, shelters provide women with a bridge out of despair, to a life free from violence. Research has found that more than half of women do not return to their partners after leaving shelters. The evidence is there to support the valuable contribution of shelters. Now we need a clear commitment from the President that shelters will have reliable and sufficient funding support from the government,” concludes Dangor.

Find a link to NSM’s letter to President Ramaphosa here: https://www.nsmsa.org.za/2020/08/21/letter-to-president-urging-immediate-intervention-on-funding-of-womens-shelters/

ENDS

Issued by Maria Welcome, on behalf of The Green Connection. For any media queries, contact Maria on maria.welcome.comms@gmail.com or 082-936-9199 and Natasha Adonis at Natasha.adonis.comms@gmail.com or 0797-999-654.

Note to Editor:

See below for links to the various findings from the 3-year research project undertaken by the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF) and the NSM, for more comprehensive information.

Policing Responses to Domestic Violence: Exploring Reactions by the Police to Women in Need of Shelter https://za.boell.org/2018/12/10/policing-responses-domestic-violence-exploring-reactions-police-women-need-shelter-0

• "If It Wasn’t For Them, I Could Have Been Dead!" The Long-Term Impact of Shelters on the Lives of Abused Women” https://za.boell.org/2019/07/03/long-term-impact-shelters-lives-abused-women
• Out of Harm's Way: Shelters in Eastern Cape & Northern Cape (2018) https://za.boell.org/sites/default/files/outofharmsway-womenssheltersinecnc_web.pdf
• Shelters Housing Abused Women: Shelter policy, funding and practice - shelters in Mpumalanga(2017) https://za.boell.org/sites/default/files/mp_housing_women_who_have_experienced_abuse_final-web.pdf
• Policy brief approaches to strengthening state responses to shelters (2017) https://za.boell.org/2017/11/13/shelter-services-domestic-violence-victims-policy-approaches-strengthening-state
• Shelters Housing Abused Women: Shelter policy, funding and practice - shelters in KwaZulu-Natal (2016/17) https://za.boell.org/sites/default/files/kzn_shelterresearchreport_email.pdf
• Shelters Housing Abused Women: Shelter policy, funding and practice - shelters in Western Cape (2013) https://za.boell.org/2013/06/26/department-social-development-funding-shelters-abused-women-inadequate-publications
• Shelters Housing Abused Women: Shelter policy, funding and practice - shelters in Gauteng (2012) https://za.boell.org/sites/default/files/downloads/Gauteng_Shelters_Report.pdf

 

Letter to President Ramaphosa urging immediate intervention on funding of women’s shelters

Attention:
President Cyril Ramaphosa
Minister for Women
Minister of Social Development

20 August 2020

RE: NATIONAL SHELTER MOVEMENT CALLS ON THE PRESIDENT TO INTERVENE AND URGENTLY ADDRESS MURDEROUS FUNDING ISSUES WITH WOMEN’S SHELTERS

Dear President Ramaphosa

It’s Women’s Month again and the situation for women in South Africa continues to deteriorate. The violence and murder is becoming even more disturbing, with each life lost. As an organisation that exists to support those women who have mustered-up the courage and found an opportunity to escape a dangerous intimate partner or domestic violence situation, the National Shelter Movement (NSM) cannot ignore your government’s role in the ongoing massacre of women in the country, each time we lose another grandmother, mother, daughter, aunty, or sister at the hands of a man.

Mr. President, the Department of Social Development’s (DSD) inconsistent and also chronic under-funding, as well as a sheer lack of meaningful support for shelters for abused women and their children, has been central to the issues shelters and their staff face, in their efforts to support victims of domestic and gender-based violence. Yet, studies confirm that these shelters are a crucial crisis intervention, providing survivors with the support and tools they need to go on to live full, productive lives.

However, as has always been the case for many years, the battle to secure sufficient funding and tangible support from DSD continues, and in fact, the situation seems to be worsening. In a report focusing on the financial status of non-profit organisations providing social care services – compiled by Margaret Grobbelaar (NACOSS Co-ordinator) and Lisa Vetten (The Carework Campaign), 20 July 2020 – three-and-a-half months into this financial year Eastern Cape DSD was yet to make most of its payments (most shelter payments remain unpaid as we write to you now). Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West also have payments outstanding.

According to the report, “late payment is, however, the norm rather than the exception in Eastern Cape (and other provinces). According to organisations paid on a quarterly basis their first tranche is routinely only paid in July and subsequent tranches on an unpredictable basis,” with a number of organisations having their subsidies unexpectedly cut, even though Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) had been agreed and signed. This, as you may already know, has resulted in a legal case being brought by the Eastern Cape NGO Coalition against the MEC for Social Development. It is a sad and disturbing fact that in the Eastern Cape the first quarter's funding was outstanding for ALL social services providers (including shelters, child protection/care and old-aged facilities).

The current situation in Eastern Cape is disturbing evidence that government neither understands the needs of victims of domestic and intimate partner violence, nor do they fully appreciate the role of shelters in stemming the murderous tide of violence against women. For this reason, Mr. President, we call on you to intervene in order to ensure that DSD staff and officials are held accountable for its inability to fulfil its mandate. It is important that processes be simplified to accommodate the situation on the ground, which it currently most certainly does not.

This poor service delivery on the part of DSD impacts the quality and quantity of services that can be provided to adequately address the needs of survivors and their children, and help them fully recover from their ordeals. The instability created by this situation also leads to stress in shelters. It is difficult for staff to cope for months without being paid, while on the other hand, services to shelter clients need to be cut and staff cannot be as effective as they need (or want) to be. This leads to further stress and is the main cause of the high staff turnovers in shelters, and it is ultimately the survivors of gender based violence who once again are victims, this time, of the system.

We call on you, Mr. President to ensure that measures are put in place to ensure that all payments to shelters are made in good time and those responsible should be held accountable when failing to do so. Delays of up to four months at times, is not acceptable. Furthermore, funding allocations to shelters – from Treasury to DSD – should also be ring-fenced and protected from re-allocation. And, funding must include additional resources for infrastructure and maintenance, which DSD rarely caters for.

According to the findings from our 3-year research project, another key issue relates to the sporadic funding “models” that vary from province to province. This has led to further inconsistencies in how shelters are funded, and there is an urgent need to formulate a more uniform approach. It makes no sense that in one province, shelters get as little as R9 per person per day, to meet the needs of women residing at shelters, while in another province shelters get up to R71.

As shelter services are expected to raise the balance of the costs – required to fulfil their commitments – elsewhere, we also need to point out that the country’s shrinking economy makes this an even more challenging task.

To address the inadequate funding of shelters, the National Shelter Movement has developed a funding model: “What is Rightfully Due? Costing the Operations of Domestic Violence Shelters” – which leverages our years of experience with shelters for abused women around the country – and we call on you and your team to consider the proposals made here.

We therefore need to ensure that you hear directly from those of us who work in the field every day. We need you to help fix what is broken with the system because it is hampering our efforts to save the lives of women in South Africa. We urgently need government to focus on what can be done immediately to keep our country’s women and children safe from further violence and abuse.

While we appreciate the measures implemented recently, like the National Strategic Plan, the National Shelter Movement believes that by repairing the broken DSD funding processes, greater inroads can be made to empowering GBV survivors. We believe that government should also be focused on supporting the existing structures that are already providing the services that at-risk women can rely on.

Recently, R100-million was allocated from the Criminal Assets Recovery (CARA) Funds Account, as a way to provide financial support to shelters and other organisations providing services to victims of gender-based violence, femicide and other crime. Many of the shelters that have applied have still not received this funding. For example, in the WC only 1 out of 14 have been funded.

We call on you and the relevant government departments to look internally at the bureaucratic issues which are hampering government’s service delivery to essential shelter services. As a start, the SA government must acknowledge the role of shelters and their practical impact in the lives of women escaping abuse.

Mr. President, shelters and their staff teams need committed and reliable support from government. It does not help the women in the country to mourn them after they have been violated and/or killed. The CoVid pandemic and the resulting lockdown have only made things worse for women, with increasing unemployment forcing many to be stuck at home with their abusers.

The NSM hopes that you accept this letter in the spirit of constructive engagement – the cornerstone of strengthening our democracy – in an effort to ensure government leverages its current resources for the good of the people. We look forward to hearing back from you and for the opportunity to engage meaningfully about the ways shelters should be supported by you and your government, in an effort to effectively assist all the women escaping abuse in this country. We need a commitment from you, Mr. President and your government that you will stand up and fight – by fixing the broken system – for the human rights of the women of this country, even after the outcry from yet another murdered woman has died down.

We also hope that you will hold the Department of Social Development accountable for its role in abuse of women and children seeking refuge from abusive homes in South Africa.

Yours faithfully,

NSM
National Shelter Movement South Africa