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Published in Monograph No 41: Violence Against Women in Metropolitan South Africa, September 1999

The police

1 Police education/training extended
• Police education, e.g. public relations work, better qualified

• Train staff on abuse, e.g. not deterred by dropped charges

• Frontline staff trained in language of typical clients

2 Special facilities/helpers/protocol for abused women
• Facilities for women, e.g. trauma units, counsellors on site
• Improve protocol for women’s issues
• Social workers, district surgeons on site
• Rainbow rooms in stations
• Individual hired to handle abuse cases

3 Attitudes of police to improve
• Improve attitudes, e.g. non-judgmental, respect, and gender sensitive
• Gender sensitivity training

4 Improve police efficiency/professionalism
• Professionalism and efficiency, e.g. dedicated to answer calls
• Police supervised
• Take all calls seriously

5 Collaboration with community to improve
• Public acknowledgement of police work
• Collaboration: work with community and neighbourhood watch
• Network with women
• Encourage public involvement in community police forum

6 Public awareness drives
• Public awareness raised, e.g. disseminate information
• Have advertised campaigns to highlight police changes
• Information provided to the public

7 Police women trained/employed
• Employ abused women to help abusers
• Women in charge in stations
• Employ policewomen trained in domestic violence

8 Improve police resources
• Increase staff numbers
• Obtain more resources for police

9 Increase stringency of laws
• Strict laws on arrests
• No bail before trails
• Physical punishment for abusers, e.g. torture in cells

10 Reduce corruption
• Reduce corruption
• Show accountability

11 Increase police visibility
• Police more visible, e.g. patrols, etc.
• Police to go into areas where crime is high

12 Other
• Change criminal system
• Change Constitution to prevent police frustration
• Improve environment
• Re-deploy police, e.g. to KwaZulu-Natal
• Even distribution of police in terms of race and culture
• Counselling for police

Social welfare

1 Further education for those working for welfare
• Education, e.g. workshops on abuse, update counselling skills
• Untrained people not to be employed by welfare

2 Run public awareness programmes
• Public awareness: run programmes for the public

3 Closer collaboration with community and other groups
• Public relations: get to know people, advertise
• More visibility in areas
• Larger referral system
• Network with other groups
• Collaborate with police

4 Improve attitudes of workers towards women
• Attitudes improved, e.g. believe women, empathy
• Social workers with correct motivation
• Gender sensitivity training for social workers
• Be sensitive to mother’s fear of children being removed

5 Extend range/kind and quantity of services offered
• Try to prevent and treat wider range of problems
• Personalised treatments, e.g. home visits
• Assist children of abused women
• Services for children
• Education programmes for men
• Provide places of safety for children
• Provide enforced counselling for abusers
• To do more preventive proactive work
• To be accessible and available
• Round the clock counselling
• 24-hour services

6 Provide practical help/skills for women
• Assist women to get out and get work
• Practical help provided, e.g. organise shelters, refer on
• Refer women to shelters
• Provide economic skills training

7 Improve protocol
• Social workers must explain more to clients
• Protocol improved, e.g. must follow-up immediately

8 Resources improved for social workers
• More funding, better management
• Reduce staff turnover
• Improve working conditions and salaries

9 More/different centres and shelters required
• Organise new rural and township facilities
• More resources, shelter/organisations/social workers
• Special unit to deal with abuse

10 Other
• Lobby, e.g. get the government involved
• Affordable services even to wealthy victims
• African approach to welfare, (e.g. culture to impact on methods)
• More men employed in welfare
• Employ abused women to work with other victims

Emergency clinics/hospitals

1 Lengthen service hours and improve environment
• Better services: 24-hours, good environment

2 Improve attitudes
• More compassion, non-judgmental

3 Educate staff and clinic regarding abuse
• Know how to deal with trauma victims

4 Specialised services for abused women, e.g. separate room
• Special services, e.g. trauma rooms
• Have information leaflets of where to get help
• Overnight shelter attached to clinics

5 Improve protocol and efficiency
• Improve confidentiality
• Patients treated as soon as possible
• Have a screening system

6 Multidisciplinary teams and/or collaboration with other disciplines
• One-stop clinic - multidisciplinary team
• Special medical and legal staff at clinics
• Collaboration with other organisations
• Resident counsellors

7 Improve resources/working conditions
• Staff and resources to be increased
• Improve working conditions of nurses

8 Gender sensitive treatment
• Prevent secondary abuse, ‘retelling’ of the incident/s
• Females doing examinations
• Move away from clinical approach
• Ask questions after medical care administered

9 More clinics
• Emergency centres in townships and informal settlements
• More clinics to be built

10 Offer different programmes and service types
• Personalised treatment
• Enforced home visits to abusers by nurses
• Run programmes for abused women
• Education of public undertaken by clinics
• Conduct needs survey of what services they can offer

11 Other
• Free treatment
• No foreign doctors - incentives for South Africa doctors
• Better advertising

District surgeons

1 Improve attitudes of district surgeons
• e.g., sympathetic, non-judgmental

2 Training or further education of district surgeons
• Training, skills, education, e.g. abuse and gender issues

3 Collaborate with other disciplines

4 Improve protocol of dealing with abuse cases
• Should not have system of answering machines
• Refer victim to police for investigations immediately
• Most serious cases attended to first
• Have information for victims
• Improve questioning procedure to encourage disclosure

5 Female district surgeons/careful appointing of district surgeons
• Women district surgeons
• More careful appointing of district surgeons
• Be able to ask for female district surgeons

6 Resources for district surgeons improved/more district surgeons
• Increase number of staff
• Resources, modern technology

7 Lengthen service hours and visibility of district surgeon
• Expand service hours - preferably 24 hours
• Need to be more visible and available to the community
• Raise public awareness of what district surgeons do
• District surgeons to be available at police stations at all times

8 More involvement in the legal process
• To request district surgeons to share information to assist the victim
• District surgeon to be personally responsible for ensuring that cases are seen to

9 More services available, cheaper services
• Services available to townships

10 Accountability to public increased
• Reply or response card to evaluate service rendered
• Regular support meeting for surgeons to be accountable

Courts

1 Bring back the death penalty

2 Stricter/harsher sentences/no parole
• More strict/harsh sentencing for abuse
• No shortened sentences

3 Change or improve protocol for abuse cases
• Allow children to go to court
• Evidence in camera
• Separate court for abused women
• Creation of more standardised procedures
• More precision in telling women how procedures work/rights
• Abuser not present when victim gives evidence

4 More efficiency in the system
• Improved legal system
• Appearance in court arranged by time, not date
• Unnecessary postponements not accepted
• Improve communication between prosecutor and complainant
• Backlog of cases attended to
• Change justice system
• Speed up processes

5 Improve attitudes of judicial personnel
• Take women abuse seriously
• More approachable and provide useful information

6 Gender sensitivity
• Training for magistrates and attorneys on women abuse/rights
• To be more gender sensitive
• Employ people who are adequately educated/sensitised
• Enforce laws that are more for women victims

7 More women working for the judicial system
• Introduce jury system with women on the jury
• Women to be in charge of courts as men are insensitive

8 Reduce corruption and consequent poor sentencing
• No bias - listen to abuser and victim
• Remove corruption/bribery from the system
• Two magistrates assigned to each case

9 Other
• Protect women and children and their rights
• Judges and attorneys require less formal settings
• Language of judge and attorney same as client’s
• Provide more resources, e.g. counselling rooms
• Post-sentence counselling for offenders
• Criminal or abuser education and counselling enforced