As South Africa continues to struggle with high levels of violent crimes, women and children in the country seem to face the biggest threat in their own homes at the hands of intimate partners or fathers. Research shows that one in every four women in the country has been in a domestic abusive relationship and three quarters of children have either witnessed or experienced domestic violence.
On Thursday 29 August on SABC3 at 21h30 Special Assignment shows how women continue to face challenges to obtain protection orders from courts, and to get police to act or keep children safe from their violent fathers.
“The cops will go to the courts first. Or if you have to go to the courts first they’ll say you have to go to the cops first. So you get these real fundamental and banal but invidious impediments to the implementation of the act,’ says Professor Bonnie Meyersfeld from the Wits Centre for Applied Legal Studies.
Special Assignment spoke to dozens of women and men who wanted to talk about their experiences of domestic violence. They all had one thing in common; everyone asked not to be identified in the show.
The programme, Home Is Where The Hurt Is, was produced by Adel van Niekerk.
“Stranger still was the discovery that this violence was not the handiwork of strangers, but of husbands, boyfriends and lovers. Home it turned out, was where the hurt was.’ – Lisa Vetten, Gender and Violence Researcher.
