Victims of gender-based violence (GBV) in Gauteng are expected to receive added support over the next financial year. Gauteng Community Safety MEC, Faith Mazibuko, plans to open 96 additional facilities known as Green Doors.
These are safe sites located within five kilometers of local police stations and offer GBV victims services such as trauma debriefing, before they can open a case.
Luisa Rafoma manages the Green Door in the Jackson Informal settlement. She says before the shelter was established, she would give shelter to abused women at her home.
“I used to provide shelter to strangers, women who have been assaulted at their homes. Women are very secretive, they do not speak out about the abuse and they end up killed because they are afraid of losing the man who is the breadwinner,” says Luisa Rafoma.
Gauteng Community Safety MEC, Faith Mazibuko, says shelters such as Green Door offer victims of GBV a sanctuary where they can receive help, especially in areas where the nearest police station is too far.
“Remember this Green Door is not a police station. It is a safe place for people who need help whilst they call the police. The maximum hours you must spend whilst waiting for the police is four hours. After that it means police must have been here to come and fetch and be able to assist the person who has come to report the case,” says the MEC.
She says they have also procured 11 new vehicles to help transport victims.
“Numbers now are becoming more. It means when the person goes to the police station you find cars are not available. So these cars are helping in taking the victims to the doctor or hospital because they get transported in the police van which is uncomfortable and it is inhumane. We are not saying vans are bad. But it’s inhumane and they even suffer secondary victimisation,” adds Mazibuko.
Mazibuko says GBV support programmes will be boosted with the launch of more than 90 Green Doors before the end of this financial year.
In the video below Gauteng intensifies GBV support programmes:
