Systemic Failures: Cross-Cutting Barriers to Justice

Our research showed that six systemic barriers to justice cut across every stage of the process:

1. Failures by officials. Survivors reported that officials consistently failed to meet their legal obligations in GBV cases. 85% of women surveyed reported police incompetence.

2. Mistrust of institutions. Survivors report an extreme lack of faith in the police and justice system due to failures to take women’s cases seriously. Lengthy investigations, case delays and low conviction rates compound this, deterring survivors from reporting abuse.

3. Lack of cross-institutional coordination. Officials fail to follow established coordination protocols, putting the burden on survivors to facilitate the required paperwork and interactions between police, the medical system, the judiciary, and social services. This fuels delays, risks losing evidence, and adds to the time, resources and emotional burden survivors face.

4. Lack of adequate infrastructure, resourcing, and services. 79% of survivors noted a lack of resources for police services, highlighting broader resource challenges – from inadequate public infrastructure to an overburdened justice system that lacks effective protection for survivors.

5. Geographic and socio-economic factors. Women in rural or disadvantaged areas lack access to public transport and need to travel long distances to reach police stations, health centers, and courts. 87% of survivors reported that they did not have the financial resources to access such services. In areas where criminal gangs operate, such as townships and informal settlements in the Cape Flats region of the Western Cape, they intimidate victims and witnesses and prevent them from seeking recourse or continuing their cases.

6. Victim’s lack of awareness of laws and their rights. 83% of survivors surveyed said they did not know about the resources available to them.