Policing Responses to Domestic Violence: Exploring Reactions by the Police to Women in Need of Shelter

The research pape highlights weaknesses in police responses to victims of domestic violence by reviewing call logs documenting requests for assistance at three-hundred eighty-two (382) police stations across the country. The data emanates from research conducted by the Heinrich Boell Foundation (HBF) and the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre (TLAC) in Gauteng and the Western Cape in 2012 and 2013, and by HBF and the National Shelter Movement of South Africa (NSM) in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal in 2016 and 2017. This paper is associated to Enhancing State Responsiveness to GBV: Paying the True Costs, a project of the HBF and the NSM. The project, which is funded by the European Union, promotes support for state accountability for adequate and effective provision of domestic violence survivor support programmes, especially those associated with the provision of shelters for abused women.