National Shelter Indaba calls for stronger GBVF response - IOL
Dina Pule, Minister of Social Development, spoke at the sixth National Shelter Indaba, underway in Gauteng on Wednesday. She highlighted the importance of strengthening national and global efforts to curb Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF).
The sixth National Shelter Indaba, underway in Gauteng until Thursday, emphasised the importance of strengthening national and global efforts to curb Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF).
This year’s theme is: Social Integration of GBVF Interventions. Delegates from the Department of Social Development (DSD), the National Shelter Movement of South Africa (NSMSA), and shelter representatives highlighted the need for strengthened collaboration and collective action to address GBVF during the meeting in Gauteng on Wednesday.
The department said that since its inception in 2021, the indaba has provided an important professional platform for officials, role players and stakeholders committed to eradicating GBVF to share knowledge, experiences and lessons learned.
The department added that the indaba provides participants with an opportunity to brainstorm and develop strategies to effectively address issues, gaps and challenges affecting service delivery to abused women and their children.
Tolerance was among the issues discussed on the first day of the indaba, with government and shelter representatives agreeing that promoting tolerance and social cohesion is critical to achieving progress in the fight against the GBVF disaster.
The Department of Social Development leads Pillar 4 of the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (NSP-GBVF), which focuses on response, care, support and healing.
Dina Pule, Minister of Social Development, praised the NSMSA and the Heinrich Böll Foundation for their consistent support over the six years.
“To every shelter manager, social worker, counsellor, and support staff member represented here: I salute you. Your work is the frontline of our national response. You are the hands that reach out to survivors, the voices that speak hope into despair, and the guardians of dignity when it has been most violently stripped away,” Pule said.
She said the statistics that compelled this declaration remain searing.
“One in three women aged 16 and older have experienced physical violence. Three women are killed every day by an intimate partner. Between July and September 2025 alone, over 2,000 survivors sought assistance at Thuthuzela Care Centres. Approximately 65% of all recorded gender-based violence survivors in some provinces are children,” she said.
Pule said the department appreciates the work done across 134 operational shelters which was made possible through the collaborative efforts between her department and the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI).
She said that, through the Criminal Asset Recovery Account (CARA) funding, the department has purchased nine vehicles for trafficking in persons (TIP) shelters in the nine provinces. The department is establishing four Khuseleka one-stop centres in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
“Social integration is not an abstract concept. It demands concrete action. Survivors must be at the centre of policy, services, and resource decisions. Their voices must guide our actions,” Pule said.
The National Development Agency (NDA) plays a vital role in the economic empowerment of women and victims of GBVF. Pule said the NDA has been the vehicle the DSD used to channel and use the money allocated from CARA for the Victim Empowerment Program through the appointment of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), which provided direct and indirect support to GBVF victims. Pule said the program ran from 2020 to 2023 with an allocation of R95 million.
"To the shelter representatives, your work saves lives. Every woman who finds refuge in a shelter, every child who is protected from harm, every family that is given a chance to heal, is your doing.” Pule said.
