The Last Day of The Domestic Violence Act Conference

The Centre for the Study of Violence Research (CSVR) Domestic Violence Act conference ended on Friday with little uncertainty that the Domestic Violence Act has been progressive over the past ten years.  The delegates only seemed to agree that it only provided protection if implemented correctly.

The purpose of the DVA conference was to reflect on the ten years of the DVA by looking at what has worked, what is not working and the way forward.  When asked to list what has worked in the past years, the delegates did not have much to say but they had a lot of recommendations.  

"After ten years of the act, we still have the same problems we had before the introduction of the act" said one of the delegates at the conference. "We need to redefine our platforms for action" she continued. 

Fatima Ismail a psychologist from the Saartjie Baartman Centre in Cape Town stressed the importance of a need to have a specialized unit within the South African Police Service (SAPS).  According to Ismail, this specialized unit will consist of legal advisors and even counselors all based at the police station. Adding to this, Nditsheni Maanda from Nisaa Institute for Women's Development said that supportive measures were needed for SAPS.  She explained that at 3:00 am, the first call a victims makes is to a police station and the police are not trained to deal with the cases in a way that would comfort the survivor.

Most of the participants at the conference say that there is a need to unite as NGOs and work together to influence policy.  Others were upset that policy formulation was spoken about yet there were no representative from government particularly the Department of Justice.

The turn up of the conference was really disappointing.  This I blame on people who confirm that they are coming but do not.  They really make organizers look bad.  The energy during the three days of the conference was dullJ (I guess it was affected by the turn up).  There are some presentations had beautiful titles but the content was unfortunately disappointing.  

In spite of my above criticism I enjoyed the conference.  The analysis of the act was really necessary.  There are some loop holes that some of us were not even aware of but so them from some of the presenters' presentations.