Following the end of 16 Days of Activism against the violence of women and children in South Africa, the Solidarity Fund has spent R18m on anti-GBV efforts during COVID-19 pandemic. R3.1 billion was collected from businesses, individuals and international donors.
The Police ministry said that since the start of the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in gender-based violence cases. The United Nations Refugee Agency also confirmed that more women had been reported as displaced since the lockdowns began worldwide. Nicola Gelombik from the solidarity fund said that was why they gave dedicated funds to gender-based violence.
“We were able to scale up the gender-based violence command centre with 40 additional work stations and laptops required to be able to cope with the surge in demand that the call centres were receiving and also scaled up the communication efforts around gender-based violence,” said Gelombik. She said that efforts at the gender-based violence command centres were also strengthened.
