The role social workers play in fighting gender-based violence 

In 2020, president Cyril Ramaphosa issued a national call for specialised units of social workers to deal with gender-based violence. This call arose from the alarming rise in gender-based violence cases during the lockdown. In response to the president’s call, in Gauteng province, specialised units were created. The Daily Vox spoke to Shireen Hassan, deputy director with the department of social development in the Johannesburg region about these units. 

Hassan is the deputy director for probation, VEP and substance abuse in the Johannesburg Metro region. She is involved in one of these units that were established in 2020. These units were created to deal with the scourge of gender-based violence that was amplified during lockdown and beyond. Social workers were added into the units from all over Gauteng and nationally. They were given specialised training to deal with victims and survivors of gender-based violence. 

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According to Hassan, there are plans around rollout of the specialised units in other provinces. However resources or the lack thereof has hindered the process. 

During an online dialogue in 2020, Ramaphosa said: “Apart from poverty, inequality and unemployment, there is just also the violent environment that our people live in. That’s why we’ve been saying we want socio-analysis people – your social workers, your supportive, other socio-analytical skilled people, or experts – to be in place.”  

“Our role is to render services to victims of gender-based violence through psycho-social support. We make arrangements if a victim needs to be moved to a shelter. We also provide support at the courts if a victim wants to apply for a protection order,” said Hassan, outlining some of the work social workers do. They also do trauma debriefing if a rape has taken place whether it’s for the survivor or someone who perhaps witnessed a traumatic incident. 

Social workers also work with the different courts – providing reports from cases that are referred to them. They mostly work with cases that have been referred to them from different places: the courts, the provincial department, the GBV Command Centre and so on.

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“We also try – if possible – to engage the perpetrator. There are also sometimes children who are involved so we have to assess the situation. If they are in need of care, they will be removed by social workers – depending on the situation,” she said.  

Essentially social workers play the role of assessing the situation with both the victim and perpetrator, where possible. They offer counselling services to the victims and the perpetrator. 

However, Hassan said that hasn’t taken off quite as well as hoped because the perpetrator often doesn’t want to do the counselling. However, they work with accredited organisations whose sole purpose is to work with perpetrators. 

“It depends on a range of circumstances but in most instances they (the perpetrators) do not want any kind of programmes or counselling,” she said.

Awareness 

One of the main programmes social workers in the units work on is awareness. They go into communities, schools and universities to educate people around the various aspects of gender-based violence. This involves providing education about what resources are available for victims and survivors. 

Hassan said they are now at a point of restarting many of their programmes as face-to-face programmes resume. They hold events with small groups of people facilitated together with local organisations such as women’s forums. They hold talks with guest speakers who are usually survivors. This is to allow the person to share their story of survival and economic empowerment. It is supposed to serve as a platform of inspiration and motivation. 

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Another particular focus is the queer community. Hassan said the LGBTQIA+ community gets literally no services at all. “They don’t trust the government generally as well,” she said. The specialised units therefore partners with NGO organisations working with the queer community to ensure the community is aware of the services available to them. 

Gaps in the units and programme

During the community visits, the social workers in the unit would often provide people with information to contact the National Gender-Based Violence Command Centre. People can use the toll-free number to report crimes and acts of gender-based violence. However, there is no adequate reporting system to show how many people contacting the centre are actually doing that on the basis of information they received from the social workers. 

Another gap is the intersection of many different issues in communities. 

“We try to do a lot of prevention and awareness campaigns. However (the issues) is that most of the communities targeted have other issues like poverty, crime, substance abuse, and high levels of unemployment. There are a lot of social ills in the communities. Very often we are going there and providing information but it’s when the thing has already happened,” Hassan said. 

She pointed out that this is one of the gaps that exist which is being addressed but not at the level it should be. 

Another gap that exists with the units and their work is the lack of the resources. There was also the fact that the units began during the pandemic. This made it very difficult for the units and the social workers to go into communities and have large-scale dialogues. They were also unable to target schools and universities during the lockdown period. This meant they could not reach as many people as they would have liked. Local radio stations were one of the ways they used to overcome this issue. 

Final comments

One final issue that Hassan raised is that often the media and members of society take a particular interest in the “big cases” of gender-based violence. However, awareness around gender-based violence is something that unfortunately does not only happen at certain times of months. She said their department has a 365-day plan of events and awareness campaigns. 

“We need to be talking about it all the time – not only on those days… What we are saying is that let’s not forget the other victims as well – the ones that the media does not know about. We might not have their names but they exist,” she said. 

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Featured image via Flickr