Civil society groups launch court battle over 'toothless' GBV council - EWN

A legal battle is brewing in the Pretoria High Court over the lawfulness of the appointed council for gender based violence and femicide and the validity of the law relied upon for its appointment.

At the end of July, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the appointment of the nine-member council to serve until 2029.

In a statement, Ramaphosa says he expects the council to leverage the classification of gender-based violence and femicide as a national disaster to challenge harmful attitudes and practices, and advance women’s economic empowerment, strengthen law enforcement and scale up survivor-centred support.

But just weeks after this announcement, the country faced another wave of GBV-related killings, this time mainly around Ekurhuleni, with 10 bodies discovered in the area to date and another discovered in Moroka in Soweto, added the investigation.

These events come 10 months after GBV was declared a national disaster by government, a move that did not unlock any additional funding from government but was supposed to result in departments reprioritizing their budgets and allocating funds towards the fight against GBV.