Violence Against Women
Source: The New Age
While rape is so common in South Africa that one woman is raped every 10 minutes – according to figures calculated from the latest police statistics – the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust might have to close some of its services due to a lack of funding.
The non-profit organisation, which runs three centres in Cape Town, has directly assisted more than 2500 rape survivors per year and is the oldest centre for rape counselling in the country, having been established in 1976.
Rape Crisis director Kathleen Dey said a shortfall in the budget due to European Union donors pulling out of funding organisations in South Africa meant Rape Crisis was facing a bleak future.
Dey said EU funding bodies had decided to focus on aiding poorer African countries as they believed South Africa, having experienced 17 years of democracy, was no longer a priority.
And there were no funders to take their place, she said.
"Even if we reduce our budget significantly we still have a shortfall in our January-February 2012 financial year."
While there were South African funders, the benefit of European funding was that exchange rates meant every Euro they provided was multiplied by 11 when converted into rands.
While the three Rape Crisis centres in Cape Town provided counselling and support to rape survivors, their partners and families, the organisation also engaged in rights awareness and education in rural areas and played a large role in keeping the judicial system on track regarding rape cases.
"We help people to take their case through the justice system, and collaborate with volunteers at courts and health facilities," said Dey.
The organisation also conducted important research.
"We do research on gender-based violence and provide information to the National Prosecuting Authority.
"We work well with them but also challenge them and reveal the flaws in the justice system."
The research also contributes to revealing legal gaps and the development of new legislation and its implementation.
She said the organisation had 16 employees and 80 volunteers but were trying to avoid cutting salaries and stipends, concentrating on cutting costs elsewhere.
To try raise funds until new funding applications were processed, Rape Crisis had launched the 1000 Hearts Campaign in an effort to get 1000 people to donate R100 a month to the organisation through the website http:/rapecrisis.org.za/support-us/1000-hearts/.
Spokesperson for the provincial social development minister, Melany Kuhn, said the department provides partial funding to Rape Crisis, but also had to fund 1902 other NGOs in the province with a funding budget of R628m.
Kuhn said it was "a huge concern" when any NGO that does "important work" faces closure as "they perform a vital service out there".
But assistance by the department for any one organisation was limited by the amount of money the province received from national government and the fact that they had a responsibility to all NGOs.
"Their own fundraising needs to do the best it can to fill in the gaps."
Kuhn said if the organisation could just make it through the next four to six months, they should start seeing results from funding applications they'd sent out to new donors.