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The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act: Effectiveness and Contemporary Challenges

Domestic violence is one of the most severe ongoing national crises in South Africa. Most men who abuse their wives or their partners in their households were either exposed to abuse, which includes seeing their fathers or uncles beat their mothers or they've experienced the abuse first-hand from their abusive parents. This results in resentment that has built up over the years and they end up having the need to feel superior over their partners, which leads to domestic violence in most cases.

Jennifer Motau

29 August 2026

Introduction

Domestic Violence is a major problem in South Africa that frequently occurs behind closed doors, and in some cases, it happens in public, yet it goes unreported.

Victims of domestic violence are often scared to talk about the abuse they have experienced because the abuser happens to be the sole provider in the household. If they talk about the abuse, they risk losing the financial support they have been getting all along. If the victim of abuse does not have a job, they will risk being homeless.

If you are aware of a victim of abuse in your community, I urge you not to remain silent, take proactive measures by offering support and connecting the victim with help rather than waiting for the situation to resolve itself. Report the matter to the police; these are people who investigate crime and enforce Protection Orders. Tell a social worker, they offer counselling and help families access shelter, and protect any children involved. Go to the Magistrate's Court, a judicial officer will issue a Protection Order against the abuser and order the respondent to stay away and continue paying financial support.

WHAT IS A DOMESTIC RELATIONSHIP?

According to the Domestic Violence Act Section 1, a domestic relationship is a relationship between a complainant and respondent in any of the following ways:

  1. They are or were married to each other legally
  2. They are cohabiting partners, whether they are heterosexual or same-sex permanent partners,
  3. They are the legal guardians of the child,
  4. They are family members related by blood, marriage or adoption,
  5. They are or were in a consensual romantic or intimate association, or
  6. They share or recently shared the same address.

WHAT IS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE?

Domestic violence is when a person is being harmed by another person they are in a domestic relationship with. Domestic violence includes:

  • Physical abuse: When a complainant is being physically harmed by the respondent.
  • Sexual abuse: When the complainant is forced to have sexual intercourse with the respondent.
  • Emotional, psychological and verbal abuse: When the complainant is being insulted and being called offensive names by the respondent.
  • Any other behaviour of an intimidating, threatening, abusive, degrading, offensive or humiliating nature towards the complainant where such conduct harms, or inspires the reasonable belief that harm may be caused to the complainant.

WHAT KIND OF PROTECTION DOES THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT OFFER?

According to Section 2 of the Domestic Violence Act, any member of the South African Police Services, must render assistance to a complainant on the scene of domestic violence incident or as soon as possible thereafter.

This can include necessary medical arrangements as well as the finding of a suitable shelter.

The police member must also, if reasonably possible, hand a notice containing certain prescribed information in the language of choice of the complainant, to the complainant.

The police member must also, if reasonably possible, explain the contents of the notice and available remedies to the complainant. One of these remedies is the right to lodge a criminal complaint.

Section 3 of the Domestic Violence authorises a peace officer to arrest any respondent on the scene of a domestic violence incident, without a warrant of arrest. The Peace Officer must suspect that the respondent has committed an offence containing an element of violence against the complainant.

A complainant may apply to the court for a protection order. The purpose of this order is to protect the complainant from any further acts of domestic violence committed by the respondent.

WHICH COURTS HAVE JURISDICTION?

A Magistrate's Court or Family Court in the area where:

  • The complainant or respondent permanently or temporarily lives, works or owns a business,
  • Or where the incident occurred.

It is not required that the Complainant or Respondent has to live or work in the area for a specific period of time. A protection order is enforceable throughout South Africa.

WHO MAY BRING THE APPLICATION?

The Complainant, or a person on behalf of the complainant. A lawyer may also represent the complainant.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN FROM THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT

The Domestic Violence Act was put into practice to give effect to constitutional rights to freedom and security of the person (Section 12 of the Constitution).

The Amended Domestic Violence Act

The Domestic Violence Act was recently amended to provide better protection for victims of domestic violence.

  • It has expanded the definitions of domestic abuse beyond just physical and sexual abuse, the statutory definition now includes coercive behaviour and controlling behaviour, economic abuse, spiritual abuse, and elder abuse.
  • Access to Protection Orders is made easy, complainants can now apply for protection orders electronically through dedicated emails, reducing the financial and administrative difficulties for vulnerable victims when moving from one place to another.
  • Automatic Arrest Warrant is issued. When an urgent temporary court order is granted, a suspended warrant of arrest is automatically issued and held by law enforcement, ready to be executed immediately if the respondent breaches the order.
  • When a victim applies for a protection order, they can request a safety monitoring order, this is a legal order issued by the Magistrate's Court to protect a victim who continues to live in the same residence as their abuser.
  • Police officers are authorised by law to search for and seize dangerous weapons and/or objects, to accompany complainants to retrieve their belongings, to help them find urgent shelters, and to get them medical help.

CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES OF THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT

While the Domestic Violence Act 116 0f 1998 and its updated legislative framework, the Domestic Violence Amendment Act 14 of 2021 provides a suite of statutory tools for protecting women in South Africa but its day-to-day enforcement faces critical, contemporary challenges.

  1. Operational Bottlenecks in The Police Service

Despite clear statutory mandates requiring the South African Police Services to assist victims, operational execution remains severely flawed:

  • Members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) fail to apply or follow national instructions: Police officers regularly neglect their statutory duties to document reports of domestic violence.
  • Failure to carry out arrest warrants: When an urgent temporary court order is breached, the police are often reluctant to execute the accompanying suspended warrant of arrest, sometimes insisting that the victims go back home and deal with their private family matters instead of enforcing the law.

Resource Bottleneck in the Police Service

  • Resource Deficits: Even though the law requires police to protect domestic violence victims, they physically cannot do so because their police stations do not have enough working vehicles.
  1. Institutional Culture and Patriarchal Bias

Legal scholars and judicial reviews repeatedly point to entrenched social attitudes within law enforcement as a barrier to victim safety:

Beyond institutional failure. Policing institutions historically mirror the broader society they operate in. In a patriarchal society where men hold primary power and control, the police officers are socialised to adopt these traditional views.

  • Secondary Victimisation: Police officers treat reported abuse as trivial, minor, or unworthy of police intervention. A victim explaining an incident of economic abuse, stalking, or verbal threats are always dismissed.
  • Lack of Specialised Training: While parliament passed updated laws to protect people from modern, non-physical forms of abuse such as coercive behaviour and economic abuse, the everyday police officers working at station desks have never been properly trained on what these laws mean and how to enforce them in practice.
  1. Digital Divide and E-Filing Limitations

The 2021 Amendment Act enacted electronic application mechanisms allowing complainants to file protection order applications through dedicated court email addresses. While revolutionary on paper, this faces distinct modern challenges:

  • Digital Exclusion: Poor or geographically isolated women are left behind because they do not have the money, tools, or skills to use online services and digital technology.
  • Court Email Monitoring Failures: Even when a victim successfully submits an urgent emergency application online, it often sits unread or ignored in a court inbox because the Magistrate's Court lacks the computers, internet or assigned staff to process it.
  1. Court Backlogs and Procedural Friction

Magistrate's Courts across South Africa are plagued by severe administrative capacity limits:

  • Delayed Return Dates: When a court gives a victim an urgent temporary court order, the formal court hearing required to make that protection permanent is scheduled far into the future because the court's calendar is completely full.
  • Integrated Protection Inquiries in Bail Hearings: The law introduced a fast track mechanism to protect gender-based violence victims directly within criminal court bail hearings, but this mechanism creates a difficult balancing act between rapid victim safety and the accused's constitutional right to a fair trial.
  1. Socio-Economic Dependency and Shelter Shortages

Legal mechanisms alone cannot overcome severe economic inequality:

  • Economic Coercion: Even when a victim secures a protection order or lays criminal charges against an abuser, the cold reality of basic survival forces them to return to or to protect their abuser.
  • Acute Shelter Deficits: Even when a rural victim reaches a breaking point and decides to leave an abusive home, there is physically nowhere for them to go because state-funded emergency shelters exist almost exclusively in big cities and lack proper financial support. As a result, a rural victim's geographic location directly forces them back into a dangerous domestic situation.

Conclusion

Legal frameworks like South Africa's Domestic Violence Act are only as effective as the people and systems that enforce them. While the law provides theoretical protections, those protections fail if victims encounter friction, negligence, or insensitivity when seeking help.

References and Legal Citations

Statutes

  1. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996.
  2. Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998.
  3. Domestic Violence Amendment Act 14 of 2021.
  4. Maintenance Act 99 of 1998.

Linda Mshweshwe, Understanding domestic violence: masculinity, culture, traditions, National Library of Medicine, (Oct. 27, 2020).