Barriers to prevention and mitigation of intimate partner violence: views of women in Soshanguve, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

Intimate Partner Violence rates in South Africa are high and the scourge seems to continue unabated. In South Africa, IPV is mainly considered and treated as a criminal phenomenon, with the responsibility placed on the Police services. In the absence of effective prevention programs, the purpose of this paper was to identify barriers to efforts to mitigate intimate partner violence rates in 3 communities of Soshanguve township in Pretoria, South Africa. A qualitative design, using focus group discussions, was used to collect data from 63 women who were members of 10 organized social groupgs in Soshanguve. The quantitative socio-demographic data was analyzed descriptively and qualitative data was analyzed using Nvivo 12 software. Personal IPV was experienced by 35% (n=22) of the participants, while 89% (n= 56) of their friends and family members were reported to have experienced IPV. The barriers to the prevention and mitigating IPV included societal norms and beliefs that perpetuate and support IPV, communities not being helpful, ineffective police interventions, ineffective legal system to protect women, unavailability of required resources and ineffective campaigns against IPV. Because police services to mitigate the scourge of IPV are not viewed to be effective the affected victims are left disempowered and discouraged. Moreover, other services, including counseling services, are not available in the areas under study