Legal Aid for Victims of Domestic Violence in SA

This report is written by Chi Nguyen, our In-the-Field Representative for Southern Africa. Chi will be traveling the nine countries of Southern Africa, visiting and assisting our current partner organizations, for the first half of 2014.

On Friday, April 11th, my colleague Moeko Shinohara and I had the pleasure of meeting Shayda and her Fundraising Manager to learn all about the ins and outs of Lawyers Against Abuse. We were pleasantly impressed with the way LvAgoes about their mission - with a highly educated and sentitive approach, we coudln't imagine clients of LvA receiving anything but the beset type of care, treatment, and attention. In addition to providing psychosocial support for their clients, they also mediate between all parties in the justice system to ensure that it works just as it should for the sexual abuse victims of Johannesburg - that their paperwork, their arguments, and their cases are not all lost and forgotten in the system and that some sort of justice be carried out.

From what we've gathered from our meeting, LvA is a constantly self-evaluating organization that strives to improve every day, staying dynamic and mobile as an organization. Their current goals are a new location to provide their clients with more privacy, and an additional attorney to serve a larger number of people in the community by 2015. Even with the limited funding they have received thus far, they have done much in the way of successfully conceptualizing their framework and knowing their path and goals. They are on their way to perfecting the art of listening, and in doing so are constantly providing their clients with the best possible treatment. We look forward to bearing witness to the growth of LvA as an organization and to the success they will have with their current and future clients. Above all, we look forward to witnessing to their success in their fight for the rights of victims of rape and sexual abuse who so desperately need their help, and to bearing witness to their impact on the Johannesburg social system as a whole.