Kempton Park patrols stretched as GBV groups work without resources

Community organisations in Kempton Park say they are running patrols and gender-based violence case support around the clock, and that a shortage of resources is holding the work back. The groups, working alongside the Kempton Park Residence Forum, told eNCA that criminal activity in the area has made their interventions more urgent, not less.

Lumka Maqubela of the Girls2Women Foundation said the organisations are on the ground every day of the week. “We are always on the ground 24/7, not only as an NGO, but also with the Kempton Park Residence Forum,” she said. “We work closely together all the time.”

The model the groups describe is straightforward. Volunteers and forum members patrol, and a GBV Brigade receives reports and follows up with families. Maqubela said the organisations are willing to put more people at more corners, and that the lack of resources on their own side is what makes that difficult. “It becomes very discouraging,” she said.

What the groups are doing

The work is a partnership between civil society and residents rather than a state programme. The Girls2Women Foundation and the Kempton Park Residence Forum operate together, with the GBV Brigade acting as the point where cases are reported and from which follow-ups with families are made. That structure puts ordinary residents in the first response position, before a case reaches the police or a court.

It also places the organisations in the position of needing things they do not have. Patrols need people, transport and time, and case follow-up needs someone to do it. Maqubela’s account is of an operation that is willing but stretched.

Where the law sits

The organisations are not a substitute for the state, and the law is clear on what they can and cannot do. Gender-based violence and the crimes that surround it are matters for the South African Police Service and the National Prosecuting Authority. A community patrol can observe, report and support, and it cannot arrest, detain or investigate. Where a case is reported, the route into the justice system runs through the police station, and the organisations working in Kempton Park are clear that the GBV Brigade exists to move cases into that system and to keep families supported while they are in it.

Kempton Park SAPS is the station responsible for policing in the area and appears on the source material’s subject line. The organisations’ call is not for residents to take over policing. It is for the resources that would let them keep doing the part of the work that is theirs.

What the state does

South Africa has a national framework for gender-based violence, and the police service runs family violence, child protection and sexual offences units that handle these cases. Where the record shows the state’s response working, it is worth saying so plainly, and the country’s courts have convicted and sentenced perpetrators in cases that began with a report from a community member. The organisations in Kempton Park are not asking to replace that machinery. They are asking for enough support to keep feeding it.

The practical consequence for a resident of Kempton Park is direct. A woman who is attacked in the area has two routes to help. One is the police station. The other is the organisations and the forum, which say they are available at any hour and which say the limits on what they can do are resources, not willingness.

What happens next

The organisations say they are willing to expand patrols and coverage if the resources follow. Whether they get them is a question for the funders, the municipality and the provincial departments that carry the GBV budget. Until then, the volunteers keep working the corners they can cover.

Source: eNCA, Activists want to clean up Kempton Park