The lived reality for women in South Africa is they get turned away at our police stations. They are told that domestic violence is a family matter. They are sent from one office to another. If they do actually get someone willing to open their case, the case files disappear into delay
A country’s social development system is meant to be the safety net beneath its most vulnerable people. It catches the abused child, the elderly grandmother, the mother fleeing violence, the disabled person without support and the family pushed to the edge of hunger. But in South Africa that safety net, particularly for women and children, is failing abysmally.
Ignoring the classic ANC accountability dodging it’s quite clear that the allegations against Minister Sisisi Tolashe are serious. Minister Tolashe has reportedly been called before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Social Development to respond to the allegations that a public servant was appointed under false pretences and used as a nanny in her private household. According to reports, the woman believed she was being appointed as a food aide at the Minister’s official residence, while also allegedly being required to pay up to half of her state salary to Tolashe’s daughter for household expenses. The same report notes earlier allegations involving vehicles allegedly donated to the ANC Women’s League but redirected to the Minister’s children. These remain allegations and Minister Tolashe is entitled to due process. But due process is not a reason for presidential silence.
This scandal matters because of the portfolio involved.
The Department of Social Development is a crucial department in a country that faces severe socio-economic challenges. It is one of the last lines of defence for South Africa’s women, children, the elderly, victims of domestic violence, abandoned children, abused children, persons with disabilities and families trapped in poverty. It is the department that must intervene when a child is neglected, when a victim needs psychosocial support, when a shelter needs funding, when a grandmother is raising children on a grant and when violence in the home becomes a matter of state protection.
So when the political head of that department is accused of exploiting a vulnerable worker and misusing public resources for private comfort, the issue is not merely whether a rule was broken. South Africa is failing women twice: first through a policing system that does not reliably protect them from violence and then through a social development system that too often fails to catch them when violence has already occurred.
The scale of the crisis in South Africa is beyond dispute. Amnesty International South Africa recently recorded that 42,569 rapes and 7,418 sexual assaults were reported in one year — more than 116 reported rapes per day. It also noted that 5,578 women were murdered and that there were 7,239 attempted murders of women. For April to September 2025 alone, 19,387 rapes were reported, more than 105 per day. These are only the reported cases. In our experience at Action Society many survivors never report because they fear disbelief, humiliation, retaliation or institutional indifference.
The lived reality for women in South Africa is they get turned away at our police stations. They are told that domestic violence is a family matter. They are sent from one office to another. If they do actually get someone willing to open their case, the case files disappear into delay. Add to this already distressed situation DNA backlogs, under-resourced police stations, weak detective capacity, poor victim support and endless postponements which effectively turn legal rights into hollow promises. This is the criminal justice reform problem in its most human form of failure.
South Africa does not lack laws. We lack consequences.
We have a Domestic Violence Act. We have sexual offences legislation. We have a National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide. We have specialist courts, victim-friendly rooms, parliamentary committees, presidential speeches and annual campaigns. Yet women continue to live as if safety is a privilege rather than the most important constitutional right, namely the right to safety.
The same is true for children.
UNICEF’s analysis of children in South Africa found that 62% of children experience multidimensional poverty. The Child Support Grant supports more than 13 million children and remains crucial in alleviating child poverty. But poverty is not the only danger. UNICEF also found that, among available data, 58% of children aged five to 16 experienced direct victimisation of sexual abuse, while 25% experienced family violence, 18% physical abuse, 13% emotional abuse and 12% neglect.
Statistics South Africa reported that one in three girls and one in five boys in South Africa have experienced some form of violence before turning 18. The Department of Social Development itself reported more than 26,000 cases of child abuse and neglect in the 2024/25 financial year. The Mail & Guardian reported that this included 26,852 cases of abuse and neglect, with 9,859 relating to sexual abuse, 9,485 to deliberate neglect, 3,965 to physical abuse and 595 to abandonment.
These are not marginal administrative failures. Minister Tolashe and her predecessors have failed South Africa’s most vulnerable miserably.
When discussing government failure we often talk abstractly. But for women and children, Social Development is not abstract. It is the social worker who must arrive but doesn’t. It is the foster-care system that must function but doesn’t. It is the state’s promise that no child will be invisible simply because he or she is poor.
So given the seriousness of the allegations President Cyril Ramaphosa cannot pretend he does not know how to act.
When allegations threatened the integrity of the police portfolio, he placed Police Minister Senzo Mchunu on a leave of absence with immediate effect and established a commission of inquiry. In his own words, this was necessary so the commission could do its work effectively. When Andrew Whitfield was accused of unauthorised international travel, he was removed from office, with the Presidency defending the dismissal on the basis of executive discipline.
Yet when the Minister responsible for the poor, abused, elderly and children faces allegations striking directly at the moral credibility of her department, the President suddenly appears to discover patience.
It is classic selective ANC accountability.
South Africa’s women and children do not need another speech about compassion. They need functioning institutions. They need police who investigate, prosecutors who prosecute, courts that move, social workers who are resourced, shelters that stay open and Ministers who understand that public office is not a family benefit scheme.
The safety net cannot itself become unsafe.
Juanita du Preez is the national spokesperson for Action Society