Research knowledge base for GBV questions, methods, and service pathways
This is now a research knowledge base rather than a simple FAQ. Search across the published corpus, filter by research lens, and move directly into the source material behind each answer.
Published entries
210
Curated answers grounded in public South African GBV, justice, and support sources.
Visible now
4
Entries matching your current search, lens, and source filters.
Source sets
49
Each answer stays tied to a public source so researchers can verify context.
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Research lenses
Filter the knowledge base the way researchers work
Move between methods, service pathways, risk factors, legal process, survivor support, and data interpretation without losing source traceability.
Methods
Study design, methodology, definitions, and how the evidence was assembled.
Service pathways
How people move through hospitals, police, shelters, courts, and referral systems.
Risk factors
Drivers of violence, vulnerability, exposure, and intersectional risk patterns.
Legal process
Rights, reporting, police procedure, court process, and legal protections.
Survivor support
Healing, counselling, trauma-informed support, and practical care for survivors.
Data interpretation
Limits, caveats, bias, and guidance for reading the evidence responsibly.
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Research lens
Legal process
4 entriesRights, reporting, police procedure, court process, and legal protections.
No single institution can meet all survivor needs. Survivors may need emergency response, medical care, psychosocial support, shelter, legal help, child protection, and longer-term recovery support, which is why coordinated pathways across health, justice, social services, and civil society matter so much.
WHO highlights risk factors across individual, family, community, and social levels, including child maltreatment, witnessing family violence, harmful alcohol use, gender norms that privilege men, low gender equality, and male controlling behaviour. The HSRC report similarly points to childhood trauma, mental health strain, harmful norms, food insecurity, and substance use as overlapping drivers.
WHO treats violence against women as both a human rights issue and a major public health problem. Health services matter because they can treat injuries, respond to sexual and reproductive health consequences, support mental health, and serve as a gateway to referrals for legal and social support.
WHO's RESPECT framework is a prevention framework built around relationship skills, women's empowerment, services, poverty reduction, safer environments, prevention of child and adolescent abuse, and transformed gender norms. It is useful because it shows that prevention works best when it tackles violence across multiple levels, not only through law enforcement.