Cape Town - With gender-based violence on the increase during the Covid-19 lockdown, there have been warnings that domestic shelters for women are reaching their full capacity.

Tina Thiart, the founding member for 1000 Women Trust, said the surge in Covid-19 cases was straining even the most advanced and best-resourced health systems to the breaking point, including those at the front line in violence response.

“Domestic violence shelters in South Africa are reaching capacity or are unable to take new victims due to lockdown and social distancing measures. In other cases, they are being re-purposed to serve as health centres,” said Thiart.

Claudia Lopes, a project manager at the Heinrich Böll Foundation specialising in women's rights activism, said support services like shelters, Thuthuzela Care Centres and NGOs delivering any form of psycho-social and practical support services to victims needed to be supported.

“In the case of shelters, the government must release funding grants as soon as possible. We cannot have a situation where a shelter is waiting three or four months to receive its first tranche. This has never been acceptable but now, especially, you cannot have this happening,” she said.