Nearly 200,000 women abused by intimate partners since 2020, says police ministry
Nearly 200,000 women experienced intimate partner violence in South Africa between 2020 and 2024, according to the police ministry. Gauteng recorded the highest number of cases, exposing a deep national crisis.
Image: File photo
More than 198,000 women in South Africa have been victims of abuse at the hands of their intimate partners in just four years.
A figure that lays bare the country’s deepening crisis of gender-based violence.
This staggering number was revealed in a written response from the Ministry of Police to a parliamentary question posed by Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Asanda Matshobeni.
The figures span the period between April 2020 and March 2024 and are based on crimes reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS) where a relationship between the victim and perpetrator could be established.
Matshobeni had asked how many women had experienced gender-based violence, particularly intimate partner violence, between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2024. She also requested a breakdown by race, province, and year.
In its reply, the Ministry of Police explained that gender-based violence is not defined as a specific offence in South African law, and as such, the SAPS uses domestic relationship-related crimes as a proxy to measure intimate partner violence.
“Gender-based Violence (GBV) is not defined in the law of the Republic as a crime,” the Ministry stated, “hence, the South African Police Service (SAPS) utilises crime committed in a domestic relationship as a proxy to respond to gender-based violence inquiries.”
From April 2020 to March 2024, the SAPS recorded 198,176 cases involving women who were abused by someone they had an intimate or domestic relationship. These perpetrators include boyfriends, husbands, ex-partners, baby daddies, and fiancés.
The data shows a disturbing upward trend. In the 2020/2021 financial year, 33,157 such cases were reported. That figure rose to 41,881 in 2021/2022. A year later, the number jumped to 60,088, and by the 2023/2024 financial year, it had reached 63,050.
The numbers suggest that while national attention and policy responses around gender-based violence have intensified, women continue to face widespread violence behind closed doors, often from those closest to them.
A closer look at the statistics reveals that boyfriends are the leading perpetrators, accounting for 114,722 cases. Husbands or life partners were responsible for 32,076 incidents, while ex-boyfriends, ex-fiancés, and former partners accounted for 46,013.
Men identified as “baby daddies” were responsible for 1,970 cases. Fiancés accounted for 671 cases, and ex-husbands or ex-life partners were responsible for 2,724 incidents.
In response to Matshobeni’s request for a racial breakdown of the victims, the Ministry of Police said that information could not be provided.
“The variable for race is not a compulsory field when opening a case in the SAPS, hence the record for race is not published during the crime statistics release,” the reply read.
The statistics also include a breakdown by province. Gauteng reported the highest number of incidents over the four-year period, with 63,613 cases.
The Western Cape followed with 43,788, while KwaZulu-Natal recorded 25,560. In the Eastern Cape, 16,472 cases were recorded, followed by the Free State with 16,546, North West with 10,732, Mpumalanga with 8,794, Limpopo with 8,494, and the Northern Cape with 4,177.
The Ministry also noted that data for the 2024/2025 financial year, which would run from April 2024 to March 2025, is not yet available, as it has not been officially released.
While these figures reflect only cases reported to the police, they shed light on the scale of violence that continues to affect women across the country. Civil society groups have long warned that actual figures may be far higher, as many victims remain silent or are unable to seek help due to fear, stigma, or lack of access to justice.
hope.ntanzi@iol.co.za
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