Sekwanele National Empowerment Fund (SNEF) is a registered organization (NPO #: 199-556) based in Gauteng, South Africa. The organisation was established by survivors of domestic abuse as a result of the shocking statistics that illustrate the extent of violence against women in South Africa.

Sadly, domestic violence is the most common and widespread human rights abuse in South Africa. From experience we know that leaving an abusive relationship is a process, not an event; survivors often return several times before the separation is permanent. Research reveals that economic dependency is the strongest predictor of a survivor’s decision to remain, leave, or return to an abusive relationship.

Economic dependency is an even stronger indicator than safety issues. Research shows that survivors who have more financial independence from their abusers are more likely to leave. When a survivor does leave an abusive relationship, the likelihood of homelessness, unemployment, and debt is greater; this in turn increases the probability that she will return to the abuser or access predatory financial resources to escape or survive. We know that it takes a tremendous amount of courage to leave an abusive relationship and our aim is to give hope to those who have taken the first steps to finding a better life for themselves and their children.

There are shelters for abused women and children in South Africa. Women are allowed to stay at these places of safety for about 3 to 6 months. Current statistics shows that a woman is killed by her current or former intimate partner every six hours in South Africa. There is a clearly a great need for the establishment of more shelters in South Africa as the demand for places of safety are increasing day-by- day.

Through our programmes we aim to ensure that women do not exceed the maximum allowable stay time permitted at shelters, we aim to decrease the duration of the women’s stay at shelters to ensure that space are created to sustain the demand and more importantly we aim to ensure that women are empowered so that they can sustain themselves, provide for their children and not return to abusive partners for financial security when they exit the shelters in South Africa. Our main objective is to empower women through employment and small business development and in doing so we aim to do our bit to decrease the unacceptably high domestic violence rate in South Africa.