Legal Responses to Gender-Based Violence and Femicide

South Africa’s post-apartheid process of achieving democracy, political, economic, and social reconstruction has seen radical changes in its legislative framework. Amongst various achievements, this process has led to a completely new system of gender-based violence (GBV) laws and a new institutional system for its implementation. Laws are key instruments in addressing social challenges, like gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) and must be understood. This chapter is situated within this context and aims to explore the countries legal responses to GBVF in various sections. It will give a broad understanding of the policy and legislative frameworks with regard to GBV in South Africa and look at the country’s international obligations in terms of various human rights instruments. It will be shown that while there is significant legislative progress there is still a long way to go to tackle underlying norms and behaviors associated with GBVF, and which is impeding concrete efforts to eliminate this scourge.