BONUS - RUSTENBURG - Despite an estimated R28–R42 billion being spent on policing, crisis counselling, emergency medical care, shelters and public messaging, violence in South Africa continues to rise. Bullying in schools and workplaces continues to climb (cyberbullying is increasing at twice the rate of in-person bullying) and femicide remains five times higher than the global average.
South Africa is doing the wrong thing - we are responding, not preventing.
Interventions such as advertising campaigns, emergency services and court processes are important, but they have one significant flaw: they only come into play after harm has occurred. This creates an assumption that violence is inevitable and that our role is merely to clean up the aftermath.
Imagine trained mediators within each community who understand local dynamics and unspoken tensions. They work in teams, resolving disputes discreetly, respectfully, and effectively. These mediators intervene early, at the point when harm can still be prevented.
In a year, a team of mediators can handle approximately 45 cases per month, working to stabilise families, rebuild trust, defuse retaliation, and create environments where individuals feel heard rather than threatened. The cost of running this entire intervention for a full year is only R150 000.
South Africa has one of the strongest global evidence bases for community mediation. During the EU-funded Justice and Restoration Programme (JARP), mediators resolved 6 318 cases, achieving 84% successful resolution. These results were achieved in communities marked by unemployment, trauma and long-standing mistrust. Even after the programme ended, mediators continued working informally because communities valued them so deeply.
One domestic violence incident that escalates into police involvement, emergency medical care and a court process has a typical cost of up to R95 000. If mediation prevents even two such cases in a year, the savings exceed the total annual cost of running a 10-mediator team.
Mediation prevents harm every day of the year and is affordable, scalable, locally owned, evidence-based, trauma-informed, culturally rooted and proven to reduce violence. South Africa must stop treating violence as unavoidable.
Responding to violence is expensive. Preventing it, is transformational.
