Law on Paper, Danger at Home: The Implementation Gap in South Africa, Lesotho, and Malawi

South Africa, Lesotho, and Malawi each have progressive statutory and constitutional protections against gender-based physical violence, yet women in all three countries remain physically unsafe in their daily lives. South Africa's intimate partner femicide rate stands at 5.5 per 100,000 women, almost five times the global average, despite a constitution widely regarded as one of the most progressive in the world (Abrahams et al., 2025). Lesotho records some of thehighest rates of gender-based violence anywhere in the world: a national study found that 86 per cent of women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime, and 62 per cent have experienced intimate partner violence specifically (Gender Links, 2016). The Commonwealth Secretariat (2020) separately estimated that violence against women and girls costs Lesotho roughly 5.5 per cent of its annual gross domestic product, about 113 million United States dollars a year, once healthcare, legal, and policing costs are combined with lost income and lost schooling time for girls.

Malawi has enacted the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act since 2006, but enforcement weakens sharply at the community level, where traditional courts frequently return survivors to abusive households in the name of family reconciliation. This brief argues that the persistent gap between legal protection and lived safety, what we term the implementation gap, is not primarily a legislative failure but an institutional and economic one. In South Africa, the gap runs through policing and forensic capacity. In Lesotho, it runs through labour migration, customary practice, and land dependency. In Malawi, it runs through the authority of traditional courts and the prevalence of child marriage.

Across all three countries, undocumented cross-border migration between South Africa, Lesotho, and Malawi compounds the problem, leaving migrant women who experience violence unable to seek protection for fear of arrest or deportation. The recommendations that follow are therefore administrative and institutional rather than legislative. They call for investment in forensic and policing capacity, clearer limits on customary adjudication of physical violence,economic protections for survivors, and regional cooperation through the Southern African Development Community to close the cross-border protection gap.

Read thefull brief here.

Prepared by: Politics4Her Africa, Policy and Research Writing Officers

Research contributors: Puseletso Agnes Mpeisa, Tamlyn Stevens, Amina Alidi,

Taiwo Oyindamola Oludipe, Rajaa Faizadi

Regional focus: South Africa · Lesotho · Malawi

Date of publication: 22 September 2026