Cape Town’s emergency call centre inundated with domestic violence-related calls

Cape Town’s emergency call centre has seen a surge in domestic violence-related calls.

Safety and security MMC JP Smith said  the city’s emergency communications call centre logged 4,378 domestic violence-related calls in the 12 months from July 2023 to June 2024. In 2020/2021, 2,025 such calls were logged.

The call centre was established 24 years ago.

“Over the past 12 months (July 2023 to June 2024), the centre recorded 214,437 incidents for assistance, ranging from medical incidents to noise complaints, criminal acts and motor vehicle accidents to interpersonal violence,” said Smith.  

Several key categories showed a welcome decline, including prank calls, medical incidents and noise complaints.

“Domestic violence incidents, cases of assault and motor vehicle accidents increased, however,” he said.  

“It is anyone’s guess whether these statistics represent a huge increase in the rate of domestic violence or if more people affected by it are speaking up and reaching out. Either way, it is clear that domestic violence and interpersonal violence in general remains one of the biggest challenges we’re faced with.

“Our emergency call takers do their best to assess a situation by trying to get as much information from the caller as possible.

“I remind the public that while the questions during an emergency call may seem trivial in a time of crisis or desperation, these are critical in understanding the threat level, the condition of a patient or determining the exact location where help should be sent.

“Given the growth in domestic violence calls to our emergency centre, I will propose engagements with NGOs and the enforcement services to determine what more, if anything, call takers can do, as that first line of contact, to help ensure positive outcomes for the person on the other end of the line.”

TimesLIVE