Uber and the National Shelter Movement of South Africa have spent six years removing one of the most practical barriers facing survivors of gender-based violence: getting to safety.
There is a moment in an abusive relationship that is difficult to capture in statistics.
It is the moment someone decides to leave.
After months or years of abuse, that decision can come with a terrifyingly practical question: Where do I go, and how do I get there?
For survivors of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), getting to a shelter is not simply a matter of finding an address. There may be children involved. There may be no money for transport. There may be safety concerns around being seen leaving.
And there may be only one window of opportunity to get out.
For the past six years, Uber and the National Shelter Movement of South Africa (NSMSA) have been working on that particular problem.
Since 2020, the partnership has provided emergency transportation to survivors at no cost to them, connecting people seeking refuge with the NSMSA’s network of nearly 100 shelters across South Africa.
The service has facilitated thousands of trips across Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and North West.
It is not a solution to GBVF. Neither Uber nor the NSMSA pretends that a ride can solve a problem as deeply entrenched as violence against women and children.
But transport can be the difference between being able to leave and having to stay.
The journey to safety is part of the crisis
The NSMSA operates a 24/7 toll-free placement service for survivors looking for emergency accommodation and support.
When someone contacts the Movement, authorised social workers coordinate the placement process, finding appropriate accommodation and arranging the transport needed to get the survivor there.
That last part can sound deceptively simple.
It isn’t.
“When a woman calls our helpline, she has often spent months, sometimes years, gathering the courage for that one call,” says Anisa Moosa, Coordinator of the National Shelter Movement of South Africa.
For Moosa, the value of the partnership is what happens when that call finally comes.
The organisation can tell a survivor that a place has been found and, crucially, that there is a way to get there.
That removes one more decision from an already overwhelming situation.
It also means the survivor does not have to figure out the transport herself while potentially trying to keep her whereabouts confidential.
The NSMSA’s placement service coordinates the journey, while Uber provides the transportation through its platform.
The arrangement is deliberately built around the survivor rather than expecting the survivor to navigate the system alone.
Six years of removing one barrier
The partnership has, over the course of six years, become part of the broader support network surrounding survivors who need emergency accommodation, counselling and other services.
Its reach now extends across six provinces, with the NSMSA working through shelters around the country.
Uber’s Deepesh Thomas, Director and General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa and Morocco, says the company sees transportation and technology as tools that can help reduce some of the barriers survivors face.
“Technology and transportation alone cannot solve gender-based violence, but it can lower some of the barriers standing between survivors and safety,” Thomas says.
The part that happens after the ride
Getting someone through the shelter door is not the end of the story.
The NSMSA’s network provides access to safe accommodation, counselling and other forms of support as survivors begin rebuilding their lives.
These additional resources are vital for women leaving an abusive environment, because leaving is rarely a single event. Safety, housing, financial independence, legal support and emotional recovery can all become part of what happens next.
Transport is therefore one piece of a much larger system.
It is also a piece that can easily be overlooked.
There is a tendency to think about GBVF support in terms of the big interventions: reporting abuse, providing counselling, finding shelter or pursuing legal action.
But systems fail in the gaps between those interventions.
A shelter can have a bed available. A social worker can arrange the placement. A survivor can finally be ready to leave.
If there is no safe way to get there, however, the pathway can still break down.
That is the gap this partnership has spent six years trying to close.
Beyond Women’s Month
The timing of the announcement is deliberate, with South Africa marking Women’s Month in August.
But the need for these services does not disappear when August ends.
The NSMSA’s placement helpline operates around the clock, and survivors can access the Movement’s nationwide network of support services by calling 0800 001 005.
Uber’s partnership with the NSMSA is also part of a broader global commitment from the company. In 2023, Uber committed $10 million over five years to organisations working to prevent, address and respond to gender-based violence through its Driving Change initiative.
In South Africa, that has included its work with the NSMSA and collaboration with the NISAA Institute for Women’s Development on gender sensitivity and safety education.
The company has also introduced services such as Women Driver Preferred, with product safeguards informed by local research and global best practice.
Technology cannot fix gender-based violence and an app cannot make an abusive home safe. An Uber ride cannot undo years of trauma. A corporate partnership cannot replace the social, legal and support systems needed to address violence against women and children.
BUT. Technology can sometimes do something much smaller: remove an obstacle.
And when that obstacle is the distance between a survivor and a safe place, removing it can matter enormously.
