Abstract

In an era when digital platforms mediate intimate relationships and social participation, harms increasingly blur the boundaries between online abuse and offline violence. This article interrogates South Africa’s evolving response to technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) through the lens of victim protection and secondary victimisation. It argues that existing debates do not adequately account for this and, as such, risk reproducing structural inequities within the justice system. Using a qualitative doctrinal methodology grounded in feminist victimology, the study combines statutory interpretation, constitutional analysis, and comparative case review to evaluate how the law conceptualises and responds to digital harms. Drawing on literature, policy instruments, and case law, it examines how psychosocial support, access to justice, and institutional cultures shape survivors’ experiences. This perspective centres survivor experience, power asymmetries, and the risk of institutional re-traumatisation within formal legal processes. The non-consensual distribution of intimate images (NCDII) is adopted as a case study to illustrate coercive online–offline continuums of harm and highlight systemic gaps in prevention, redress, and victim support. The article then maps the fragmented legislative framework comprising the Cybercrimes Act 19 of 2020, the Films and Publications Amendment Act 11 of 2019, the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007, the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998, and the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013, and analyses case law including KS v AM and SHM, FGX v Gaunt, and R v SA. It concludes by proposing a harmonised, survivor-friendly model that embeds victim protections, including institutional accountability, into South Africa’s legislative response to TFGBV. Such a model is anchored in constitutional commitments to dignity, equality, and access to justice, and demands a shift from reactive criminalisation to proactive, victim-centred governance.