About 7.3 million South African women have experienced physical violence in their lifetime.
Each square is 1 in 100 women.
Tech for GBV.
Sixele gives women a safe way to document abuse, and lets the people they trust act on that record if they cannot. We are raising the money to finish it, have it checked, and put it in the hands of the first 1,000 women.
What women in South Africa face
Six in ten women murdered in 2020/21 were killed by an intimate partner: about three women every day.
A partner 60%Someone else 40%
In 2020/21, police never identified who did it in 44% of murders of women, more than double the share in 1999. Fewer than one in five killings by a partner ended in a conviction.
- 19%1999
- 23%2009
- 30%2017
- 44%2020/21
Two in three women abused by a partner told family. Fewer than one in three went to the police.
Police were four times as likely to make an arrest when they took a written statement from her.
A Sixele record is not a police statement. It is her own account, sealed with the date and time she saved it, and her guardians are the people she already tells. That is not proof that Sixele will help her case. It is why we think it is worth building.
What Sixele does
Legal footing
Sealed records
Every entry is fingerprinted and timestamped the moment it is saved, and chained to the entry before it. Any later change breaks the fingerprint, so tampering shows. The record is built around what a South African court weighs when it assesses electronic evidence.
No single key
Guardian consensus
She picks her guardians. They install nothing and see nothing until two of them say they cannot reach her. No single person can open her file. Where she has no one safe to ask, we want Sixele itself to be able to stand in; that is part of what the second round of funding builds.
Honest about its limits
Private on her phone
On her phone nothing shows the Sixele name, mark or a notification, and her safe sits behind a phrase and a PIN. It guards against a glance, not a forced unlock, and we tell her so.
Built inside the law, and honest about its limits
This section describes the Acts in plain words. It is not legal advice, and counsel's review of it is part of what the funding pays for.
The law
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Protection of Personal Information Act
POPIA, Act 4 of 2013
What she records is personal information, and much of it is special personal information. It is kept only with her consent and only as she adds it, and the policy that says so in full is being written with counsel.
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Electronic Communications and Transactions Act
ECTA, Act 25 of 2002, section 15
Electronic records can be admitted as evidence. Their weight depends on how reliably they were made and stored, and whether they were kept intact. The seal is designed to show exactly that.
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Domestic Violence Act
Act 116 of 1998, as amended in 2021
Recognises physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, psychological and economic abuse, among others. A dated, sealed record can support her application for a protection order.
The ethics
- She is in control. No one can install Sixele on her phone or use it to watch her. Nothing leaves her phone unless she sets it up.
- Guardians see nothing until they agree. Her file stays closed to everyone until two guardians say together that they cannot reach her.
- We say what it cannot do. The protection on her phone guards against a glance, not a forced unlock, and the app tells her that plainly.
- No scores, streaks or nudges. The app never rates her danger, praises her, counts what she has left to do, or reminds her to add more.
- It is free to her. A payment is one more thing on a statement that someone else can read. Sixele never charges her.
A letter from the founder
Hi,
Thank you so much for your interest in funding this project.
Sixele version 1 needs to be safe and thoroughly tested before any woman relies on it. To reach that goal, we need to cross many more milestones before we launch. The first, bootstrapped funding is to get a working app ready to be released to the app stores and demonstrated to counselling partners and organisations. I think we can get there for less than R50,000 in building costs, like AI credits, registration fees, software licences and hosting.
Thereafter, funding pays for independent review: hiring experts to check the app's security and legal footing, and getting feedback from organisations experienced in helping women facing domestic abuse crises. This may cost anywhere from R150,000 to R500,000. Before we raise that, I'm planning to register Sixele as a non-profit and apply to SARS for section 18A approval, to make gifts tax-deductible and hopefully open more doors to donations. Until then, gifts go to a private company and are not tax-deductible.
Round 2 of funding will include raising money to set Sixele up as a trusted contact for women who have no one safe to ask, to translate the app into more South African languages, and to decentralise the storage of her information, making it even more secure than the encrypted central storage planned for version 1. In addition to seeking impact donors, I plan to make crowdfunding available for this second stage of fundraising.
If you are considering funding this project, please reach out to support@sixele.co.za and I'd love to talk it all through. Sixele is currently a passion project alongside my full-time job, so please expect a response within 24 to 48 hours.
Kindly,
CP
| Item | What it pays for | Awarded by |
|---|---|---|
| First, bootstrapped: a working app · under R50,000 | ||
| Finish the app | Build and test it on Android phones and iPhones until it is ready for the app stores and to show counselling partners: AI credits, registration fees and software licences | |
| The service | Hosting for guardian alerts and the sealed copy of her file, for 1,000 women for 12 months | Amazon Web Services US$1,000 in AWS Activate credits, October 2026 |
| Then, before launch: independent review · R150,000 to R500,000 | ||
| Security review | An independent review of the safe and the seal before launch | |
| Legal review | About 40 hours of a South African lawyer, R65,000 to R200,000 (about US$4,000 to US$12,000). It covers POPIA, the consent wording, and how records are handled as evidence. | |
| Feedback from organisations | Organisations experienced in helping women facing domestic abuse crises try it, including on low-cost phones, and tell us what to change | |
| Round 2: impact donors and crowdfunding | ||
| Sixele as a trusted contact | Trained people who can act as one of her guardians where she has no one safe to ask | |
| More languages | Translation and testing in isiXhosa, isiZulu and Afrikaans | |
| Decentralised storage | Spreading where her information is kept, so it is even more secure than the encrypted central storage planned for version 1 | |
What we have not tested yet
We would rather tell you now. Part of this funding closes these gaps.
- How it reads on a low-cost Android phone with a cracked screen, at night, with large text switched on.
- isiXhosa, isiZulu and Afrikaans. Everything is written in English so far.
- Screen readers, read aloud from start to finish.
- Feature phones. Sixele needs a smartphone.
- The service that carries guardian alerts. It runs in development and is not yet in production.
I'd love to hear from you
Whether you are thinking of funding Sixele, you work with women facing abuse, or you have a question about anything on this page, write to me at support@sixele.co.za.