Seychelles' Domestic Violence Act, 2020: Closing the Complaint-Withdrawal Loophole

On 10 June 2020, President Danny Faure signed Seychelles' Domestic Violence Act, replacing the Family Violence (Protection of Victims) Act of 2000. The new law, passed unanimously by the National Assembly, criminalises verbal, physical, emotional, sexual, economic and psychological abuse, and closes a longstanding loophole by barring complainants from withdrawing a case once it has been filed with police.

The reform was built on an evidence base assembled with the Commonwealth Secretariat, which conducted an economic-cost study, reviewed Seychelles' legal and policy framework, and trained officials and lawmakers ahead of the vote. The Ministry of Family Affairs recorded 371 domestic-violence reports in 2019 alone, more than 5,400 cases had reached the Family Tribunal between 2009 and 2019, and the Commonwealth's cost analysis put the toll of gender-based violence at 4.6% of GDP in 2016 — about a percentage point more than the country's entire education budget that year. Following passage, 25 police officers received specialised training in handling rape and serious sexual-assault cases.

The evidence trail is strongest on the “before”: the scale of the problem and the drafting process are well documented by the Commonwealth Secretariat, Seychelles' own statute text, and the U.S. State Department's human rights reporting. What is not yet available is a rigorous “after”: no publicly verifiable case, prosecution or conviction data has been published since the law took effect, and a 2023 Afrobarometer survey found Seychellois still rank gender-based violence as the top unresolved women's-rights issue in the country — a sign the legal reform has not yet been matched by measured results on the ground.

Read the full analysis: https://thecommonwealth.org/news/commonwealth-secretariat-welcomes-new-domestic-violence-law-seychelles