Ethical approval
was received from both the South African Medical Research Council, Research Ethics Committee (EC002/2/2018) and the Department of Higher Education and Training. The pilot trial was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04607564) on 29/10/2020. Research assistants sent short message service (SMS) texts and followed up with telephone calls to invite participants to be part of the follow up study via. They asked the participant’s preference for remittance of the full study information sheet between WhatsApp, SMS or email. Participants returned a signed copy of the consent form before participating. All participants were assured that the information they provided in the study would be handled confidentially and that the findings of the study will be reported with complete anonymity. All data were uploaded and stored on the secure server where data access is restricted to only the researchers. The research assistants gave participants lists of GBV support service providers on and close to their location at the time of the study. Participants were reimbursed with (South African Rand (ZAR) 50) cash vouchers and received data (ZAR 15) to remotely access and complete the follow-up survey questionnaire.