Other initiatives include: • 17 Thuthuzela Care Centres established across the country in communities with high incidents of sexual violence by March 2009. • 19 Victim Empowerment Projects (VEP) funded by the Criminal Asset Recovery Funds.17 • Development of the Directory on Services for Victims of Violence and Crime which contains services provided by over 1 500 organisations (government and civil society) in all provinces. The directory empowers people to access services that are available in their area. • Victim friendly facilities which have been established in high contact crime police stations. • The development and sustaining of dedicated Sexual Offences Courts. • The Domestic Violence Act provided for shelters to be established. There are currently 96 shelters in South Africa, from 39 in 2001.The development of a Men and Boys Strategy on the Prevention of Gender Violence. The Strategy was piloted in one province in 2009 8.3 Crime South Africa’s CRR highlighted the importance of an integrated approach that simultaneously tackles the challenges confronting the criminal justice system while attending to the most pressing socio-economic challenges. During the period under review, government intensified efforts to strengthen the criminal justice system by undertaking a number of initiatives. In 2009, Government established the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, commonly known as the Hawks. The Directorate is mandated to prevent, combat and investigate national priority offences such as organised crime, corruption, economic crime as well as any other crime referred to them (Hawks) by the National Police Commissioner. In the same year, government reviewed the human capital requirements for specific occupational categories in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). As a result, the total number of prosecutors employed increased from 2 488 in March 2009 to 2 571 in September 2009. Furthermore, the South African Police Services (SAPS) launched 17 This is a fund created out of proceeds of crime as repossessed by the Asset Forfeiture Unit. 51