As funding dries up, one of South Africa's few forensic nurses faces losing her post.

When Nontuthuzelo Ntwana talks about her work, her voice carries no embellishment. Just a quiet clarity. For nearly two decades, as a forensic nurse, she has worked at the point where violence becomes evidence, where survivors of rape and assault take their first steps towards seeking justice.

She is one of only two full-time forensic nurses in the Western Cape. Her job is to restore dignity to survivors and to make sure that what happened to them is seen, recorded and cannot be erased. She completes the J88 medical-legal forms, collects DNA through crime kits, documents injuries, prescribes emergency contraception and HIV prevention, and connects survivors with counselling. "What I do is the same as what the doctors do," she tells me, "but nurses are never recognised, never empowered to lead this work."

Her path to forensic nursing began in 2005. Back then, she watched community after community turn on its own children. Girls would disclose rape by neighbours, uncles, even their own fathers, only to be called liars. "That's when my passion started," she says. "The mothers were not supporting their children. They couldn't...