MPHO RANTAO
FOUR years ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa asked the country to join him in pledging to work together and end the violence that men perpetrate against women and children in South Africa.
He then hosted the first Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF). This past week, the second Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide was held in Midrand. The theme for the summit was Accountability, Acceleration and Amplification, NOW!’, holding government officials accountable for the progress of the National Strategic Plan.
The voices of gender-based violence survivors were not amplified by the panellists or the ministers but by non-profit organisations (NPOs) and activists on the ground. Their voices were very prominent as they heavily criticised the business sector, the faith-based sector, the Department of Social Development (DSD), the Presidency, and the Department of Women, Youth and People with Disabilities (DWYPD) for not taking accountability.
Kwanele Foundation’s Sihle Sibisi did not hold back as she, along with other activists, criticised the government for their lack of progress with the GBVF response fund, the council and the National Treasury. At the summit, Sibisi heavily criticised Minister Lindiwe Zulu for her department’s contradictory actions. Minister Zulu had called for South Africans to report and hold government officials accountable when they break the law or partake in corruption.
Even the National Treasury could not escape the scalding criticisms when they were unable to share the accurate amount of the GBVF funds spent on appropriate programmes. Activists said that pushing funding forward as the reason for the lack of implementation was spurious considering the resources used to educate South Africans on Covid-19 and vaccinations.
“Cele, Covid-19 came, you as ministers and presidents were able to get money out of the rocks, grass and water to make sure that people even in the rural areas were educated about Covid-19,” Sibisi said to Police Minister Bheki Cele.
Sibisi said that if the government departments fulfilled their intentions and promise made in front of the public and adequately funded and resourced shelters for survivors of gender-based violence, then NPOs would have delivered less criticism.
“The satisfaction of saying we were heard will only be amplified once we see results in implementation. We need ministers to stop talking without implementing the action,” Sibisi said.
Activists called on the government to prioritise the increase in violence at a nationwide level and not selectively with highly-publicised murders. Ramaphosa called for everyone to study the pillars established for the GBVF. The six pillars are:
- Accountability, co-ordination and leadership
- Prevention and rebuilding social cohesion
- Justice, safety and protection
- Research and information system
- Economic power
- Response, care, support and healing.
He said that the pillars should be used to determine where the government has failed and to hold various stakeholders responsible.
“These barbaric acts are a shameful indictment of the men of this country. It is not women who are responsible for ending such crimes; it is men. As a society, ending violence against women and children cannot be anything but our foremost priority,” Ramaphosa said in his address at the summit.
President Ramaphosa reiterated his call and pushed for men to do more in their communities, yet in 2022 the endemic has only worsened. In the first quarter of 2022, there was a 52% increase and a 46% increase in women and children killed in the country respectively. In response to the criticisms, Minister Cele affirmed that the long-standing DNA backlog would be sorted by January 2023.
Minister Zulu provided more instructions for the department rather than assurances or solutions. She said that there was an urgent need to attract more social workers to the public sector, more funding for NPOs and more funding. Further calls were made for the summit to adopt more strategies that included sexual health education in schools and communities.
They said the summit’s response to GBVF needed to adopt an intersectional approach to ensure the inclusion of the perspectives and experiences of all those affected by GBVF. They called for more educational programs in schools and the promotion of sexual health workshops that address misogyny, patriarchy, and negative attitudes toward all women, vulnerable groups and members of the LGBTQI+ in South Africa.
“I would love to see government trust its people. There is no shortage of organisations that are doing an incredible job to fight gender-based violence in this country. The government simply needs to afford them with the skills and the funding that they need to better increase and capacitate their operations, and then we’ll begin to see a change,” Nicole Mirkim of NPO Fight Back SA told eNCA.
Questions were sent to the GBVF organisation and the DWYPD but no responses were received at the time of print.