Deputy Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize: The Family Law Dialogue

Programme Director
The Executive Mayor of Ekurhuleni, Mzwandile Masina
Hon Judge of Bloemfontein, Justice
Representative of UNWOMEN Ms Anne Githuku,
Representative of UNODC, Ms
The MMC for Women
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and gentleman

We have gathered here today as we wrap up the month of celebration, honour and remembrance of the role played by women for their own liberation and the liberation of all our people from oppression.

August has been declared as women’s month, to allow us a dedicated period through which to reflect on where we come from, deepen our understanding of the current challenges facing us, and sharpen our resolve and determination to overcome the hurdles that are still delay the total liberation of women in our country.

As we conclude the celebration of the women’s month, we pay homage to our forebears who stood up when it was not fashionable to do so, to raise their voices and face the might of the repressive state in the midst of adversity.
#WHATWOMENWANT

As a Ministry, we launched the women’s month with a dialogue with development partners and announced that we will continue having dialogues with different members of society so that our interventions are informed by lived experiences of our people.
Programme director, throughout the different conversations, dialogues, consultations and celebrations we have engaged in this month, as the Department in collaboration with Government communications, opened up our channels and asked women to talk to us without fear under the topic of “What Women Want” and I can assure you right now that an inclusive economy is one of them, Education and skills features at the top, jobs and equal pay definitely comes up, but at the top of the list, women want access to justice.

This is a common cry for women across the country despite their back round, their circumstances, regardless of the communities

they come from, their age and sexual orientation. The one thing I have constantly heard in all my engagements this month has been a cry for a fair and inclusive justice system. South African women feel unsafe and they think the justice system is not designed in their favour.

South Africa is rated amongst the highest countries in the world that are unequal and unsafe for women. But we have to do better, we as women who advocate for society in government have to do better, women who serve in the judicial system have to do better, women who lead civil society groups have to do better. Because If we do not do better to elevate the fight of the millions of voiceless south African women, then we are not doing justice to the women who fought before us, to ourselves and definitely to the future female generation of this country.

As you all know, South Africa has the most progressive legislation in the world but women are the most abused in the world, where is the problem?

How is it possible that with equality enshrined in the Constitution do we have such unequal society, a violent society especially by men to women? Why do we have men in their majority still occupying leadership positions? Why do we have unequal pay salary for the same job, why is the private sector getting away with murder? Where is this gap in the law that citizens of the country can do this with impunity?

Government Efforts on GBV
Government has recognised that levels of Gender-Based Violence and Femicide in South Africa have reached crisis level. Women and girl-children along with members of the LGBTQI community live under constant fear of safety, even amongst their loved ones. Intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence in this country. More than half of all women murdered in this country are killed by an intimate partner. This rate is five times higher than the global average.

Government continues to strengthen its efforts in ensuring a free and safe South Africa for all, the vision is a country where all people, particularly women, children, and gender non-conforming persons are and feel safe, and most importantly have access to justice.

Government has done a lot with trauma centres and victim empowerment centres that have been established across the country. The increase of Sexual offences courts, the outreach of police officers, forensic nurses and role players that has been prioritized to curb domestic violence and femicide.

The key objective of a single government approach is to assist in addressing the systematic drivers of violence, to strengthen alliances within the women and LGBTQI movement’s and thus meet the needs of survivors and communities.

This week we had an intense discussion with members of the LGBTQI communities from different parts of the country, we need to strengthen our legislation and monitoring tools to ensure that justice in this country is for all. We cannot tackle issues affecting marginalized citizens of this country with a calm spirit.

There is a need for government to investigate harmful religious and cultural practices that lead to the sexual exploitation of

women and children. Victims of Gender-Based Violence need to be treated fairly and respect, meaning that the justice system should create a safe space for women to have confidence it the system. Women are reluctant to report any form of violence or crime due to how the justice system is set up. This just by just reporting the case and gathering enough evidence to support the case is emotionally draining.

Gender sensitivity training, the society sees the judiciary as insensitive to women and taken a very traditional patriarchal stance that says a woman’s place is in the house therefore, when a woman is attacked at night, in a bar the focus is not on the perpetrator of the violence but on the victim. Why was she out at night? Why was she at the bar alone?

What is shocking and stopping some women for laying charges against their attackers including men who rape them, is the questions asked to the survivor? What were you wearing?

Victims of crime should not undergo interrogation as if they’re the perpetrators. Gender based violence victims in this country should be treated with professionalism and empathy.

The manner in which the justice system deals with victims of rape, sexual assaults and abuse also contribute more trauma on the victims. We cannot fight against Gender-based violence and push for women empowerment while our justice system is failing us.
What I would also want to understand is the sentencing process. How someone who rapes and kills a child is given twenty years and what this basically means as we heard from the survivors that spoke at the Presidential Summit on GBVF is actually eight or six years. How will these sentences deter would be perpetrators from doing the same horrific act?

Child Maintenance
Programme Director, how can we talk about family law and not zone in on one of the biggest social ills that women in this country have had no choice but to accept as a norm?
As a country we are struggling with children who are a burden of a state but their fathers are employed in both private and public sector and contribute not even a cents.

According to a Stats SA report released in August 2018, South Africa has one of the highest rates of absent fathers in sub-Saharan Africa and according to released figures, in almost a million of the registered birth occurrences in South Africa, 62% of births have no father's details. This puts a heavy weight on women to raise children alone, depend on social grants and most of them cannot afford legal services to be able to win court cases against the fathers of their children.

How can we use the law to deter men from going around making babies that they have no intention of fathering by having minimum sentence on that? We hear stories that courts gave and maintenance order of five hundred Rand (R500) because that father still has to maintain his lifestyle.

Their cases get dismissed and some don’t even make it to a court of law because the judge handling it is a man whose patriarchal advantage might not be able to allow him to relate to the pain that women face on a daily when they have to put their lives aside to raise children alone.

Access to Justice for Widows
Again, when we speak about Women’s Month and where we come from as a country, we should never forget that black women suffered triple oppression (race, gender and class / culture), especially those married under customary law, which was not regarded as marriage but union, who regarded as minors by the Black Administration Act 1927 and placed under the tutelage of their husbands.

South Africa recognises civil marriage as legal, but everywhere in the country widows, particularly black widows whose build homes with their husband still have to fight family when their husband are deceased as they cannot easily take ownership of their own homes due to exorbitant request of documents and expensive lawyers to afford them the justice they should not be fighting for in the first place.

Changing negative social norms and gender stereotypes must be challenged at all times, especially by influencers in modern society who have the ability to bring about behavioural change in society, especially within the justice system.

Representation in the Justice System
Programme Director, we need a true reflection of South Africa when we look at decision-making structures in our country, especially in the justice and legal sector, we admit the legislative arm of the state has done exceptionally well with most of the previous presiding officers of the National Assembly being women.

The Executive has had a fair representation of women including the appointment of two former Deputy Presidents being women. It is at the level of the judiciary that the pace of transformation in terms of gender representation has been pain-stakingly slow.

It has been a long and tedious journey for women representation within the judiciary. From the appointment of Leonora van den Heever as the first female judge ever to the Kimberly bench in 1969, the appointment of Yvonne Mokgoro and Kate O’Regan as the first female ConCourt judges in 1994 to the appointment of Mandisa Maya as the first female and Black female President of the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2017.

I also wish to acknowledge the Judge President of the North West Division, Judge President Monica Leeuw. In 1994 at the birth of our democratic nation, we had 165 judges out of which 160 were white males, three black males and two white females.

I have checked the latest available annual report of the department of Justice and found that some progress has been made in addressing the issue of gender representation with 37% or 90 of the 253 judges being women.

In a country where women are in the majority, it is still not enough to have only 37% representation of women in the Judiciary given the important role bestowed on our Courts as arbiters on enforcement of rights and interpretation of our statutes.
My other observation is with regards to the role that the media can play in enticing young women into the legal profession.

I am sure it is your experience just as it is mine that more often than not, the voice of a man will always be called upon to comment on almost any legal matter in our current affairs as if there are no women who are knowledgeable and could comment on such matters.

Programme Director!

I have always asked myself if we are also doing enough as women to take charge of our destiny. What role can we play to develop and empower other women to rise to the levels we currently occupy?

Is it too much to ask those who are occupying strategic leadership positions within the legal fraternity to contribute to the human resource development of other women through coaching, mentoring, seminars and other platforms?
Legal empowerment of women and girls is central to creating a culture of justice. Not only does it improve women’s access to justice, but also the quality of justice they receive. Through legal empowerment, women become equipped to claim their rights and demand accountability, while at the same time bringing about sustained change in their communities.

The face of poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment in our country is predominantly female. Justice delayed is Justice denied. The perception of women in this country, especially women in the rural areas and informal settlements is that only cases of celebrities get attention and fast tracked through the courts while their cases are being postponed forever until they do not follow up anymore.

Another biggest challenge for women with access to justice is commonly, formal barriers that we all know like lack of affordable legal representation. We all know that getting good lawyers is expensive and we are told you must get a lawyer who will get an advocate etc. while the perpetrators have an army of lawyers.

The cost of accessing justice in our country favours the rich and there is also a perception out there that justice is only for those whose pockets are deep enough to provide them with access.

Just by way of example, there are two cases that come to mind of men who had killed women in our country. In the one case widely reported even by the international media, the judgement, and presentation of mitigating and aggravating factors as well as sentencing were each done on separate days with about two weeks breaks for each of the stages. In the other case, judgement was passed in the morning, by midday, mitigating and aggravating factors were presented and when the court adjourned for the day, sentencing was concluded.

As we rebuild our country, all of us should ask ourselves the question; have I done everything in my power to contribute to the course of women in my space of operation? We should also remain vigilant against the enemies of women empowerment and gender equality.

I implore members of this profession as well as all our professional bodies in the legal fraternity to help in bringing about a South Africa that all her people are proud to call home, a South Africa alive with unlimited possibilities. As a Department, we are looking forward to working with SAC-IAWJ and SAWLA as we continue with the dialogues in all provinces.

We should do so, such that long after we would have gone to the world after today, future generations could say of us:
“You played your part, whatever your chosen part, and then you left the arena in a state so well maintained that a new movement had to exist and carry the baton”

I thank you