L Jacobus: Western Cape Women's Day Celebration

13 August 2007

Programme directors
The Inspecting Judge, Judge Yekiso
The Mayer of the Breede River Valley
Regional Commissioner
Deputy Regional Commissioner and members of your Management Team
Representatives from South African Media and Gender Institute (SAMGI), Kanya
Corporate Social Investment and Dell South Africa, our sponsors
Honoured guests
Managers and officials of Correctional Services
Offenders here present
Ladies and gentlemen

It is now the 51st year since the historic march of hundreds of thousands of
women to the Union Buildings to make their indelible mark in the struggle for
freedom, democracy and development in South Africa. From then to date women
have been at the forefront of the struggles and sacrifices to bring a better
life for all our people.

Today, our historical and moral obligation is to pay tribute to these
pioneers and many other women that followed on their footsteps over the years,
not just by partying and fanfares, but by asking the critical question, how far
are we as a nation to the ideals they sacrificed for and how can we expedite
the advances to those ideals?

Over the past 13 years of freedom and democracy we have made strides as a
nation to mainstream gender issues through our new constitution, many pieces of
legislation and various policies adopted by our government. The numbers of
women in key strategic position of power and influence has grown phenomenally
over the years including the Cabinet, provincial executive councils, municipal
councils, government agencies and also in terms of employment figures in all
these structures including government departments. Various other interventions
aimed at fighting poverty and underdevelopments including the social wage
provided by our government have made some difference to millions of women who
would have otherwise gone hungry and very poor with their children. The
indications are that numbers of people in the lowest three Living Standards
Measures (LSMs), the overwhelming majority of whom are women is decreasing.
More women have access to housing, education, health, free basic services and
other broader issues to realise gender equity in all spheres of life.

As government we have renewed our pledge to women's emancipation,
empowerment, equality and poverty eradication through programmes such as the
Expanded Public Works Programme, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative
for South Africa (AsgiSA), and the cluster-based programmes focusing on women.
The government will continue to work with its social partners to promote the
economic empowerment of women in accessing finance and fast-tracking of skills
development at all levels.

Although we do acknowledge that at a macro level there we have made a
significant difference through the interventions in have mentioned, the rate of
change is still unacceptably slow if we want to effectively deal with the
legacy of the past. The acceleration of women's emancipation, empowerment,
ensuring of equality and in eradication of poverty, will need multiplied and
collective national effort beyond government.

This is a framework within which we delivery correctional services in South
Africa and as a microcosm of society, we need to ask exactly the same national
questions that are facing our nation during the second decade of freedom.

What is our contribution to accelerating the emancipation, empowerment,
equality and eradication of poverty for the benefit of all women within our
care, most of which will be released to a less receptive society with greater
propensity for them to fall into the tentacles of the grinding poverty facing
millions of women outside there.

In Correctional Services with about 161 000 inmates, women constitute an
absolute minority with just above two percent of the total offender population.
The threat of ignoring such a minority is real especially if one considers the
challenges of delivering on our core mandate and the impediments we have to
surpass.

As I believe most people are now aware, the White Paper adopted by the
Cabinet in February 2005 enjoins us to entrench a new ethos in delivering
correctional services. In keeping with that direction we have finalised a model
for giving practical meaning to the new policy direction, the Offender
Rehabilitation Path (ORP). The nine phase programme seeks to re-engineer our
offender management approach to be needs based and informed by an offender's
life cycle as each stage demands different interventions by the Department and
other players in government and society.

The nine phases of the ORP include:

1. admissions to correctional facility
2. assessments which include orientation and profiling
3. allocation to an incarceration unit in line with one's risk profile and
classification
4. interventions that are informed by a sentence plan
5. monitoring and evaluation of progress made in implementing the sentence
plan
6. placement phase that includes consideration of placement on parole or
correctional supervision
7. allocation to a pre-release unit for training or last interventions before
placement in communities
8. admission to a community corrections office with a clear plan as well for
implementation
9. with the last phase focusing on the management of probationers, who are
directly placed under community corrections by courts.

Today, in receiving the computer equipment donated by South African Media
Gender Institute (SAMGI) and their sponsor Dell South Africa we will be able to
equip women in our care for the information age. This kind of gesture could not
have come at a better time. These computers are a beacon of hope for about 120
women offenders housed in this Correctional Centre who will learn the skills
necessary for accessing the information highway. With information you have
power to exercise and demand your rights, access opportunities and gain even
greater power to play a role in determining not just your individual future,
but our national destiny.

At the core of people's poverty and underdevelopment is lack of access to
information critical for them to change their lives for the better, like
accessing government support, economic opportunities available as well as
exercise of rights guaranteed in our constitution and legislation etc.

Development trends of the current information age across the world shows
that the exponential growth of information and technology remains skewed in
favour the wealthy and the haves, while those trapped in poverty and
underdevelopment remain without or very limited access to these tools of
today's trade.

We have an obligation to consciously strive to balance these social ills by
asking ourselves, are these services, skills and capabilities available to the
weakest in our society, which is women in rural areas, informal settlements and
women in our correctional facilities? If the question is not affirmative, we
should know there is still a long way to go to realise the ideals for which our
1956 pioneers struggled and sacrificed.

One critical inhibiting factor is that the costs of these facilities that
help enhance the emancipation, empowerment and the fight against poverty are
out of reach of many people because of costs. In the context of many competing
priorities of building additional correctional centres to help reduce
overcrowding, development and rollout of corrections and rehabilitation
programmes as well as beefing up the security in our facilities, the provision
of computers for underserved staff in outlying areas and for women offenders in
our care suffers.

In the light of these challenges, the donation of computers and skills for
our women offenders in Worcester Correctional Centre comes as a life saver.

We therefore take our hats off to the donors. We will forever cherish your
great hearts that have inspired you to give to those in great need. This is an
investment not just in Correctional Services but to our nation which aspires to
be among the best in the world.

We should equally take our hats off the Regional Commissioner and his
management, the staff of Correctional Services in this facility for their role
in making this dream a reality. May you continue to open your hearts, use your
energies and make your mark in building a national partnership to correct,
rehabilitate and re-integrate offenders back into society for a safer and a
prosperous South Africa? South Africa is our home, with our lives inextricably
linked to one another in more ways than meets the eye and the conscious mind,
and therefore every contribution you are making whether materially of in kind
is most valuable to us.

I want to believe the improvement of women representation in key decision
making structure of various societal institutions including the private sectors
has a lot to do with these great decisions being made both in the private
sector and government. Women have taken their place in a democratic South
Africa by taking advantage of the opportunities brought about through
democracy.

Definitely a commitment exists in government to recognise women as critical
players in a developmental society.

However the vision of a non-sexist, non-racial, democratic, united and
prosperous South Africa can only be realised when women are free of domestic
violence and abuse, when they can access all opportunities available with equal
chances at every sphere of society.

To all of you I appeal today, let us not take for granted the environment we
have created as government, but optimise the use of the opportunities created
by this environment. By doing so I do believe that all of you will be able to
serve with pride and making Correctional Services indeed a place of new
beginnings.

I thank you

Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
13 August 2007
Source: Department of Correctional Services (http://www.dcs.gov.za)