President Cyril Ramaphosa and Deputy President Paul Mashatile will on Wednesday, 27 March 2024, lead Cabinet’s signing of a pledge against gender-based violence which the President initiated in the 2024 State of the Nation Address.
All men in the country are urged to attach their signature as a demonstration of their personal commitment to ending this scourge.
Wednesday’s signing will take place at 11h00 at the Women’s Memorial at the Union Buildings during a brief adjournment of a Cabinet meeting.
President Ramaphosa, Deputy President Mashatile and male Ministers will append their signatures to a symbolic, large-format version of the pledge. Male Deputy Ministers have also been invited to express their commitment in this way.
Soon after members of the national executive sign the pledge, the document will be posted online to allow men across the country to add their names as signatories. The pledge will progressively be made available in other formats to men all around the country.
The pledge forms part of the effort, conceptualised in the National Strategic Plan on Gender-based Violence and Femicide (GBVF), to end GBV altogether by mobilising all of society.
In this regard, President Ramaphosa said in the February 2024 State of the Nation Address that government supported calls for a pledge that men in South Africa are invited to demonstrate their personal commitment to ending the scourge of GBVF.
Jointly developed by government and civil society following the historic 2018 Presidential Summit on Gender-based Violence and Femicide, the National Strategic Plan on GBVF was adopted in 2020 as a society-wide programme to end gender-based violence and femicide.
The plan aims to provide a multi-sectoral, coherent strategic policy and plan to strengthen a coordinated national response to the crisis of gender-based violence and femicide by government and the country as a whole.
The 10-year national strategy on GBVF seeks to address the needs and challenges faced by all, especially women across age, sexual orientation, sexual and gender identities; and specific groups such as elderly women, women who live with disability, migrant women and trans women, affected and impacted by the gender-based violence scourge in South Africa.
Around R21 billion has been dedicated over the medium term to the implementation of the six pillars of the strategic plan, including the economic empowerment of women.
Details of the Anti - GBV Pledge Signing Ceremony are as follows:
Date: Wednesday, 27 March 2024
Time: 11:00 (Media to arrive by 10:00)
Venue: Women’s Memorial, Union Buildings
Media wishing to cover the pledge signing are requested to fill in the attached form and submit it to Khutjo@presidency.gov.za or on WhatsApp 079 898 4621 by 16h00, Monday 25 March 2024.
Media enquiries:
Vincent Magwenya, Spokesperson to the President
Email: media@presidency.gov.za
