Honourable Chairperson,
Ministers,
Deputy Ministers, Honourable Members of Parliament.
We come from a past where violence was a norm including the previous state which was violent and justified violence. Within this context women and children suffered violence and abuse in various forms; physically, sexually, emotionally, psychologically, economically and others and children did not escape the same.
Women who were raped were always blamed for being blamed or not believed that they were raped because of the cautionary rule. Women suffered in silence with no space and institutional arrangement for recourse and their human rights were violated on a daily basis.
Even before the dawn of democracy the African National Congress (ANC), its leagues and alliance partners already were playing a pivotal role in addressing violence against women and children underpinned by the 1954 Women’s Charter which aimed for equality for women. It is the ANC-led government since the dawn of democracy that introduced measures to address the scourge of violence against women and children.
The introduction of the National Crime Prevention Strategy in 1996 inculcated a victim-centred approach in the criminal justice system. The spin-off has been a plethora of legislation, either new or amended, that affirms victims’ rights and ranges from firearm control to domestic violence legislation. Protocols, norms and standards have been developed, for example, the Uniform Protocol for Services for Victims of Crime, 2005, the Patients’ Rights Charter and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Customer Services Charter.
The other spin-off has been the implementation of the Restorative Justice approach that aims to involve the parties to a dispute and others affected by the harm (victims, offenders, families concerned and community members) in collectively identifying harms, needs and obligations through accepting responsibilities, making restitution, and taking measures to prevent a recurrence of the incident and promoting reconciliation.
Institutional mechanisms such as the Specialised Sexual Offences Courts, Thuthuzela Care Centres, Family, Child and Sexual Offences Units, Domestic Violence Courts, Correctional Supervision Boards and others were established in order to create space and provide institutional arrangement for recourse and to promote women’s human rights.
The ANC government appreciated the importance of understanding the causes of domestic violence as some of the perpetrators are themselves victims of domestic violence; they are hurting and therefore want to hurt others too. Our approach to this scourge must be multipronged in order to ensure that we address even the causes of violence against women and children.
Hence the introduction of Restorative Justice which sees crime as an act against the victim and shifts the focus to repairing the harm that has been committed against the victim and the community. It believes that the offender also needs assistance and seeks to identify what needs to change to prevent future re-offending.
We need to introspect on how we raise our children, do we give them an impression that it is ok to solve our problems through violence or do we prohibit violence no matter what? As the ANC we continue to work towards the eradication violence in society, specifically against women and children, in all its forms. As such the 53rd conference of the ANC took a resolution that social transformation continues to be a critical building block for our country. At the centre of social transformation is the total emancipation of women articulated in the 1994 Women’s Charter for Effective Equality.
We need to continue to systematically fight against patriarchy and any other form of abuse against women and children in the family, the workplace and society. Furthermore the establishment in the Presidency of a Ministry responsible for Women shows the seriousness and commitment of the ANC-led government to achieving a non-racial, non-sexist, prosperous society.
While several gains have been made and many milestones achieved, challenges still remain. More work needs to be done to ensure the transformation of power relations between women, men, institutions and laws; elements that are fundamental in building an inclusive, progressive and prosperous society, these requires me an you to play our part. We need to focus our efforts on addressing gender inequality, poverty, unemployment, oppression, patriarchy and sexism which are the main drivers of violence and abuse against women.
Chairperson, despite this harsh reality, the increased reporting on violence and abuse against women and children especially instances of domestic violence and sexual offences such as rape indicates that response and support mechanisms, programmes and awareness campaigns are beginning to bear fruits. This further shows the confidence that the public has in the criminal justice system and the ANC-led government.
Unless we shift from only viewing violence against women and children as a government or criminal justice system problem to realising that it is very much a societal problem we will always miss the mark in our efforts to eradicate this scourge in our communities. The nature of GBV is such that it cuts across class and race and shames us collectively as a people. In order to eradicate this shame we must work together sparing no effort to root it out from society.
However a question that bugs me when I think about the scourge of violence against women and children is what do we do when we witness violence against women and children. If we act collectively we would dent the scourge. So today I am challenging you by asking you to answer this straight forward question; when a child was molested what did you do, when a women was assaulted by her partner, family member or stranger what did you do?
As we approach the 16 Days Activism Campaign on No Violence Against Women and Children approaches what are you going to do to be counted.
I thank you!
