The Honourable Deputy Minister: Professor Hlengiwe Mkhize, MP In The Presidency Responsible for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.
Chairperson
Honorable Members of the Portfolio Committee for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities & all other honourable members present today.
Honorable Minister, Nkoana Mashabene, In the Presidency Responsible for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.
Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers present
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Honoured Guests
Fellow South Africans
As South Africa commemorates 25 years of Democracy, we cannot help but reflect on legacy related challenges such as socio-economic inequality, gender based violence, institutionalized patriarchy and its related social ills, youth unemployment and lack of economic inclusion for persons with disabilities.
While the country seeks new ways of dealing with old problems, it is important that our implementation strategies and targets leapfrog the country to an equitable society.
We also have to develop strong administrative systems and processes, prevent corrupt practices and inefficiencies in government systems.
In recognition of the complexity of South Africa’s historical and persistent structural inequality, as articulated by our President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa during his State Of the Nation of Address in May 2019, the new department gives us an opportunity to re-align priorities by responding to the needs of women, youth and persons with disabilities.
The department’s programs in addressing issues affecting Women, Youth & Persons with Disabilities are set to mirror, The National Development Plan: Vision 2030 and are aligned to the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Developmental Goals.
In the Stats South Africa’s 2019 Report released on the 15th of July, It is stated that approximately 74% of the Sustainable Development Goals are addressed through the National Development Plan: Vision 2030 and South Africa’s sectoral policies and programs address 19% of the remaining targets. SDG’s are seen as an accelerator to the realization of the National Development Plan targets. Reference will be made to,
i. Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
ii. Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable development
iii. Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
iv. Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
v. Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
While looking at the UN Sustainable goals, we cannot overlook the importance of the 7 key priorities as outlined in the State Of the Nation Address. For the 2019/20 financial year we have earmarked 3 with a direct impact on issues that affect Women, Youth & Persons with Disabilities.
i. Economic Transformation and Job Creation
ii. Education, Skills and Health
iii. Social Cohesion and Safe Communities Economic Transformation and Job Creation.
Chairperson, in order for us to make significant gains in creating an inclusive economy we have to have a paradigm shift. Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities are at the forefront of inequality in this country, yet they are the most skilled. What they need is programs that will upscale them and provide pathways that enable them to attain economic independence. The United Nations’ sustainable developmental goals are a great mirror to reflect on. Most of the goals speak directly to what, not only the country but the world should focus on to eliminate all inequalities and social ills. Goals number 1 & 2 which are No Poverty & Zero Hunger require us to implement a more solid focus on Economic transformation and Job Creation. During his state of the nation address, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gave the country a target to eradicate hunger in 10 years’ time. These goals cannot be achieved if the people most affected are not empowered. What we commit is to ensure that our sister departments i.e. Agricultural Forestry & Fisheries as well as Small Business amongst others have programs in place that have a direct impact in the betterment of Women, Youth & Persons with Disabilities. Sustainable Development goal number 5 which is “Gender Equality” is one of the biggest mandates in the forefront of this department & to achieve this we need a collaborative effort between the private & public sector in tackling the plight of patriarchal tendencies especially in industries i.e Farming, Manufacturing, Engineering, Fishing, Technology and many others which were previously male dominated.
The department is committing to promoting a meaningful participation in the above mentioned sectors to demonstrate that intentional collaboration between government and the private sector within different industries can create sustainable jobs. We need to ensure that Women, Youth and Persons with disabilities are better equipped to gain access to these programs to contribute to the economy as skilled citizens and taxpayers.
There has indeed been great inroads and partnerships made through several government initiatives.
i. Back in 2003 government launched the Expanded Public Works and Community Programs with a focus on creating part time work opportunities in labor intensive activities.
ii. In 2009 the department of trade industry and economic development introduced a program called intsimbi which provided incubation for enterprise and supplier development as well as much needed incentives.
More than 2 000 young people completed the Intsimbi training program with over 99% of them being black and 30% black females. Graduates were successfully placed in companies with some of them joining creative teams in some of SA’s leading automotive and packaging companies. iii. In 2013 government introduced the Employment Tax Incentive aimed at encouraging employers to hire youth. Companies would be incentivized by reducing the amount of PAYE owed by the employer to SARS without affecting the employees' wages.
iv. Another great initiative by government in partnership with the private sector and organized labor is the Youth Employment Service launched in 2018. The YES program was a strategic move by the president in addressing the most pressing socio-economic challenges in the country, particularly poverty and unemployment amongst the youth. Through the program, the president has challenged businesses to create half a million jobs a year in order to address youth unemployment.
v. Chairperson, when we talk about young people’s potential and how it helps them bring about sufficient progress to move this country forward, we have to look to programs such as the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator which is generating meaningful answers. This has been recognized whenHarambee’s Pathway Manager was formally adopted by the Presidential Jobs Summit Framework agreement in 2018.
The Harambee model is a public-private partnership working with businesses, government and young people to tackle youth unemployment and build scalable solutions that are pragmatic and can be implemented. Harambee and its partners have built a network of 600,000 young people, worked with 500 businesses, and delivered 125,000 jobs and work experiences. This will scale up by 2022 to reach 1.5 million young people & deliver 500,000 jobs and work experiences. They have received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship for its leading edge work to provide African solutions to the global challenge of youth unemployment. “We are proud of the work Harambee and its partners have done to build solutions that address our youth unemployment challenge. The Skoll Award recognizes that Harambee’s innovative model to pathway young people is leading-edge and an African solution to one of the world’s most pressing problems.”- said President Of The Republic of South Africa, Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa.
All NEDLAC partners have since adopted Harambee's Pathway Manager Agreement as a model for national scale up.
With the success rate of some of these programs, we have started engaging sister departments i.e trade industry and economic development to look at their current and existing incentive programs and how we can utilize them in fast-tracking the inclusion of women, youth & persons with disabilities.
Chairperson, these are some examples of the work government has done to address economic transformation and job creation. We can also trace the commitment based on policies that have been put in place to address these issues.
Education, Skills & Health
It is important to always look at how aligned the country is with the United National Developmental Goals which pins Goal 4 which is Quality education as one of the most important elements of achieving all other goals in the world. We cannot eliminate poverty without educating our people, good health and well-being requires a strong education system to achieve. In fact all of the goals require that we put more emphasis on education and that is the best way to achieve the goals along with the National Developmental Plan: Vision 2030, including employability and entrepreneurship skills.
Persons with Disabilities
Chairperson, we are proud to announce that South Africa became the third signatory to the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa, in April 2019 and we will closely Monitor South Africa’s progress in the implementation of this charter.
We need strong monitoring and evaluation tools across the disability sector as lack of inclusivity cuts across private life, education, social and professional spaces. We look forward to contributing to the work of the Presidential Working Group on Disability.
Despite advances noted in the 2011 Disability Report Census, which states that in the education sector, there has been a visible increase in the number of persons with disabilities enrolled in all levels of the education system up to tertiary level, a 2016 report by Human Right Watch estimated that approximately half a million children of school going age with disabilities remained out of school. We acknowledge efforts made by Our President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa when he highlighted that although notable strides had been made in the education sector, with respect to employment, there has been disappointing progress when it comes to Persons with Disabilities and this is mainly due to lack of education.
We as a Department need to change the narrative and create a different reality for the estimated 5 million people in South Africa classified as disabled, that’s 1 in 10 South Africans. A more focused emphasis on education and accessibility could have an impact in increasing the quota when it comes to South Africa’s employment statistics which currently sits at less than 1% for persons with disabilities, We can certainly meet the target set out in the Employment Equity regulations if we start by creating an inclusive educational landscape.
With the abundance of technology we have huge opportunities to also make persons with disabilities competitive. There are educational institutions, such as The University of Venda that have done well in using technology for students with special needs. There is a notable increase in achievements by persons with disabilities who serve as beacons of hope for all of us, for example’ Eddie Ndopu, a South African activist and humanitarian is set to be the first person with a disability to board a commercial flight into space and deliver an address to the UN. He is 28-years-old and was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at birth and given a life expectancy of five years. He has since gone on to become an internationally recognized human rights advocate for disabled young people and earned a master’s degree in public policy from Oxford University, he is recognized as one of the world’s top 30 thinkers under 30.
Kgothatso Montjane is a 33 year old professional wheelchair tennis player. She became the first black South African woman to compete at Wimbledon. She is representing South Africa at this year’s edition of the tournament and is currently ranked 5th in the world.
Most young people with disabilities who cannot get a breakthrough from their challenges are based in the rural areas where opportunities are already rare, most of them remain housebound as their community environment don’t allow them freedom of movement . We need to ensure that programms such as the National Rural Youth Service Corps programme which is a 24 month skills development platform within the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform as part of the rural economy transformation strategy from poor rural wards, is inclusive of persons with disabilities so as to give them a head start. Since its inception in 1 September 2010 to date, NARYSEC has recruited 22341 (as on 30 April 2018) rural youth in all 9 Provinces. We need to create more success stories such as that of Bongile Magugu from the Eastern Cape who has completed the programme, he was one of the 1000 NARYSEC participants who graduated from the 3SAI Military base in Kimberley.
4th Indusstrial Revolution
We claim no easy victories as we continue to prepare our youth for future work, however South Africa led by President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa has made notable strides by becoming a global player in digital revolution, we became one of the first countries to establish The 4th Industrial Revolution Commission, made up of academics, private & public sector & members of civil society. The President has further recently hosted the 4IR Summit in partnership with the 4th Industrial Revolution South African Partnership (4IRSA) where he made history as the first South Africa president to deliver a keynote address via a hologram.
The theme for the summit was “Advancing the African Agenda on the Fourth Industrial Revolution through Digital Transformation. The President further said that with these technological innovations, South Africa will develop systems to improve our resources efficiencies in various sectors such as health, utilities, crime prevention, education, transport and others to ensure better service delivery. We will rally for women, youth and persons with disabilities to be beneficiaries of these innovative structures.
Chairperson, it is important that we understand and leverage early adoption of new technologies to increase industrialization, not forgetting that they must be affordable,
sustainable and environmentally friendly. President Cyril Ramaphosa continue to solidify his stance on this by putting in place tangible and sustainable plans to ensure that youth, women & persons with disabilities are empowered enough to thrive in the technology sector. He called on the minister of Communications to work hand in hand with ICASA (The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) in reducing the price of data.
According to the United Nations, many young people are already championing a way forward in the software development industry. Their innovations are across business, agriculture, health and education.
Chairperson, allow me to highlight some remarkable young South Africans who are leading in technological innovation, another example of what education can do if integrated with intent:
Monni Mokwena, 25 from Bakenberg Village in Mokopane Limpopo: a plumber who invented a toilet that uses only 400mililitres of water as compared to traditional toilets that use up to 13 liters.
Zuko Mandlakazi, from Eastern Cape: developed a product called Senso which assist the hearing impaired. Life-saving sounds through a flagship device, a wristband, interpret sounds as vibration and colour-coded LED lights. The user co-ordinates five specific everyday life sounds that are important, to different LED colors. For example, the sound made by a baby when it wakes up could be pink.
The growth of the technology sector also speak to the increased focus that we need to apply to STEM subjects at learning institutions. We will work closely with Department of Basic Education and Higher Education to ensure that the digital integration and introduction of new subjects and systems are inclusive to learners with disabilities.
Social Cohesion and Safe Communities
Chairperson,
We must address the fact that at the core of the social ill that is Gender Based violence against women and girls lies unequal gendered power relations, patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, and other discriminatory practices and beliefs that manifest themselves in complex and differentiated ways in everyday life.
The 2018 Presidential Summit on Gender-based Violence and Femicide is evidence of the concern and political will to eradicate the root causes of gender-based violence and femicide.
Government and key stakeholders are now in agreement on the need to establish a multi-sectoral, coordinating structure to respond to gender based violence and femicide; to allocate the necessary and adequate resources required; and to develop a national gender based violence and femicide strategy” inaccessibility of the Justice System for Victims
Our criminal justice system seems to still have challenges regardless of the policies and structures that have been put in place. It has been argued and as a department, we support the notion that more needs to be done to determine why gender based violence persists and the motive behind the targeting of women & gender non-conforming communities.
Chairperson, trauma centres and victim empowerment centres have been established across the country, and the outreach of police officers, forensic nurses and role players has been prioritized to curb domestic violence and femicide. However we still have cases where women don’t believe to have access to justice because their cases are not handled in the most humane and sensitive ways and they are not seeing an improvement or success in prosecution cases.
Chairperson …
I would like to echo the words of Justice Mandisa Maya who when addressing the Gender Based Summit highlighted these gruesome stories, in addressing the state of the Justice System in South Africa.
Karabo Mokoena whose remains were found in a shallow grave.
Reeva Steenkamp who was shot and killed in a bloodbath by boyfriend.
17 year old Anene Booysen was raped, mutilated and left for dead.
9 month old baby Tshepang who was raped by a group of adult men in 2002
As a department we commit ourselves to working closely to the justice system to ensure that access to justice is prioritized and more gender based violence cases are reported and don’t end up behind closed doors or in women losing their lives.
We will make sure that we remove barriers that deny women the accessibility they deserve in a country with a strong constitution that supports freedom for all. Support systems for victims & reporting structures should be strengthened.
We can begin to change the manner in which we do things which starts with recognizing that as government we do not have all the answers. We need to start listening to our youth who have shown a remarkable dynamism and passion for social justice. We need to listen to the women in our trade union movements, on our factory floors on how we can move towards an era of diminished discrimination and enhanced gender parity.
Chairperson, as a result of the GBV Summit, we are already seeing positive results. One of which was the partnership we witnessed yesterday ( 08 July 2019) between the Sefako Makgatho Health Science University and the University of Nottingham as they seek solutions to address the high incidence of GBV. These academic partnerships will in time, through extensive research reveal forensic and medical recommendations on how to best tackle GBV. In Stats SA’s Gender Series Volume IV Economic Empowerment, 2001-2017, it was revealed that although unemployment affects men and women equally, the rate of unemployment tends to be higher for women than for men. In addition, the report also revealed that In terms of earnings, in 2017, 37.3% of males earned below R3500 per month, whilst 49.1% of females fell in the same category. In contrast to this 19% of males earned R11 000 or more compared to 14.8% of females. We need to change the narrative by making sure that employment practices are fair and just.
LGBTQIA+
It is a truth universally acknowledged that sexual offenses, in particular those perpetrated against persons who do not subscribe to binary concepts of gender are higher than what is reported.
To state that we are a nation in crisis when it comes to gender based violence, is an understatement.
In 2011 LGBTQIA+ Activist and Member of the Ekurhuleni Pride Organisation Noxolo Nogwaza lost her life, due to her sexual orientation. She was raped, stoned, tortured and stabbed to death and her body left in a drainage ditch. We remember her and we will speak her name.
Eudy Simelane a South African Football legend and LGBTQIA+ activist, was raped and murdered in her home town on Kwathema in 2008. We remember her and we will speak her name.
Concluding remarks
Chairperson, the challenge before us is immense. Certainly we accept that issues we tackle cannot be handled in isolation, they call for a multi departmental and disciplinary approach.
We must take the lead from Mme Charlotte Maxeke who had the courage to defy the odds of a patriarchal and colonial era and went on to obtain a Science graduate studies in the USA becoming the first African woman to do so. She led campaigns against the Native Lands Act, defended family life and values and led a campaign that took men from beer halls after work back to their homes. Mme Charlotte Maxeke has taught us lessons for future generations to adopt when revisiting our family norms & values, parenting structures as well as child socialization.
We salute one of the surviving veterans Mme Mandu Ramakaba who is in the gallery today. Mme Ramakaba you struggled and fought over decades for women’s rights and empowerment and we are grateful to still have the opportunity to borrow from your wisdom when we tackle issues of inequality that affects women of today.
Malibongwe!
I Thank You.
