Hon Deputy Speaker, hon members, when I asked this House to approve the emergency action plan to combat gender- based violence and femicide two months ago, it was in response to a national crisis. I was very pleased that this House responded positively and members who spoke did so very positively from the heart.
It was also a response to mounting calls from our people to match our condemnation of such violence with the commitment that is necessary to ensure that necessary human, financial and other resources are available to tackle this crisis.
Since I announced that government would commit
R1,1 billion towards the implementation of the plan, the National Treasury has written to key departments and entities in government, asking them to urgently identify funds that can be reprioritised.
Departments must be commended for readily and swiftly responding to this call. We are now in a position to
allocate more than R1,6 billion from the 2019-20 financial year baseline spending allocation. No longer R1,1 billion; but R1,6 billion has now become available for this purpose! [Applause.]
Departments have done that and we are very delighted. Accountability for the expenditure on the reprioritised funds lies with the respective departments themselves. The multisectoral interim steering committee established after last year's Presidential Summit on Gender-based Violence and Femicide will continue to play a key role in driving implementation of this plan.
It will, among other things, review, but it will also monitor and evaluate progress, and ensure there is adequate budgeting and resourcing to support the five key pillars of the plan. As an example, an amount of R179 million has been allocated to education, to raising awareness and to ensure that we do haven effective prevention programmes. We know that gender-based violence often has its roots in social, cultural and other norms that perpetuate patriarchy and chauvinism. We also know
we have to focus on prevention as the first point of intervention.
The Department of Social Development, in collaboration with other departments, will drive the roll-out of programmes. These roll-out programmes will take place throughout the country. That will engage with men's forums or formations, traditional leaders, student organisations, youth formations, offenders inside prisons, officials working in the criminal justice system, and communities at large.
Work is being done to enhance our current legal and policy framework to make it more responsive to the needs of survivors of gender-based violence. This includes bail and sentencing reform to ensure that perpetrators face justice and that the law acts as an effective deterrent. This funding will ensure that legislation that has been pending for quite a long time is also finalised, and, where necessary, that capacity is made available for new laws to be drafted as well.
An amount of R517 million will go to care and support for survivors of gender-based violence. Two hundred social workers will be appointed to provide targeted services to survivors at various social services centres, including at the national network of Thuthuzela Care Centres. [Applause.]
This is phenomenal achievement and this has been done through the discussions that the people who are participating in the sector have come up with It will also be used to support social services for survivors at local and district municipality level. The plan furthermore calls for the creation of more economic opportunities for women who are vulnerable to abuse because of poverty.
The budget for this intervention is still to be finalised through the ongoing reprioritisation process; as is the approximately R20 million still needed to strengthen accountability measures. To ensure that the reallocation of resources has the necessary impact, government is working with civil society and other partners to ensure that all of these measures are implemented with urgency.
Given the breadth of interventions, this is a challenging undertaking, but we are confident that - working together - we will succeed.
Particularly, I must commend compatriots of our country - the women of our country - who are in the committee, in the structure, because they have been working for long hours, for days and for weeks to put together a more effective plan in this. They are going to make sure indeed that this does succeed.
Prof Olive Shishana in the Presidency is leading this process and she is doing extremely well, working together with those who are in the various gender structures in our country. Thank you very much.