Hon Deputy Minister, my challenge in your response is that by implication it says that before the Joint Sitting that the President called, there was no budget set aside for gender-based violence. That is what it says.
Secondly, a Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Summit, was held in 2018 and that is where the plan came from that was supposed to be implemented by the department, yet the department does not have the budget to do so. In the current situation where women are under siege and where gender-based violence is so rampant: How did it come to the point where there is no budget set aside to deal with that scourge and that violence or aggression against women and children? Thank you, Chair.
The DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS
WITH DISABILITIES: Hon Chairperson and hon members, I would really invite each and every one of us to familiarise themselves with work which is done on a daily basis. When I talk about the police, they are the first line of entry for victims of violence. So, it is inaccurate to say since the gender summit, work was done even long before the gender summit. The Thuthuzela Care Centres are much older than the gender summit. The national prosecuting courts are much older, so work has been continuing over the years. However, I think
what the President has done is to really give this process the seriousness; the political and moral authority so as to ensure that it is given the attention it deserves. But also to say that there was no budget maybe again I was not clear enough.
When Treasury wrote to key departments, is departments that were already sitting with the budget. The Thuthuzela Care Centres are run by the Department of Health because doctors and surgeons have to examine people. The Department of Social Development has to make sure that social workers write reports. Trauma counselling is also done under that department and some are employed by the police. So these departments have been having this budget. That is what is called you cut the fat where you think is the any more money that we can take from you and put in the kitty for what the President has referred to as a national crisis.
I hope the hon member is clear that it will be inaccurate for us to leave this House thinking that nothing was being or there was no budget. It was budgeted for, sitting in different corners, but the emphasis now is that we work in a co-ordinated, coherent manner and in the seamless way so as to leave nothing to chance. Thank you, hon Chairperson.