House Chairperson and hon Minister, here in South Africa there is no political will to fight gender-based violence. Those with monetary power to fund such programmes keep on turning a blind eye to such crimes. That is why perpetrators of gender-based violence keep on repeating the same crimes over and over again.
Police stations are not well-equipped to deal with such crimes. There are no funded shelters to accommodate victims of gender-based violence.
In your own Cabinet meetings don't you see the importance of dealing with such a bloated executive, taking the budget and funding such programmes towards gender-based violence or even identifying departments such as the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation which are also taking the chunk of the budget to fund these programmes in this country? This remains a song over and over to the Republic of South African government, but nothing is being done. It remains a talk show.
The DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS
WITH DISABILITIES: Hon Chairperson and hon members, I am sure the hon member will agree with me that the debate we saw recently when the President and leaders of all parties in Parliament were speaking on the matter, I came out convinced that if we work together, we can overcome the scourge that we are facing. There is not even a single representative of any of the parties whom I doubted their bona fides in terms of condemning this social ill that we are faced with. So, hon member I think we have to as public representatives continue to give confidence to the people of South Africa. Just based on that
debate where all hon members took a clear position that at least we have the kind of leadership which is in agreement on one thing that women have a right to be protected within the Constitution to be safe and to feel safe and to freely walk around without fear of intimidation or any form of sexual harassment.
With regard to the budget and the question of resources, I think there is this process led by the Treasury now to say let us strengthen all our entities which are dealing with this. I have confidence that that is going to strengthen all people who are involved with this and begin to send a clear message to perpetrators that enough is enough as women of South Africa have said.
I know hon member that there has been one concern. The question of sentencing and the question of giving bail to perpetrators and also the delay for women in ensuring that they get justice. So, those are some of the things that we are looking at which I hope once the entities like the police and the magistrate courts are strengthened and they are trained and retrained properly, we will begin to see the drop of the problem. But also the work of that is being done under prevention is very, very important to help communities to be vigilant and to be able to report timeously because one of the things we have seen with most cases people speak after the effect
that we knew this was happening. It is either they will talk when a woman has died with a protection order in her hands or when a woman has disappeared or a child has disappeared. However we hope with more resources and more people committing to stop this and us as public representatives of course being more vigilant, using every opportunity to speak out on this matter. Thank you, Chairperson.
Question 134:
The DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS
WITH DISABILITIES: House Chairperson, as you might be aware hon members that the democratic government really inherited inhuman socioeconomic disparities from our difficult past and we always say the legacy is still with us. Over the past 25 years, government has made great legislative and policy strides, in closing the gab between rural township and urban areas. With regard to persons with disabilities, the implementation matrix of the White Paper on the rights of persons with disabilities among others, it addresses early childhood development matters to ensure affirmative steps that, affirmative steps are taken to improve the facilities, centres and ensure that corrective measures are taken timeously, but also the socioeconomic rights of persons with disabilities are key to the development agenda of the country. Such rights are protected by Chapter 2, section 9 of the Constitution, responding to the needs of
persons with disabilities in a human rights and developmental context requires first and for most that we uphold their right to be protected from discrimination on the basis of disability and that their right to equality be protected.
Without going through everything that I can say on this matter, also you know South Africa adopted the United Nation sustainable development goals, which really has shown us that nobody should be left behind. So the question on the status of centres in rural areas is very, very important in terms of the UN sustainable development goals. We have to start from those who are far away from access and make sure that we strengthen them, we consolidate those centres, and we know that they don't even have access to economic employment opportunities but I fully accept the issue that hon member is raising, all what we have to do is to start from the rural areas, the townships, the informal settlements and make sure that the rights there are realised. Where there economic opportunities, they are not far from them. Thank you.