The Deputy Minister in the Presidency ...
Setswana:
... wa Bomme, Ba?a le Batho ba ba Tshelang ka Bogole, ke lebogela dikarabo tse o re fileng tsona. Di bontsha gore o e tshwere ka fa bogaleng mme.
English:
There are a number of international agreed norms and standards which South Africa is part of it. On ending of violence against women, I just want to check with you, those various norms and standards like 1993 World Conference on human Rights, Vienna Declaration and Program of Action and 1993 Declaration on Elimination of Violence against Women, to what extend which South Africa is complying with these various international instruments? Thank you, Chair.
The DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES: Hon member ...
Setswana:
... e kete nka bua ka Sesotho le nna, o tla nkutlwa?
English:
I fully agree that the question you are putting is reminding us of all the commitments we have made and you are naming them one by one. But what I want to say is that - you know - because of our history, where we come from, South Africa has been usually amongst the first countries in Africa to be the signatory to all these; we have rectified them, we have also influenced our own legislation because they are all in line with the values enshrined in our Constitution, especially the chapter of the Bill of Rights.
In other words, we have the framework. The question is: Why do we
... like the declaration on the elimination of violence against women of 1993 ... - you know - it's going back to what we are saying that even with the good legislation we are having, there have been barriers in our system that maybe we took too long to remove, so as to ensure that we see the impact, the outcomes of our commitments in all these.
What I can assure hon members ... even our officials, they are ever participating in these as member States, because once the country has signed they become a member State, they go and account on a regular basis.
And the world has been puzzled with the challenges. I mean during the past few weeks we have met with a quite a number of UN representatives; when they look at everything we have done, from legislation to policy, they think South Africa has to teach the world about one, two, three. So, it's that puzzle that we have to deal with t make sure that it's not only the policies and the legislation on paper, but also in our frontline offices, people experience our services to be in line with the commitments we have made in this multilateral organization.
I don't think there's any more that we can look at. We have all that it takes to get it right, even from this multilateral organization. I mean, even the Beijing conference, South Africa led the strongest delegation to influence people on the very same issues of no violence against women and children. And here we are, next year the UN will be celebrating the 30 years since then, but we are having some challenges. I suppose because now we are beyond legislation, we are beyond policies, our real responsibility now is implementation, implementation, implementation; especially the prevention components at community levels, that we must all commit to do, in our neighbourhoods to make sure that we don't normalise the situation where people will say: Ya [Yes] they are friends. Who knew that this person was last seen in this house but they kept quiet for years, without even anonymously using social media or whatever hotline to inform the police? So, there are things which calls upon all of us also to do, to report on these cases, to assist the police and to make sure that we don't collude in silence with the perpetrators as though we agree with them. Thank you.