Hon House Chairperson, actually the Deputy Minister has touch on the international forums that South Africa participated in. One of them is the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action that identified specific actions for governments to take to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. And ending violence against women and children is, therefore, one of the 12 areas of the priority action that we adopted as part of the 1995 Beijing Platform. So, the question, therefore, would be: In with those 12 priority areas, how far are we as South Africa in ending violence against women and children? Thank you very much.
The DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS
WITH DISABILITIES: Chairperson and hon members, I'm sure you are fully aware of the configured department? It's the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities. In this new configuration, for some reasons, children are left with the Departments of Social Development and Basic Education. So, civil society has raised that concern but we do believe that in terms of the framework that is being developed, it will protect all categories of people including children as well. And in terms of awareness the five key points that I mentioned earlier on, automatically children's organisation utilise that; they utilise the
Thuthuzela Centres, they utilise all the facilities, they will benefit as well.
So, I would say we have made progress with regard to creating a conducive framework, but the national statistics that is released by the police annually is pointing to the holes in our system; that irrespective of the framework, the legislative and policy framework you are saying, the statistics remain too high. I would say we have made progress but we have challenges in the system that we have to eradicate as soon as possible because even if you have good policies, if there are too many challenges within your system people won't see the benefits and they won't experience the impact of what we are doing.
So, we are committed at the implementation phase to really work harder to make sure that our people begin to experience our services centres differently. Thank you very much.
Question 124: