Speaker, in the 2012-13 financial year, according to the latest police crime statistics, nearly 50 000 crimes were committed against children around the country.
Dr Richard Griggs, who heads up a nongovernmental organisation called PARTNER and has over 20 years of experience as a social scientist and evaluator of social programmes, is of the opinion that South Africa needs a nation-building campaign of magnitude. All great nations, he says, develop their national identity with deliberate campaigns. Dr Griggs believes we could see a turnaround in less than 10 years if we committed to a mass campaign on understanding human rights; that includes caring and respect for all.
If there is no national unity or national cohesion, then it is one person competing against another for what is seen as limited resources - a recipe for disaster and violence. Countries with a strong national identity were builtup by deliberate campaigns.
The content of that campaign matters greatly. With the wrong focus, the result could be as problematic as Nazism was but, with careful planning, a strong, democratic national unity could produce positive results.
The ACDP believes that Christian democratic principles of justice, grace, forgiveness, love for others and for oneself, and a strong work ethic would go a long way to strengthening national unity and forming one people out of many diverse peoples.
Where you have millions of people to impact, it is necessary to do it through an educational campaign on human rights that goes into homes, schools, churches, streets, etc. The campaign must not just concern itself with the wellbeing of women and children, but include men.
A major concern for the ACDP, however, is that real respect for human rights is not possible without respect for human life. In South Africa, as with many other parts of the world, this concept has been clouded by confusion regarding a woman's right to reproductive health and a distorted right to take the life of a child growing in her womb. This has to change if we want children to have an ingrained respect for life, and for human rights as an extension of this.
Violence against women and children, like all crimes, is built on the belief that one person is superior to another. The inferior one lashes out, and the superior one represses. This results in children steeped in the unshakeable belief that there is always one superior to the next, and we must compete and fight for a position in the hierarchy. Many males, particularly those who feel repressed within society, will assert their right to be higher than women on a domestic level.
The ACDP believes that in order to work together as communities to ensure the safety and security of women and children, the mindset of the nation must change. Priority must be placed on a deliberate campaign of national identity, promoting care and respect for all. Thank you.