To start with, the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit that is known as the FCS is one of the best performing within the SA Police Service. That is what is happening now. The fact is that as we speak, we have got 4 728 life sentenced convicts - people that are doing life in prison - 4 728 in the Republic of South Africa
For you to get life imprisonment means somebody should have done a good job going to court. For them to be 4 728, that is that! However, that does not mean that all is good or all is rosy. I fully agree with you that there will be areas where our own members of the SA Police Service are not doing a proper job in terms of collection of evidence, even in terms of treating women that have been abused in a very honourable way.
So, those are the things that we are working on. Hence, we have opened the retraining of those that will be working on these front desks, dealing with these matters. We are also building more friendly facilities in the police stations so that there can be privacy and so that they can be kept there for a night if they come very late at night before they are dispersed to the areas where they are supposed to be. We fully agree that we need to do much better there and we are still trying hard to do better on that one.
Question 209:
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND CO-
OPERATION: Thank you very much House Chairperson, our
reply is as follows: In our public participation programme, Deputy Minister Botes and I have popularised the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, to the South African public, particularly the potential transformative developmental role it can play in the industrialisation of the African continent.
We have also emphasised the potential benefits that South African exporters can accrue from the AfCFTA and the positive impact this can have in reducing South Africa's high unemployment rate, poverty and inequality.
Furthermore, the Minister, in her international engagement and interaction with the Southern African Customs Union, SACU, the Southern African Development Community, SADC, and the African Union, AU, has advocated very strongly about the potential of the AfCFTA to be a catalyst to for Africa's industrialisation and development.
With intra-Africa trade currently standing between 10- 16%, as well as Africa' shares of global trade standing at partly 3%, the Minister has strongly urged African
countries to expedite market integration as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, estimated that the successful implementation of the AfCFTA can boost Africa intra-regional trade from 16% to 52% by 2022.