Chairperson, I just hope that my 10 minutes have not run out.
I just want to remind members once again that that killing force does not act immediately, but will do so within the next 10 years when this virus, at the end of the day, would have manifested itself into Aids. Even worse, the number of full-blown Aids cases amongst our young girls between the ages of 15 to 24 years, is horrific. Why do I say it is horrific? It is because it means - and I want the community leaders and all our political leaders to please listen - that our young girls have become HIV-positive at the early age of between eight and 15 years. This means that the level of child sex in South Africa has, in itself, reached endemic proportions. Why are we then not vocal enough about the rights of the non-HIV-Aids-positive young girls, and the fact that having sex with them is not only a fundamental violation of their innocence, but also that it should be classified as murder.
I am very happy to observe that the hon Minister, the Government and all institutions are no longer giving this epidemic scant interest, but are, in fact, collectively rising to the challenge in order to engage and fight this epidemic and contain its spread. The fact is that this pandemic, apart from many others in the history of the world or South Africa, and also of our provinces, is concentrated in young adult populations and that there has been a steady increase in the number of infected young women in all our provinces in the past five years. Let me remind the hon Chairperson and hon Minister about this by quoting somebody. This time I am going to quote from the hon Mr Mandela's 1994 inauguration speech when he said, and could hon members please listen:
The youth of our country are valued possessions of our nation. Without them there can be no Reconstruction and Development Programme; without them there can be no future.
However, why on earth is there still too much apathy and so much silence about the sexual abuse of our young children and our youth? The perception out there is that this silence extends to some part of the legal fraternity, some of our powerful leaders, politicians, church leaders and community leaders - these are the perceptions that exist out there. Of course, I commend those leaders, politicians and other concerned role- players who are committed to involving themselves in and dedicating themselves to combating, preventing and containing the spread of HIV-Aids.
The legal and ethical issues have already been raised here - I will not go into that. But I must stress specific areas of focus, including the legal status of the HIV-Aids sufferer, the consent required for testing for HIV- Aids, the question of anonymity and confidentiality and many others. We as provincial government rededicate ourselves, in front of our colleagues in all the other provinces and in the national Government, to collectively working with all other spheres of government, NGOs, church groups and other Aids-combating agencies and institutions to eradicate the scourge of HIV- Aids in our provinces and our country.
Members will agree with me that there is definite causality and link between HIV-Aids and poverty. Members will also agree with me when I say that one of the greatest symptoms of poverty, which has already been stated here, is unemployment. Unemployment manifests itself in various other forms such as a decline in moral standards, which we heard about this afternoon here, wife battering, domestic violence, increasing crime, rape, child abuse, murder, and substance abuse such as alcohol and drug dependence.
These are the realities that we are faced with in our province. I can only speak for our province and, I think, for our country.
One of the primary focuses of the department of social services in the Western Cape is the forging of partnerships with strategic partners and various other developmental initiatives with regard to poverty relief programmes. An example of such a mechanism available to us is the poverty relief and investment programme. Currently, funding for antipoverty strategies is available from the provinces in the form of capacity-building funds, flagship programme funds, multipurpose centre funds and various subsidies for early childhood development and other services.
This is in addition to the social security grant programme which in itself constitutes a massive antipoverty fund. The poverty relief and infrastructure investment programme differ from other funding because the funds do not flow through the province, but are dispatched through the IDT - a support agency of the national Department of Welfare. The new funding policy explicitly states that Government must shift from being a funder of welfare services to a purchaser of relevant and appropriate welfare services.
Important issues that the branch needs to concern itself with - and we are committed to do so - are the following: an analysis of the living conditions of the focus groups in order to target them more efficiently, with the aim of delivering more effective services; their developmental priorities ...