Hon members, the national theme of "Don't look away, act against abuse" for this year's 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children Campaign, is a rallying call to all South Africans, men and women, young and old, across all cultural divides, to speak out against the scourge of violence against the vulnerable in our society. It is a call not to hide or deny the existence of such violence. It is a call to acknowledge when help is needed and to help. It is a call to declare a permanent truce in this epidemic.
Fourteen years since the advent of democracy and a constitution with the strongest provisions on gender equality in the world, gender-based violence continues to undermine the human rights of South Africans, especially women and children.
Violence against women and children is a human rights issue, but more specifically, it is an equality issue. It is widely acknowledged that violence grows and takes hold of environments where relationships are characterised by inequity, where a power imbalance - imagined or real- exists between men and women, boys and girls and adults and children. Violence is an expression of domination of power. It is exerted by the powerful over the disempowered.
In 2006 South Africa made a ground-breaking move to develop a 365- days' action plan to end violence against women and children. The plan was a product of a multistakeholder conference driven by the ANC-led government in partnership with the civil society organisations that are committed to the struggle of ending violence against women and children. This effort culminated in the launch of the action plan by the then Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on 8 March 2007 in celebration of International Women's Day.
Other countries in the region like Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Mauritius, Lesotho, Zambia and Swaziland engaged in similar initiatives to develop action plans to end violence against women. Almost all the action plans are framed in terms of the SADC addendum on the prevention and eradication of violence against women and children that outlines five key areas in which measures must be adopted to address this scourge in the region. The key areas include the legal, social, economic, cultural and political spheres; services; education, training and awareness; and integrated approaches to budget allocation.
By launching the national action plan to end gender violence, South Africa is one of the first countries to heed the call of the UN Secretary-General last year for all countries to develop comprehensive multisector action plans for ending gender violence. This national action plan is a multisector framework approach for ending gender violence.
This plan recognises that no single sector, government ministry, department or civil society organisation is by itself responsible for or has a singular ability to address this challenge. It is envisaged that all South African government departments and civil society organisations will, as stakeholders, use this national action plan as the basis to develop their own strategic and operational plans to ensure unity of purpose and cohesion of efforts to achieve maximum impact in the process of eradicating this scourge.
In order to address and find solutions to this scourge, the ANC-led government has put in place various measures that include ensuring that our courts toughen actions on gender violence, and passing legislation that will help intensify our efforts to fight sexual crimes against all persons but in particular against women, children and people who are mentally disabled.
This plan also includes integrated approaches to end the violence such as ensuring that treatment and care receive greater attention, that the media becomes more a part of the solution instead of being part of the problem and, more important, creating a space that allows real men to find their voice in assisting in dealing with this matter.
More importantly, part of this plan is a Victims' Charter. The ANC government has committed itself to implementing measures aimed at continuous reform of the criminal justice system to promote and protect the rights of victims of crime. This commitment is in the spirit of the South African Constitution and in compliance with the international human rights instruments. The implementation of the Victims' Charter is one of the measures aimed at balancing the rights of victims of crime and accused persons.
In 2007 a stakeholder summit was held in KwaZulu-Natal on implementation of the Victims' Charter and minimum standards. Also a national workshop on challenges of training on Victims' Charter was held. Public as well as provincial consultation on implementation was held and a five-year national implementation plan outlining the commitments made by the Departments of Justice, Social Development, Health and Correctional Services and the NPA and SAPS, has been developed.
Despite these efforts and measures, it is important for us to note that if we in our neighbourhoods, our communities, schools, workplaces and families continue to turn a blind eye when faced with gender violence, we will be doing ourselves as a society a grave injustice. We need to break down those structures that support and perpetuate the silence surrounding victims of violence. This starts with us in our homes when we raise those young people who become abusers. Thank you very much. [Time expired.]