Even before the ink on a report of a despicable rape or murder case dries, the next mutilated body is found. The daily or hourly abuse of women and children in this country has reached pandemic proportions. Only last night a two-year-old little girl was mutilated, and she is fighting for her life in hospital. The statistics speak for themselves.
We thank the President for announcing that special courts for sexual offences would be reintroduced. We also thank gender activists who speak out at every possible forum and committed law enforcement officers who do their best.
However, neither this nor the opportunistic political exploitation of community anger and grief by some Cabinet Ministers will arrest this horrific scourge. It is an ongoing battle about the status of women in society. The women of South Africa are angry. We have had enough. We demand a paradigm shift from men in society.
Treating the symptoms of what is essentially a collapse of the social fibre of our nation, a sociological and criminal national disease, is clearly not working. Despite laudable constitutionally entrenched rights for women, declarations and rhetoric, the deep-rooted inequality and the entrenched subjugation of women continues. It has no boundaries and cuts across all levels of society. It goes far beyond the obvious types of violence and abuse that make newspaper headlines.
The much lesser publicised silent abuse of women is rife and remains below the radar screen. Millions of women suffer economic and psychological abuse that they cannot escape from and cannot report for fear of losing the roof over their heads and the means to feed their children, those that they are expected to bear and raise.
Young girls are often deprived of proper education in favour of their male siblings, and even worse, they are forced to become part of the cycle of early marriage, child-bearing responsibilities, poverty and paternalistic oppression.
In the workplace, women have to overcome obstacles of prejudice, harassment and discrimination, in addition to their responsibilities to care for their families. And the fortunate few who overcame the natural and institutionally imposed obstacles have a perpetual struggle against the embedded male chauvinism of some insecure males who cannot cope with strong women. We applaud the ANC Women's League's role in the nineties to promote gender equality, including the 50-50 representation in legislative forums. But let us be honest, however, Mr Speaker: What is the real impact of women in this forum, in Cabinet, in the committees and in party caucuses? Do women get the respect and recognition that their opinions deserve? What are the criteria for women to be deployed to public office by male-dominated party deployment committees? Are some of us here because we are nice, we toe the line and don't ask questions? Or do we perhaps fill a quota?
The President spoke about harsher treatment for those convicted for crimes against women and the few who are actually caught. Yet, we did not hear the President speak out against the discriminatory Traditional Courts Bill, a Bill found by the Commission for Gender Equality to have "the tendency to centralise power in the hands of traditional leaders".
They said that this Bill had the potential to indirectly discriminate against women. The question is: What did the ANC MPs and Ministers do about this? Did they perhaps trade their souls in exchange for 50-50 legislation, selling out their sisters and mothers in traditional areas?
Cope would ask the President to stand up and be prepared to be counted on. Is he committed to restore the human dignity of women throughout society? If so, he will himself condemn this piece of legislation to the eternal dustbin of history. Will he and can he lead the process to a paradigm shift for women to give them equal rights and equal status in South Africa? History will be the judge. We wish for the President to take this opportunity to demonstrate to South Africa that he would not be held accountable to traditional leaders but to the women voters of South Africa. I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Mr Speaker and hon President, the famous scientist Albert Einstein said:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
Sir, for 19 years I have heard every year in this Assembly how government, with black economic empowerment, affirmative action, stricter labour laws and land reforms will be solving South Africa's problems. For 19 years already the government has not succeeded in resolving the unemployment problem. For 19 years we have been struggling to attract more foreign investment to ensure economic growth. After 19 years, corruption remains a serious problem. The logical conclusion is that the current policy directions do not work. New and fresh plans should be devised to resolve these problems.
In the President's state of the nation address we heard a repetition of most of these old policy directions. Sir, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results does not make any sense. Let us take foreign investments, for example: foreign investment inflows into South Africa plummeted by 44% in the previous year. This is the largest decline amongst all developing economies, according to the United Nations. The reason is not only the world economic recession. South Africa's poor performance was in sharp contrast to the rest of Africa, which saw a growth rate of 5% in foreign investment.
What about black empowerment? The Institute of Race Relation's research found that the policy of black empowerment only made a small number of individuals very wealthy while the broader masses did not profit from it. Broad-based black economic empowerment has become narrow-based elite empowerment.
Meneer, wat korrupsie betref, het ek tyd vir net een voorbeeld. Die onlangse forensiese ondersoek na die Oos-Kaapse gesondheidsdepartement het bevind dat 35 eggenotes van gesondheidsamptenare sake doen met die betrokke departement. Hulle het ook bevind dat 900 werkers van die departement terselftertyd verskaffers aan dieselfde departement is. Daar kan nie voortgegaan word met die praktyk om toe te laat dat staatsamptenare met die staat besigheid doen nie. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.) [Sir, time on my hands allows for but one example with regard to corruption. In a recent forensic investigation into corruption at the Health Department of the Eastern Cape, it has been found that 35 spouses of health officials are having business dealings with the relevant department. It has also been found that 900 workers of said department have been, at the same time, suppliers to the department. The situation of government officials having business dealings with government should not be allowed to continue.]
What are the consequences of all this? It is uncertainty and a total lack of hope in the future. In December Grant Thornton conducted opinion polls amongst South African business leaders. Forty-eight percent stated that uncertainty about the future directly affects their current business interests. The result is that they postponed decisions such as to expand. Twenty-six percent indicated that the uncertainty has led them rather to go and invest elsewhere. We cannot afford that.
Last year, in this debate, I said that the most dangerous thing the government could do was to create expectations with citizens that are then not realised in the end. Expectations that are not realised are the recipe for revolution.
For the past 19 years we have had uncertainty about land reform. Commercial farmers did not want to expand and create new employment opportunities because they were unsure whether they would keep their land. People who had instituted land claims were also unsure whether their claims would succeed. I had hoped that we would now be at a point where were certainties.
Minister Nkwinti's announcement that land claims before 1913 would be reopened brings great uncertainty on the one hand, and huge expectations on the other hand. Why is such an announcement made before all the details have been thought through? Only the full details that are now not being stated could remove uncertainty and false expectations.
The Koi and San want to know whether they could reclaim land back to 1200 when they were present in the whole of South Africa. There are San drawings in the Drakensberg, Zululand at Nkandla and where Cape Town stands today. Could they claim all these areas?
Last year, after I spoke about this, a member of the Koi-San phoned me and said they should make me a Koi-San chief because I fight for their rights in Parliament. [Laughter.] The President knows what they said in the recent Cabinet lekgotla. I had more time to argue that there was the serious impact of ... [Interjections.]