Chairperson, hon members, all protocol observed, I would like to thank our Minister for her guidance and support. An expression of appreciation goes to the chairperson and members of the portfolio committee for their continued support. Allow me also to express our warm gratitude to Ms Jenny Schreiner, the Acting National Commissioner, and to all the officials for teaching us the ropes, for patiently guiding us during our orientation and for helping us to deliver service to our people.
We rely on our dedicated officials to create a highly structured and conducive climate for sustainable rehabilitation. We will continue calling for discipline and a corrupt-free environment. Going forward, our visits to correctional centres will focus on monitoring and impact assessment.
When we took office last year, we made a commitment to take forward the mammoth task of transforming the South African correctional system from a militarised to a rehabilitation-centred hub. I am sure our honourable representative of the DA will be happy that we are in agreement that we have this huge responsibility. I hope at the end of this we will be in agreement that this budget will help all of us to work together in achieving that goal. Every step taken has been guided by our department's strategic plan, as has been said. Our strategic plan is premised on placing rehabilitation at the centre of all departmental activities, in partnership with external shareholders.
Following our June 2009 Budget Vote debate, the Ministry implemented the new administration's decision that Deputy Ministers be allocated specific areas of responsibility. In our case the delegated areas are as follows, and I will try to limit my input to those. Some of the aspects have been raised by the Minister, and I will just touch upon what I think is relevant.
The three areas are: Firstly, the management of development and care, including programmes of rehabilitation and social integration - I must say that I am really grateful that all the members are concerned about the rehabilitation of our offenders; secondly, the establishment of the branch for remand detainees; and thirdly, the interface with the office of the Inspecting Judge of Prisons.
Today, we align ourselves with the words of the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who once said, "Tell no lies, claim no easy victories". Hence we present, with the determination of a warrior, the battles we have won, and are being truthful about the challenges and tasks ahead of us.
In line with our commitments of 2009, this year we will continue paying special attention to the most vulnerable groups within our correctional centres. We are referring specifically to female offenders, children, the youth, the elderly, people with physical disabilities and people with mental challenges.
Coming first to female offenders and children behind bars, the increasing number of women in our correctional centres is cause for concern. There are currently 3 651 women in our facilities. However, the challenge is that our correctional centres were designed for men, and as such are not appropriate for women's needs.
In tackling the challenge of female offenders, we have been guided by our Constitution and the commitments that we as a country have made internationally. Here I refer to the relevant section of our Constitution, but I also want to mention that we are a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or Cedaw, a well- known convention advocating the rights of women. We also participated during the Beijing Conference, which clearly came out in support of equality for women and women's rights.
We have just returned from the United Nations where we took part in the 54th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Participants were reminded that women's rights are human rights. We were particularly inspired by the session on the best practices in dealing with women in corrections, engineered by Princess Bajrakitiyabha of Thailand. Her review of the 50-year-old United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners proposes a supplement that will address the unique needs of women and their children. This was discussed and endorsed by all the countries. I am happy to say that within our efforts we are walking along those lines.
Said rules will be further discussed during the upcoming 12th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Brazil, and one of our officials from South Africa is already a country representative there. A resolution is likely to come out of the congress on gender equality and the promotion of human rights within the criminal justice system.
In the process of honouring our commitments, we came up with a project called "Imbeleko". "Imbeleko" denotes a blanket made of animal hide, used by mothers to protect and bond with their children. Ka Sesotho "imbeleko" ke thari. [In Sesotho "imbeleko" means a blanket that is used to carry a child.]
The Imbeleko project has two pillars: The first pillar focuses on creating a humane, safe and friendly environment; and the second talks to what most members have spoken about, that children are not supposed to remain in correctional centres.
The next phase, starting from April, after today, will focus on monitoring and evaluation of how the project is implemented by our officials, and also maintaining and expanding partnerships with other role-players.
The introduction of the Child Justice Act will provide major relief to the nation by providing better protection to children in conflict with the law. This Act entrenches the principle that prison should be a last resort and is, on the whole, inappropriate for children.
We will pursue co-operation with other women's organisations to support the plight of women and children in our centres. In this respect, I want to mention co-operation with the Constitution Hill-based Sizoya Sibuye Women's Heritage and Cultural Forum, which is a formation of former women political prisoners who were held at Number 4 in Johannesburg from 1976 onwards, amongst them well-known names such as the late Fatima Meer, Joyce Seroke, Sally Motlana and Deborah Matshoba. Two days ago, they held a memorial service for Fatima Meer, and they warned us as Correctional Services that they would co-operate with us but they would also ensure that women were treated with respect and dignity.
Coming to the question of young offenders, last year we highlighted the impact of the apartheid system on young people, and recent visits to centres such as Ekuseni, Hawequa in the Western Cape and Emthonjeni in Gauteng clearly have shown that many of our young people live with problems, ranging from a lack of education to substance abuse related problems and a lack of parental guidance, which clearly points to the need for strengthening our rehabilitation and education programmes.
Let me share some numbers. Currently, a large number of sentenced and unsentenced inmates fall between 18 and 25 years. As at the end of last year, there were 24 500 unsentenced young people and 32 500 sentenced young people in our facilities. This is extremely high for any country.
In view of the above-mentioned national challenges, we commit to focus on the development of young people in our care, and I want to assure you that already the policy is in place as to what we will be doing. We will pay particular attention to the enhancement of educational levels of young people. The President has identified education as a top priority, and I am proud to mention that in KwaZulu-Natal we achieved a pass rate of 97% at the end of 2009.
In partnership with the Presidential National Commission, we have placed 242 young offenders and eight of our officials on an e-literacy programme, which a strategic intervention meant to empower young offenders. Also, as part of our poverty alleviation strategy, we have entered into a partnership with the Department of Education in terms of which we will recruit and remunerate 18 early childhood development practitioners and seven parolees. The question of mental health has been mentioned. I must say that we are fully aware of the fact that our facilities are not designed for this and that we don't have the capacity to manage people with mental illnesses. As such we are working in co-operation with the Department of Health to ensure that they assist with these responsibilities. We have tackled the responsibility by calling experts, and have started workshops on mental health with the aim of looking at what can be achieved.
During our last Budget Vote speech, we explained the offender rehabilitation path. I want to emphasise that we have not deviated from that, and we have done everything possible to initiate processes to honour our obligation. This rehabilitation path is a journey to be undertaken by each offender from the moment of admission to the time of release. We intend to improve the functioning of the case management committees as a starting point by enhancing case management administration processes.
On the question of rehabilitation, the correctional sentence plan will include all interventions aimed at the rehabilitation of our offenders. Admittedly, we are presenting our Vote fully aware of the challenges imposed by our current budget allocation. The White Paper on Corrections calls upon us to strike a balance between security and rehabilitation, and I fully agree with all the members who have raised this issue. It is our commitment to follow the guidance and to co-operate with all parties concerned. An analysis of the budget allocation per programme over a period of seven years, from 2003-04 to 2010-11, shows that it is not aligned to the Department of Correctional Services' core mandate. Of the current budget of R15 billion plus, only R2 billion plus is for development and care.
Another challenge to our rehabilitation objective is overcrowding, but of course we have not sat back, because we cannot wait for relief in terms of overcrowding; otherwise people will come back not having been rehabilitated. We have also taken advantage of the 2010 Fifa World Cup by instilling specific values such as tolerance, co-operation and team spirit through football amongst our offenders.
Regarding offender labour, a lot has been said, but we are committed to increasing, within our normal working hours, the amount of work, and we are also hoping that later on in the year we will have more people being skilled appropriately.
In terms of community outreach, we are committed, as we said during our Budget Vote, that victims should remain at the centre of the criminal justice system. We have also highlighted the importance of the Victims' Charter. We had an opportunity to witness victim-offender mediation in Middledrift in the Eastern Cape.
As part of our contribution to crime prevention, we also partnered with the Sexual Offences and Community Affairs Unit of the National Prosecuting Authority to reach out to women in rural areas, so as to ensure that they don't commit crime but learn other lessons before they are incarcerated at our centres.
We have also worked closely in co-operation with the Inspecting Judge. This is a very important component of our work. The department continued along its path directed at promoting and giving effect to the constitutional values of transparency, equality and fairness.
In my capacity as Deputy Minister, I remain in regular contact with the Inspecting Judge. Judge van Zyl informed me of his priorities for the 2010 financial year. I will not mention all of them, but of importance is to mention that he is committed to co-operating with the task team in ensuring that his mandate is achieved. Based on the reports of the Inspecting Judge, within the current financial year ...