The Women’s Parliament that was hosted at Parliament yesterday had an interactive panel on the resourcing of gender-based violence, to ensure that there is an effective oversight and implementation of strategies and plans aimed at combating gender-based violence. In her opening remarks, Interim Steering Committee Member of Gender-Based Violence in the Presidency, Ms Tamara Braam, who facilitated it, proclaimed that time for talking is over. There is currently a need to focus on the resourcing of a national strategic plan, if not, the fight against gender-based violence will go nowhere.  

The need for resourcing is a need for gender budgeting, she said, “a serious conversation needs to be started about budgeting and this includes human resourcing and technical infrastructure”.

Besides that, she pointed out, “we have to determine what direction and what are key priorities of government’s strategic plan to deal with gender-based violence if we were to deal with this matter”.

A representative of Action Aid, Ms Nondumiso Nsibande, echoed the need for urgency in the implementation of government strategies aimed at combating gender-based violence. “What is critical in the fight against gender-based violence is not only the articulation of priorities, but their implementation.”

Support also is needed for shelters that care for the victims of this violence, she added. “We need to provide quality services to victims. This require the need to increase their budget. Currently, we are not resourcing these places of care adequately.”

She echoed the fact that the game changer in this regard is resourcing.

To effectively deal with this scourge, we have to declare it a national crisis, said the member of the Women Caucus’s Steering Committee, Ms Liezl van der Merwe. “We, as women, we must declare that enough is enough. As such, gender-based violence should be declared a national crisis, so that it can be accorded the urgency it deserves in terms of treatment and resources.”

The resourcing of intervention to curb gender-based violence was a unanimous call of the Women’s Parliament, she said. “It’s sad to think that as a country we are spending R5 on a shelter per day and R350 on a criminal in prison. There is a discrepancy there and our resourcing should prioritise shelters than criminals.”

In addition to all our endeavours, she added, “I think we need a committee that will be dedicated to gender-based violence, so that we can come up with the necessary legislation and oversight mechanism that will deal with this scourge, than dealing with it in an uncoordinated manner.”

To effectively deal with this scourge, a representative of South African National Aids Council, Dr Matom Kganakga, said we need to adopt the same zeal we adopted in the fight against Aids. As such, “we need to institutionalise the fight against this epidemic as we did with Aids”.   

Besides that, he is of the view that there is a need for a long-term approach that is not only numerical, but that is sustainable, that deals with the root causes of this scourge. “As long as the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality are still with us, the inroads that would be made in the fight against this scourge would be minimal.”

Given the sophistication of this plague, there is need to integrate policy and grassroots activism if we were to make a dent in its prevalence. “We have to look at ways of crafting a policy that will bring together various stakeholders if we were to register lasting gains in the fight against gender-based violence.”

What is saddening is that there is still a recurring second victimisation of victims of this plague in our criminal justice system, said a representative of Women’s Legal Centre, Ms Seehaam Samaai. “Currently, there is no one uniformed response to victims of this crime at police stations. Often, victims are subjected to multiple interviews and questioning. This often constitutes second victimisation, for victims would be required to re-tell their ordeals again and again, often to different personnel.”

The ministry of women has to do a deep reflection to “determine what it can do differently in this regard”, said the Whip of the Multi-Party Steering Committee, Ms Andiswa Masiko. She is of the view that victims’ ordeals should not be reduced to data, which is often silent on the magnitude of their ordeals. “We need to add faces and stories to this scourge, not just data. To narrate the pain that its victims have gone through, we should not hide these stories behind data. Let’s unmask data and bring the human element to the fore.”

Like the other speakers who came before her, she could not emphasise enough the need to increase the budget that is meant to deal with this plague. “We can’t sit and fold our arms when women projects are under-funded. We have to ensure that gender budgeting takes priority in various government departments.”

To get value out of it, “we need to monitor all government programmes to ensure that they improve the economic plight of women”.

By Abel Mputing

30 August 2019