Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
Cape Town - Actions have consequences. South Africa’s political elite has long decided to pander to – or deliberately stoke – bigotry against those members of our society most vulnerable to gender-based violence and femicide.
They have not spared the community activists seeking to provide GBV victims with care, support, and access to justice.
This bigotry is, by implication, a joint enterprise with criminal syndicates and indifferent citizens bent on blaming and shaming, marginalising and stigmatising victims and survivors.
It has reaped rich political dividends for NGOs and opposition parties: justified public anger at a lack of accountability, co-ordination and leadership from the government as an institution entrusted by the Constitution to guarantee our safety and security.
There is eternal anger over inadequate resource allocation for government and civil society programmes on violence prevention, response, care, and survivor support to enable healing and rebuilding social cohesion.
The powerful elite in government has crudely redirected the burden of declining morals, corruption, and austerity on the caricatured victims and survivors of gender-based violence and femicide.
To achieve this, it has stripped many of their humanity: after all, most human beings do not tolerate the harmful treatment of those we see as “people like us”. The privileges of patriarchy or high economic status continue to determine who will likely be the next victim.
The government’s failure to protect the people has resulted in more and more vulnerabilities.
This problematic situation brings us to the second Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide and the harsh words of criticism that civil society activists lobbed at the government.
Most people would find intolerable the government’s failure to account for how much money has been allocated nationally towards fighting gender-based violence and femicide and how much the government has spent since 2018.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reflection on progress (or what many viewed as the lack of progress) in battling gender-based violence and femicide did not inspire public confidence.
Disappointingly, he provided no detailed plans to curb the 52% increase in the murder of women and a 46% increase in the murder of children between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 alone.
It was not consoling enough to promise that he will expedite the implementation of the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide – signed into law on April 31, 2022 – including establishing a National Council for Gender-Based Violence and Femicide.
He struck a chord when he said there are no words to describe “these horrific murders and rapes” and that they tell a “deeply disturbing story about society... A story of a nation seemingly at war with itself, and at war with the women and children of the country”.You might ask yourself whether this story can be legal or politically excusable, and the answer is no, it is not.
The ministers, especially Police Minister Bheki Cele, stand accused of ignoring stakeholder advice that it is against the law to withhold resources to the state’s crime-fighting apparatus and ignore investment in human development necessary to preserve human dignity.
Patting his shoulder, Cele said his ministry had reduced its DNA analysis backlog from 240 000 to 71 000 without demonstrating any evidence of arrests and convictions of perpetrators that should make our communities safe.
That this pantomime-bloated gravy train of elected politicians across the three spheres of government is farcically unsuitable to hold some great state offices should now be clear to all, but those afflicted with ultra-partisan lousy faith.
No wonder activists like Sihle Sibisi, founder of the Kwanele Foundation, didn’t want to hear excuses regarding funding for victims of gender-based violence. She told ministers they could not stand on the podium and say they know what it feels like to live in crime-ridden South Africa, yet they all have bodyguards.
However much-justified condemnation the government receives for its inability to curb crime committed by acquaintances and relatives in our private homes, its mistreatment of victims and survivors seeking access to justice and healthcare deserves the most ire .
The government’s poor performance on the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence is shrouded in other myths, too. Acting Treasury director-general Ismail Momoniat could not account for how much money has been allocated nationally towards fighting gender-based violence and femicide and how much the government has spent so far.
An uncertain Momoniat initially said he thought the government had spent R13 billion of the allocated R20bn, before admitting that identifying expenditure was an extensive exercise requiring monitoring the various financial statements of the departments, and locating the spending. “It’s a problem across the government,” he admitted.
While we have yet to uncover the alternative route to overcoming circumstances behind government inefficiencies, some things are certain. Radical politicians seeking voter support during elections have systematically ramped up public hostility to inhumane people attacking women and children. Some are encouraging mob justice, calling for the castration of perpetrators, and the return of the death penalty.
The government ministers and officials speaking at the summit did more to shield the political elite from their failure to provide the citizens of a democratic nation with the enjoyment of the right to freedom and security.
Until we stop allowing politicians and criminals to scapegoat victims and survivors of gender-based violence and femicide for problems caused by the corruption of those who are supposed to be our protectors, crime statistics will keep climbing at an alarming rate.
Nyembezi is a policy analyst and human rights activist
Cape Times