Johannesburg - It’s difficult for Matsobane Ledwaba to pick out a single gender-based violence case that has caught his attention lately.
The Gauteng Provincial Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Brigades Project manager says that’s because there are far too many “horrific” cases that have occurred to single out one.
“What has caught our attention, however, is the level of brutality that occurs in these cases like the murder of Tshegofasto Pule. We are also busy with the Krugersdrop 7 rape case.”
Ledwaba says that the provincial government is also busy with a case involving the dismemberment of children.
“We discovered that children are having their private parts amputated and are murdered afterwards.”
Ledwaba was discussing gender-based violence and femicide cases as the Gender- Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) summit kicked off this week in Johannesburg.
The summit forms part of the province's Women's Month programmes held under the theme "Women's Socio-Economic Rights, Empowerment and Resilience".
More than 600 delegates from different sectors of society, including non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations, law enforcement agencies, and the taxi industry, gathered at the Birchwood Hotel in the East Rand this week to reflect on the work undertaken since the launch of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) on GBVF and the programmes implemented as per the pillars of the NSP.
The plan provides a cohesive framework that will guide the national response to the GBVF crisis.
It further outlines a comprehensive strategic response to GBVF with a specific focus on violence against all women – across age, physical location, disability, sexual orientation, sexual and gender identity and national identity – as well as violence against children, and how these serve to reinforce each other.
Ledwaba said the aim of the summit was to review what the government has done so far.
“The GBVF summit is a precursor towards the Presidential summit being held in November. We have put into place the Gauteng strategic plan, the Gauteng response plan, and a GBVF War Room. The summit was to find out whether these plans and strategies are actually helping.
“Despite all the interventions, when you look into statistics, gender-based violence and femicide cases are still very high. We want to find out what it is that we are doing wrong.
“But we also need to know what we are doing well so that we can scale it up and amplify it. We must make sure we are spending the money from government in the right way so we know there is going to be an impact.”
While there has been improvement in the latest statistics around sexual assaults and gender-based violence in the country, there is still much work to be done.
From April to June 2022, 855 women and 243 children were killed in South Africa - a decrease of 6.2% in counts reported in the same period last year.
The Gauteng government has deployed GBV Brigades in all wards and 30 dedicated GBVF social workers were appointed.
To expand the footprint, the Department of Community Safety has also roped in 610 safety volunteers to participate as GBV brigades.
The brigades play a critical role in enhancing community awareness of the Green Doors, Ikhaya-le-Themba, and the victim's empowerment centres (VECs) at police stations.
Thus far, the brigades have visited more than 170 000 households in the province.
Green Door facilities are safe sites that are situated within 5km of the local police station.
They offer victims of abuse services such as emotional containment, trauma debriefing and referral to the nearest police station to open a case. More than 1100 victims have received support at these shelters.
Despite the progress, Ledwaba acknowledges that there is still a lot to do.
“We have established what is called a GBVF War Room whereby together we are able to look into our resources.
“Gauteng is the only province that has a war room on GBVF, which is tasked with enhancing strategic institutional and resourcing coordination as well as providing survivor-focused services. We have broken the barriers across all the departments to ensure we work together to fight and prioritise GBVF.
“The summit has brought forth some some recommendations,” said Ledwaba. “One of these is the increase of police visibility. We also acknowledge that there must be an increase in the level of education around gender-based violence. We need GBVF prevention programmes.
“We can’t be focusing on cure but rather focus on prevention. Where rape is happening, there are no street lights, the grass is long and there are no patrollers.”
Ledwaba says gender-based violence is a social problem. Where there are more people, there is bound to be social conflict. Among factors contributing to gender- based violence in the province, he says, is the high number of people living in Gauteng.
“Here is a high level of poverty and a high level of substance abuse. Those societal conflicts lead to gender-based violence.”
Ledwaba says the government has invested large amounts of money to fight the scourge.
“Gauteng alone is putting more than R65 million in its budget to fight the violence. It shows our commitment.”
Meanwhile, Gauteng Premier David Makhura, who also attended the summit, said to break the scourge , law enforcement, psychosocial, economic and educational interventions are needed in partnership with civil society, faith-based and non-governmental organisations.
"Gender-based violence is about patriarchy. It is about the exertion of power by men over women. We want a South Africa where there is gender equality. We seek a non-sexist South Africa where men and women can live together in peace and contribute uniquely to communities," said Makhura.