Johannesburg - The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) and the National Shelter Movement of South Africa (NSMSA) have accused the government of failing victims of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
This is as the country has seen rising incidents of GBV and domestic violence against women and children cases in recent years.
Today, the Gender-based Violence and Femicide Summit will kick off its programme at Gallagher Estate, Midrand, under the theme: “Accountability. Acceleration and Amplification, NOW!”
It is reported that this year's instalment will reflect on successes and challenges since the first presidential summit in November 2018. However, many GBVF interest groups feel the government is not doing enough to address the problem. According to recent crime statistics, from April to June this year, 855 women and 243 children were killed in South Africa.
Speaking to the SABC ahead of the summit, spokesperson for the CGE Javu Baloyi indicated that they expect nothing but comprehensive and sustainable resolutions from the summit, adding that perpetrators of GBVF should not be allowed to do as they please.
“We have met with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), on the issue of Krugersdorp. We have seen that it is becoming a trend or a norm that the DNA tests that are being done don’t match the people that are positively identified and we realised that something is amiss.”
Maria Welcome for the NSMSA organisation said the movement will be making their presence felt at the summit following their recent engagements with the government.
“In addition to the resolutions from the indaba – which call for a standardised, three-year GBV shelter funding national model and emphasises the need to work towards the integration of a multi-sectoral approach between civil society, private sector and the government – the NSMSA also seeks to pick up several issues it has been highlighting for nearly a decade,” Welcome said.
Welcome indicated that they had previously tried to engage the president on two key issues through their open letter to the president in 2020 for the government to urgently address the chronic, debilitating under-funding of shelters for abused women.
“In our second second open letter to the president, the NSMSA called for the removal of Police Minister Bheki Cele, asserting that he has absolutely failed in his role and must immediately be replaced with someone who is more compassionate and better equipped to deal with the country’s unique and specific policing issues,” Welcome said.
According to the shelter movement, the government has not responded to their calls, which is why they will be making representations in person at the summit.
In response to the issues of a backlog to DNA testing at forensic science laboratories, which now stands at 71 000, down from the 241 000 reported earlier this year, Cele said they were working overtime to minimise the backlog, which should be cleared before the end of last month. He said some of the issues that had contributed to the backlog related to collapsed contracts.
“Sixteen contracts were allowed to collapse. All those contracts are in place and all those contracts are monitored on a month-to-month basis to such an extent that when there are six months left for the collapse of the contracts, you begin to work on their renewal so that we never go back to the situation where these contracts will collapse. The top 30 stations that have a high level of abuse and rape are given extra money, around R100 million for those stations, so that they are able to short-circuit the way of responding,” Cele said.
The Star