3 days ago
Government's gender-based violence plan lacks funds
File photo
Inadequate government funding for the
The
'[The plan] is a comprehensive strategy to deal with gender-based violence and my feeling is we should be putting our energy, our advocacy, our legal work and our responses into getting it to work,' said Bronwyn Pithy, an advocate at the Women's Centre for Legal Studies.
'We should be pressurising governments to get the NSP [national strategic plan] to work and be funded and properly done.'
In his
But Pithy said the government's response to the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide was not enough.
Rights group Women for Change has put forward a number of demands to the department of women, youth and persons with disabilities to address gender-based violence, including that it be declared a national disaster, funding the national strategic plan and urgently implementing the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Bill, which was signed into law in May last year.
In a written response to the organisation, the department said it had submitted funding proposals to the treasury for the implementation of the national strategic plan and had also put in funding proposals for the establishment of the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide.
'The [department] is engaged in all these matters. The department of social development has highlighted the need for immediate allocation of funding and resources for GBVF-prevention initiatives. This action is pending,' it said.
'Additional funding is required
The department of women, youth and persons with disabilities did not respond to questions from the Mail & Guardian.
In a statement, Women for Change said while the department acknowledged the funding crisis, it offered no solution beyond stating that it is 'subject to the availability of funds'.
'This is not good enough! Survivors cannot wait for the next budget cycle. Shelters are closing. Victims are being turned away. Legal and psychological services are under-resourced, like many other organisations at the forefront,' it said.
'This is not a planning issue. This is a moral emergency, where you ignore the 15 murdered women every day.'
The organisation also called for judicial and legislative reform, which includes opposing bail in cases of child sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, attempted murder and murder, where sufficient evidence exists and if they are a danger to survivors and the community.
While the Criminal and Related Matters Amendment Act makes provision for opposing bail, Women for Change said its application is 'inconsistent and dangerously flawed'.
It added that the criminal justice system does not adequately address survivors' lived experience and they are often 're-traumatised by the justice system, with rapists, abusers and murderers walking free on bail or reoffending while out on parole'.
Pithy conceded that the sexual offences legislation is not being implemented consistently, adding that the government needed to pay attention to detecting and prosecuting cases.
'Our biggest problem in this country is, apart from the fact that we have a very low reporting rate … is the attrition rates and that the number of cases that are reported in comparison to those that eventually land up in conviction is so minuscule,' she said.
'The conviction rate in sexual offences at the moment, realistically, is between 5% and 7% of the cases that actually get reported.'
She added that the system needed to show perpetrators that they will be caught, they will be prosecuted and be found guilty — and there will be consequences.
'It is probably one of the most effective ways of addressing GBVF.'
'Facing these levels of violence, at the moment, people operate with impunity. They know they won't get caught and they know they won't proceed to prosecution.'
