Civil society groups are backbone of fight against GBV

I was appalled at the response of Joyce Maluleke, director-general of the department of women, youth & persons with disabilities, to Chris Barron’s question about civil society organisations saying they do what they can but don’t get adequate funding from the government. Her response: “Who do they account to? You can’t say they are not adequately resourced when we don’t know what they are doing.”

Well, Ms Maluleke, civil society organisations (CSOs) are the backbone of the national action plan to prevent violence against women and children. Their advocacy alerted the government to the extent of the violence, assisted in the finalisation of the plan and they run the majority of mental and psychosocial response programmes, providing muchneeded assistance to victims and their families. They have faithfully reported their activities in the prevention of, and response to, gender-based violence to the government and to donors.

NGOs cannot afford the huge salaries paid to senior government officials. To obtain funding from either the government or donors, they have to write business plans, develop budgets and balance their limited resources against fair remuneration of staff and recruiting and sustaining volunteers. They also write project reports and know well that if there are qualified financial audits, there will be no further funding.

The NGO working with traumatised children for which I presently volunteer is unable to pay staff salaries in full at the end of this year due to less and less money available. Some of our poorly paid staff will buy food for hungry children who arrive for therapy with empty tummies, and are thus unable to participate meaningfully.

I think those on the top of the government pile have completely lost touch with how dysfunctional systems impact on the lives of children and families.

Dr Joan van Niekerk, child rights and protection consultant