Committed campaign

THE Minister of Social Development, Bathabile Dlamini, injected a welcome dose of sanity into discussions about violence against women at the weekend.

Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the inter-ministerial committee on violence against women and children, she said unequivocally that this could not be a political issue. In fact, she said, since violence against women cut across the whole of society, “elite or poor”, the battle against it could promote social cohesion.

Coming after the outrageous attempts earlier this month by ANC Western Cape leader Marius Fransman to extract political profit from the rape and murder of Bredasdorp teenager Anene Booysen, and DA leader Helen Zille’s bizarre decision to stage her protest against rape in front of parliament, the minister’s remarks echo those of many civil society activists who have called for action free of any party political bickering.

It remains to be seen what the committee, which represents a whole range of departments – social development, justice, health, police, basic education, home affairs and the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities – will come up with in the way of a programme.

The urgency of the need for action was again underlined last week, with the grim lists which have become so familiar: a teenager gang-raped in Paarl; a woman who went to a police station in Herbertsdale to report a case of domestic violence apparently raped in the trauma room at the police station by a police officer; another policeman charged with raping a woman in the Free State; 12 men arrested in connection with a gang-rape in Gauteng; two toddlers in critical condition after being raped in separate incidents in Limpopo.

Properly led, this campaign against violence could indeed unite South Africans in a way that we haven’t really seen in the post-1994 period.

But that will demand a huge effort, in terms of leadership and restraint, from politicians who often don’t seem to have much of either.