Civil society groups opposed to the establishment of board of trustees
CIVIL SOCIETY groups have rejected the establishment of a board of trustees to set up the National Council on Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
They also lashed out at the Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities Department for the lack of funding for, and the slow pace in implementing, the National Strategic Plan to curb the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide in the country.
The representatives of the various groups voiced their dissatisfaction during a round-table discussion with the department, which was held to discuss the processes under way to deal with the crisis.
Chief director of governance, transformation, justice and security in the department, Esther Maluleke, outlined how resources still needed to be allocated to initiatives and programmes to deal with the crisis, due to the fact that at present most of what was being done on the ground was more reactive than proactive.
Another problem Maluleke identified was that the department had yet to implement any programmes to that effect: “We know that we don’t understand the magnitude of the problem as we don’t have a prevalent study, so often it’s hard to measure whether we
are doing well or not.” Anne Githuku-Shongwe, a representative for the UN Women’s SA Multi-Country Office, said that in their bid to assist the department they had established a collaborative platform to address violence against women.
Githuku-Shongwe said countries across the world had not done well in responding to violence against women, and there was need for prevention collaboratives that enabled multiple organisations to come together and start thinking about how to put actions together to make a difference.
Civil society groups were unhappy with the discussion.
Jeanne Bodenstein from Rape Crisis said: “We are concerned that civil society’s role in the implementation of the National Strategic Plan is not being funded.
“Not to mention that the National Development Agency has promised to distribute more than R80 million to organisations working against gender-based violence after a grant proposal process.
“However, there has been no transparency for the distribution process, and the organisations that have been allocated funding have not received it.”
Bodenstein said they were further concerned that the five electric BMW cars which had been handed over by the German government to assist in the fight against GBV had seemingly disappeared.
Sibongile Ndashe, a lawyer and human rights activist, said they were against the establishment of the board of trustees for a number of reasons.
Ndashe said as it stood, there were problems with chapter five of the plan, which set out the institutional and operational arrangements.
She said the chapter was meant to deal with closing accountability gaps and prevent shortcomings of the leadership. But, it currently did not have any specific details or a framework.