The Democratic Alliance (DA) marked the start of "16 Days of Activism" with a strong position that South Africa needs 365 Days of Action and needs systemic changes from national government to truly address GBV, femicide and the scourge of crime against children, women and every South African.
We are extremely disappointed to see that the 16 Days period was not used to bring the National Council against Gender-Based Violence and Femicide into working force, so that it could start its critical work.
Although the National anti-GBV Council's empowering Act came into force on 16 November 2024 nothing has been done to fill the Council and start up its work, which is a big failure by the Minister of Women & Children, Sindisiwe Chikunga. The Minister has neither acted to finance and resource it, nor has she appointed the members of this Council.
In fact, last week, the Minister of Women & Children avoided answering questions about this failure, in Parliament's National Council of Provinces, because she was "double booked" to attend another sitting in the National Assembly.
The "16 Days" period was a perfect opportunity for her to show South Africans that she cares and takes this seriously, but she failed to act.
This week the tragic under-resourcing of survivor facilities in the Eastern Cape was exposed, as that province was outed as having just 16 safe space shelters for the entire population of the province; some with just 11 beds.
This is a devastating revelation: Large geographic areas in the Eastern Cape and millions of residents have no safe space shelter in their town or area. To escape violence or to recover after violence, they are forced to travel at great cost to towns far away. If these are women survivors with children, they must uproot their children and transport them to towns far away, just to escape the violence.
The DA is deeply concerned about the state of care for GBV survivors in the Eastern Cape, and we call on Premier Oscar Mabuyane to make sure that safe space shelters in each town of the province are accessible and have enough beds, by budgeting accordingly, and executing immediately.
This shortcoming in the Eastern Cape is the sort of failing that the National Council against Gender-Based Violence and Femicide is supposed to correct, but it will not do so for as long as the Minister sits on her hands.
The Ministry on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities continues to pay lip service to the crisis, lip service to the solutions, and lip service to the survivors. It has failed to use the "16 Days" period for any good. There were absolutely zero systemic changes made and no policies, programmes, or regulations issued to address the crisis during this period.
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The severely disappointing approach from the National Government to this 16 Days of Activism leaves blood on the hands of Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga.
The DA will continue to press for systemic, meaningful, and lasting solutions. No at-risk persons or survivors need marketing campaigns. What we need is for the system to work to protect us.
