DISCRIMINATION IS REVOLTING AND SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE
We can no longer wait. Every single one of us a responsibility to help treat Gender-Based Violence, There is no vaccine for this disease. Gender Equality needs to be in the school syllabus and new societal norms must be established in our homes and communities.
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The below speech was delivered by Minister Patricia de Lille in her role as the leader of GOOD to the National Parliament on the 30th June 2020
Gender-based violence is a disease that infects the whole of society. There is no vaccine. It requires a whole of society response.
We need to go back to the beginning and establish a new value proposition and new societal norms. The project begins in our homes and communities.
We are blunting our boys’ emotions and raising them to believe that gender-based violence is how strong men should express their power.
We are training them to be soldiers, to wage war against our women.
In doing so, we are perpetuating an ancient patriarchal framework that must change.
Parents and guardians must lay the foundations for our children.
Our children must know, before they go to school, that discrimination, whether it is based on race, gender, culture or any other factor, is revolting and socially unacceptable.
In South Africa, each time another victim of femicide makes the news, we hear voices competing with each other to make dramatic speeches. We convene workshops; we convene more conferences, but at the same time, the next victim is on the news.
We must make sure that gender equality is incorporated in school syllabus.
Every single one of us has got a responsibility to contribute to treating this disease.
As Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, I have signed off on the allocation of 12 properties in Gauteng and the Western Cape for use as shelters for victims of gender-based violence – with more properties in other provinces to follow.
The Expanded Public Works Programme has also recruited 319 workers spread across all district municipalities to engage communities about GBV.
Today, I will meet with all MECs for Social Development in all nine provinces to implore on them the urgency and collaboration needed to make this work and using these shelters for abused women and children.
We shall overcome. We can no longer afford to wait.