25 November 2025

‘Theme: Building on the Advancements of the Past 30 years to End Violence Against Women and Children’.

We participate in this debate to mark the launch of the annual programme of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children. We recall the words of the founding father of our democracy President Nelson Mandela when he said ‘a society’s moral character is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members, primarily by ensuring their fundamental human rights, safety and dignity’.

Madiba’s words echoes then provision of section 12 of the Constitution that states that everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources and not to be tortured in any way.

This debate takes place just few days after the declaration of GBV+F as a national disaster by the National Disaster Management Centre in terms of Section 23 of the Disaster Management Act, 2002 which was also welcomed by the Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. This declaration, outlined CoGTA, will mean to reinforce and strengthens the existing systems that are already in place to fight GBV+F.

Amongst other things, these systems includes the reinforcement and strengthening of the work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on the GBV, the expansion of the Thuthuzela Care Centres, the strengthening of the sexual offences courts as well as the reform of the criminal justice system to effectively fight GBV+F.

The declaration of GBV+F as a national disaster calls on all organs of state to strengthen their support to existing GBVF response structures, to fully implement their contingency arrangements, and to ensure that all necessary mechanisms are activated to enable the National Executive to manage the disaster effectively.

In terms of Section 22 of the Act, organs of state, the private sector, communities and individuals are urged to intensify their risk-reduction and prevention practices through the implementation of GBVF-related standards, procedures and legislative measures.

Individuals are strongly encouraged to refrain from any acts of gender-based violence or femicide. Further that the national, provincial, and municipal authorities are also advised, consistent with the Act, to implement multisectoral prevention, mitigation, relief and rehabilitation plans to address the effects of this disaster holistically.

Our focus in this debate will be on strengthening the State’s Response to Gender-Based Violence and Femicide and children’s right.

As part of intervention undertaken by both Parliament and government include the amendments and passing of legislations that are aimed legally strengthening the fight against GBV+F.

Some of these legislations include the Sexual Offense and Related Matters Amendment Act of 2022, which is aimed at comprehensively and extensively review and amend all aspects of the laws and the implementation of the laws relating to sexual offences, and to deal with all legal aspects of or relating to sexual offences in a single statute, by repealing the common law offence of rape and replacing it with a new expanded statutory offence of rape, applicable to all forms of sexual penetration without consent, irrespective of gender, as well as repealing the common law offence of indecent assault and replacing it with a new statutory offence of sexual assault, applicable to all forms of sexual violation without consent, among other things.

Essentially, the Criminal Law Amendment Act criminalises various forms of sexual violence and harassment and outlines procedures for reporting, investigation, and prosecution of sexual offences. This legislation introduced specific provisions that widened the definition of rape from the common law and included other provisions relating to sexual assault and the grooming of children for sexual purposes.

The other Act is the Domestic Violence Amendment Act of 2022. Domestic Violence Act provides legal protection and remedies for survivors of domestic violence, including protection orders and access to support services.

The last crime statistics indicated that in respect of sexual offences, rape increased, with Gauteng and KZN contributing 19.1% and 19.9% respectively to the national total. The statistics further indicated that women remain disproportionately affected by rape, assault GBH, and murder.

These statistics paint a picture that the war against gender-based violence and femicide is far from over and it requires our collective efforts to win it.

The children of our country continues to be victims of abuse and murder. This put our society as a failure on the test that Madiba challenged us many years ago that our moral character will be tested by how we protect the most vulnerable in our society, including children. No child should be a victim of abuse and crime in our country. We should live by the principle that every child is my child and that all of us individually and collectively have an obligation to protect our children and the most vulnerable in our society.

The fight against GBV+F and abuse of children remain requires the whole of government and whole of society approach. This means that civil society should join hands with the law enforcement agencies to fight GBV+F and no violence to children.

It is important that our criminal justice system strengthen its programmes on the victim support as well as ensuring that all police stations have GBV+F desks to ensure that victims of GBV+F are enabled to report their cases to the police.

We note the various legislations that have been passed to strengthen the fight against GBV+F and violence on children. What is critical is that we should ensure that these legislations are enforced and where there are weaknesses, the legislations should be strengthen.

We must also ensure the data integrity and centralise the GBV+F information to ensure that the systems within the JCPS cluster talks to each other in an integrated manner.