Has the government suddenly found the political will to deal with gender-based violence?
It’s very difficult to say. The promises that were made from time immemorial and even at the gender summit last year are yet to be fulfilled. Now we hear more promises. Resources were promised last year …
So nothing new in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s latest promise of more resources?
It’s the same promise that was made last year at the gender summit. But in the state of the nation address this year, no new resources were allocated.
So you’re a bit cynical?
Yes. We have been calling for a national plan to address gender-based violence, a costed national strategic plan, and we’ve just heard that it is not costed, and no resources have been allocated for it. So how then do we take seriously the promise that more resources will be allocated?
The then minister of social development and chair of the interministerial committee on gender violence, Bathabile Dlamini, promised an integrated programme of action to address violence against women. What happened to that promise?
That promise was made in 2013, and it never saw the light of day. More specialised courts have now been promised to deal with sexual violence, but the ones that are there have struggled because of a lack of resources. They have not been well-financed and have not had sufficient human resources.
The president also promised more care centres.
They’re struggling as well because there isn’t adequate financing to run them. So it becomes very challenging to believe when more promises are being made and yet what is already on the ground is struggling.
Isn’t the government obliged by law to provide these services?
Yes. And the challenge we have is that the organisations giving services that are supposed to be rendered by the government, such as shelters for abused women, are really struggling. The irony is that the state spends more on a prisoner than on an abused woman.
Wasn’t it after the rape and murder of Anene Booysen, which caused the same outrage as we see now, that the government slashed funding for NPOs dealing with gender violence?
Yes. It takes the nation being outraged by a rape or murder for us to hear from the government again, making commitments that they forget when the pressure subsides.
Do you support the ANC Women’s League call for castration?
The issue is to ensure that perpetrators are brought to book and held accountable for their deeds. Castration would not help in doing that.
Do you take the league’s outrage seriously?
I can only hope that they realise this is a serious scourge.
How damaging was its support for Jacob Zuma and vilification of Khwezi?
It took us 10 steps back. For women who saw that happening and went on to be survivors of gender-based violence themselves, it certainly did create problems. It also created problems in the sense of the impunity it entrenched within the ANC.
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