By Advocate Tarisai Mchuchu-Macmillian
We, as the Mosaic Training, Service and Healing Centre, say the exclusion of gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide from the four priorities outlined in this year's State of the Nation Address (Sona) is disheartening.
President Cyril Ramaphosa uses Sona to set out his government’s priorities for the coming year and to highlight the achievements and challenges of the previous year. Excluding GBV and femicide from the priorities implies the lives of millions of women are not high enough on the list.
The priorities outlined in the speech include defeating the coronavirus pandemic, accelerating economic recovery, implementing economic reforms to create sustainable jobs, fighting corruption and strengthening the weakened state.
The harrowingly high number of media reports on female homicide last year gave the country moment for pause. They showed the pandemic of GBV and femicide were showing no signs of abating, even as we were in the grip of a global health pandemic. South Africa’s femicide rates are five times higher than the global average, and every eight hours, a woman dies because of intimate partner abuse.
It is disconcerting that the president did not reiterate the urgency required to eradicate GBV and femicide. His speech mentions ending GBV further down in his address. Sadly, GBV and femicide were but a footnote.
The president mentioned the Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Response Fund, launched last Thursday, but we are concerned about repeating mistakes, by setting up additional structures with little monitoring, oversight and accountability for meaningful outcomes.
Advocate Tarisai Mchuchu-Macmillian is the executive director of Mosaic, an NGO dedicated to fighting GBV.
The Star