South Africa: POWA Worried over GBV Rise

People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) and Masimanyane Women’s Rights International have said that they have not received any money from the R1.6bn fund the government of South Africa established last year to combat gender-based violence (GBV).

This concern was raised at an online panel discussion hosted by Sunday Times Live Dialogues, sponsored by Brand SA, in which civil society groups, legal experts, and activists came together to discuss gender-based violence in South Africa.

Development Diaries understands that President Cyril Ramaphosa had established an interim steering committee in April 2019 to respond to the GBV crisis after the #TotalShutdown march and presidential summit two years ago.

The Executive Director of Masimanyane Women’s Rights International, Dr Lesley Anne Foster, said, ‘That much of the money in the fund was disbursed to various government departments to strengthen their fight against gender-based violence and femicide’.

The Chief Executive Officer of POWA, Mary Makgaba, said that her organisation, which runs a number of domestic violence shelters in Gauteng, had not received any money yet, too.

‘It [is] getting worse, it has actually become a national crisis. We need to do something. We need to take a firm stance to fight gender-based violence, particularly given the perceptions and socialisation when it comes to gender inequality and how men still believe that they are more superior to women in terms of power dynamics’, she said.

Makgaba also said, ‘In the recent statistics published by Crime Stats SA, [we have] noted that the sexual violence cases are very alarming, even though we have a sense of the figures, not every case is reported. Some of our people in rural communities do not report cases due to stigma, unfair treatment, fear, intimidation, and lack of trust in the criminal justice system’.

Source: Sowetan Live

Photo source: GovernmentZA

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