Cape Town - Gender-Based Violence Monitor South Africa says the government needs to do more to curb on what has been called as the second pandemic.
This follows after The Presidential GBVF Summit commenced on Monday.
Speaking to Newzroom Afrika, GBV Monitor South Africa founder, Omogolo Taunyane-Mnguni said that their task is to track 2018 pronouncements and progress made since this last convening and also highlighted crucial interventions needed.
"When we last convened the Presidential declaration was made and that was in 2018, and there were a number of promises that President Cyril Ramaphosa had made, one of them was the GBV council that had to be set up within six months from the last convene in 2018. Until now we still don’t have that council.“
“He promised to ensure that there are adequate resources like Thuthuzela Care Centres and we know that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is currently struggling with the TCC expansion programme.
“He promised to ensure that there is a social behaviour change programme targeting men to ensure that we really challenge the social norms that perpetuate GBV,” she said.
Taunyane-Mnguni said that it was disappointing that since 2018, not enough had been done and there was room for improvement.
“We really do have a lot of unfinished business with this particular summit. It’s very clear that there hasn’t been any kind of co-ordinating and monitoring progress that has been done since 2018 and that has already been a problem,” she said.
She further acknowledged the establishment of the GBVF Response Fund as a very crucial introduction by the Presidency to really put his money where his mouth is.
“The GBVF fund will be at the centre of really measuring all of these supposed thousands of community based organisations that have received funding to ensure that the work has been done on the ground and another development also comes in since the summit is the establishment of the Women Economic Assembly that targets economic empowerment of women,” she said.
IOL