Fellow South African,
This an extremely distressing time for our young democracy. For one, the escalation in gender-based violence towards women has grabbed the national headlines, with stories of brutal and heinous acts of violence, rape and murder of innocent young women becoming the new norm. These stories have shocked the collective moral conscience of our nation and have rightly sparked protest and civil action demanding an urgent plan from government to quell the onslaught on women.
This cannot continue a day longer. We need urgent, clear and decisive action. This goes much further than putting the perpetrators of such acts in jail. It requires addressing the root causes of this social and moral decay. It also requires bold leadership making hard, unpopular but effective decisions.
Change starts at home
“As men we must have a zero-tolerance approach towards any form of gender-based violence and sexism against women and children.” – DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane
It is common cause that many of the heinous and violent crimes suffered by women are committed by a small majority of men. Most men in South Africa fall into the “silent majority”. I wish to say that being silent is not good enough. The onus falls on this “silent majority” to stand up to men who undermine, demean, harass, abuse or attack women. And this applies to every single man.
As men we must have a zero-tolerance approach towards any form of gender-based violence and sexism against women and children. We must treat women and children with equal dignity and respect; and we must never commit, physical or otherwise, any violence against women and children. We must speak up and not be silent any longer; calling out, denouncing and acting against any person who abuses, in any form, a woman or child in your presence. And we must acknowledge and challenge the factors that lead to gender-based violence including power imbalances, patriarchy, homophobia and the objectification of women.
The DA is working hard to stop gender-based violence
The DA will not relent in fighting against injustice, restoring law and order in our country, and bringing about much-needed reform in both the economy and society.
In this light, the Party has been supporting all lawful country-wide demonstrations and protests against gender-based violence against women as well as xenophobic violence.
We have written to the President requesting a bipartisan meeting to discuss solutions to the scourge of gender-based violence, and have called on the President to establish a special task team to review the processes and systems of the country’s law enforcement agencies and criminal justice system. I will this week be meeting with the President to discuss this and charter a clear way forward.
To ensure that SAPS is able to speedily identify any repeat offenders should they be released back into society, we have also written to the Minister of Police to request that he urgently speeds up the necessary legislature that would allow DNA samples to continue to be taken from offenders convicted in terms of Schedule 8 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which includes sexual offenders.
Because too often women and children are harmed in their own homes, we propose making legislative changes that would address shortfalls in current domestic violence and harassment laws and offer innovative measures at tackling gender-based violence.
In addition to our relentless call for better policing from the national government, our nine key proposals include:
In addition to the DA’s battle for the governmental and legal changes South Africa needs to stop gender-based violence, every single one of us must commit to CHANGE, STAND UP and SPEAK OUT against gender-based violence NOW.
If we don’t deal urgently and decisively with the underlying causes of the upfolding economic and social collapse engulfing our nation, we will have no country left to build.
Regards,
Mmusi Maimane
DA Leader