In 2019, following years of public outcry and increased pressure from people and civil society to address the unacceptably high level of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) in South Africa, President Ramaphosa announced that urgent action was required. Under the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, this included the commitment of additional funding to tackle GBVF, resources for training personnel in the criminal justice system and the reduction of the GBV-related DNA backlog.
Yet, in the 2020/21 financial year, 2,655 women were murdered in South Africa. This is equivalent to 7 women murdered every day and one woman murdered every three hours. The most recent quarterly crime statistics also saw a 4.2% increase in women murdered compared to the previous period.
So the question we need an answer to is, what happened to the additional resources, budget and personnel the President committed to deploying in 2019?
To find out, join us to #InterruptBrokenPromises by demanding:
- The immediate establishment of the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, including the development of a costed and funded operational plan.
- The DNA backlog of 58,000 cases is cleared by the end of September 2022, as publicly committed to by Minister for Police Bheki Cele on 24 March 2022.
- The immediate rollout of appropriate, mandatory and continuous victim-centric training for personnel in the criminal justice system, increased transparency about how many people have been trained, and the impact of the training.