Sonke Gender Justice

News Category: Press Releases

  • Civil society organisations call on President Zuma to comply with the rule of law and cooperate with the ICC

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    Five leading South African civil society organisations and 118 concerned individuals have endorsed a statement calling upon the South African Government to respect the rule of law and honour South Africa’s treaty obligations by cooperating with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to the warrant of arrest issued for President Omar al-Bashir of The Sudan.

    The South African based organisations who have endorsed the statement are:

    • Accountability Now
    • Human Rights Media Centre
    • Khulumani Support Group
    • Sonke Gender Justice Network
    • South African History Archive (SAHA)

    These organisations represent several thousand members and supporters.

    The statement also calls on the South African Government to obey court orders and respect the independence of the judiciary. It calls upon political leaders to desist from making gratuitous attacks against the judiciary.

    The National Director of Public Prosecutions is called upon to commence criminal proceedings against those who violated the court order restraining the departure of President Bashir from South Africa, including those who orchestrated the violation of the order.

    The ICC is requested to refer the non-compliance of South Africa with its Rome Statute obligations to the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties in order to take appropriate action against South Africa.

    The statement is pasted below.

    For inquiries contact:

    CAMPAIGN TO UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW

    The South African government must comply with domestic and international law

    We, the undersigned South African organisations and individuals call on the South African Government to uphold the rule of law, respect the independence of the judiciary and comply with its international treaty obligations.

    On 15 June 2015, the full bench of the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa declared that the conduct of the South African government in failing to arrest the President of the Republic of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, was inconsistent with South Africa’s Constitution and invalid. The High Court also found that the departure of President al-Bashir from South Africa before the finalisation of legal proceedings, and in full awareness of the explicit court order prohibiting his departure, amounted to non-compliance by the government with that order.

    The International Criminal Court (ICC) has indicted President al-Bashir for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur.

    South Africa played an important role in the establishment of the ICC and was one of the first countries to ratify the Court’s enabling statute, the Rome Statute, and incorporate it into domestic law (The Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act 27 of 2002). This statute required the South African government to execute the ICC’s warrant of arrest when President al-Bashir entered South African territory. Our constitution is equally clear on the obligations of the state. Where an international agreement or treaty has been enacted into law by national legislation it is binding law.

    The refusal by the South African government to cooperate with the ICC represents a very serious challenge to the global struggle against impunity and lawlessness. In refusing to arrest President al-Bashir South Africa has broken its international treaty obligations and defied its own law and Constitution.

    The willful disobeying of a court order by the highest levels of government has significantly undermined the rule of law in South Africa. The brazen conduct of the government has dire consequences for the future of our constitutional democracy that may lead to its dismantling. If the government believes it is free to flout court orders why should others feel bound by the rulings of our courts?

    Attacks by politicians on the integrity of judges are aimed at enabling impunity through delegitimizing the judiciary. All South Africans should stand firmly behind the Chief Justice in condemning the gratuitous attacks on the courts.

    As a State Party to the Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to cooperate fully with the ICC in the arrest and transfer of President al-Bashir to the ICC, whether or not it agrees with the indictment. Unless South Africa fully commits to complying with its domestic and international legal obligations it has no place in the community of nations seeking to end impunity for crimes that threaten the peace and security of the world.

    The organisations and individuals listed below call upon:

    The South African Government to:

    • Respect the rule of law by obeying court orders and abiding by the Constitution.
    • Reassert South Africa’s commitment to end impunity for those responsible for the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
    • Comply with its treaty obligations under the Rome Statute and domestic law by cooperating fully with the ICC.
    • Withdraw from the Rome Statute if it has no intention to comply with it.

    South African politicians to:

    • Desist from making gratuitous attacks against the judiciary.

    The National Director of Public Prosecutions to:

    • Institute criminal proceedings against those who violated the court order restraining the departure of President Bashir from South Africa, including those who orchestrated the violation of the said court order, on charges of:
      • Contempt of court;
      • Defeating the ends of justice; and
      • Contraventions of the Immigration Act 13 of 2002 and the Immigration Regulations, 2014.

    The International Criminal Court to:

    • Refer the non-compliance of South Africa with the Rome Statute to the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties and the United Nations Security Council with the request that such bodies take appropriate action against South Africa.

    The Assembly of States Parties of the ICC to:

    • Hold a priority meeting of States Parties to seriously address anti-ICC sentiments and concerns from African States Parties and the African Union.

    The United Nations Security Council to:

    • Take decisive action on implementing Resolution 1593 (2005) that referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC.
    • Support the ICC to comply with Resolution 1593 and take steps to ensure the cooperation of Member States of the UN with the ICC.

    Endorsing organisations:

    118 concerned individuals have endorsed the statement hosted by Change.org.

  • Hate Crimes Working Group disappointed by the decision of the Joint Committee on Violence Against Foreign Nationals not to address King Zwelithini regarding his comments earlier this year

    In the wake of another surge of xenophobic violence earlier this year, Parliament convened an Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Probing Violence Against Foreign Nationals, which sat again on Thursday 25 June. In March of this year, Zulu King Zwelithini was recorded saying that foreigners “must take their bags and go where they’ve come from.” Many have viewed these comments as the potential cause of the last surge of xenophobic violence. But on Thursday the Ad Hoc Committee dismissed the suggestion of speaking with the King about his utterances. Committee Co-Chair, Ms Ruth Mbengu, told the Ad Hoc Committee that “(o)nly the media thinks it started with the king.” King Zwelithini has argued that his comments were taken out of context and has refused to apologise or provide an explanation.

    In our multi-cultural society, with its rich history and diversity of lived experience, it is important that we all show respect for each other and respect the positions of office holders and traditional leaders. But these leaders must lead by example and, especially in the light of our hateful and violent Apartheid past, must guard against comments and actions that can be interpreted as intolerant, prejudiced, or hateful in any way. Leaders must be mindful of the impact their words and actions could have on vulnerable groups. South African activists and researchers working with issues related to hate crimes generally share the conviction that hateful speech, such as harassment, slurs, and other forms of verbal abuse, creates fertile ground for hate-motivated victimisation.

    “People in leadership positions, regardless of who they are, must be accountable. The shielding of leaders by our government must end,” said Lesego Tlhwale, Advocacy Officer at the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Task Force, a member of the Hate Crimes Working Group.

    Anthony Waldhausen, Director of the Gay & Lesbian Network and member of the Hate Crimes Working Group, agreed, saying that, “Our oversight institutions, including Parliament, should not be seen to be creating a culture of impunity. Comments and actions that can be interpreted by the general public as prejudiced must be addressed, regardless of their source.”

    “The South African Human Rights Commission is in the process of investigating a number of complaints of hate speech against the King. This clearly shows that it is not only the media that thinks the King’s words could have been a catalyst for the subsequent wave of xenophobic violence,” said Marlise Richter, Policy Development and Advocacy Specialist at Sonke Gender Justice, a member of the Hate Crimes Working Group.

    “Influential figures must use their power and platforms to build the respect and tolerance necessary for our democracy,” said Matthew Clayton, secretary of the Hate Crimes Working Group and Research, Advocacy and Policy Coordinator of the Triangle Project.

    “We strongly support ANC MP Zephroma Dlamini-Dubazana’s suggestion that the Ad Hoc Committee visit the King, to engage in a dialogue about what lead to his statements, and their potential unintended impact. It cannot be disrespectful to do so if MPs are democratically elected political leaders of the South African people. We also support the suggestion that other Chiefs and leaders be similarly engaged,” said Sanja Bornman, Chairperson of the Hate Crimes Working Group and attorney at the Women’s Legal Centre.

    The Hate Crimes Working Group is a civil society grouping whose members work closely with government and civil society, including religious and traditional leaders, to advocate for hate crimes legislation.

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    For further information contact:

    Marlise Richter, Policy Development and Advocacy Specialist at Sonke Gender Justice
    marlise@genderjustice.org.za
    021 423 7088

    Sanja Bornman, Attorney at Women’s Legal Centre
    sanja@wlce.co.za
    021 424 5660

    Roshan Dadoo, Acting Executive Director at Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa
    roshan@cormsa.org.za
    011 403 7560

  • Sonke welcomes conclusion of trial against Lungephi Ngeshweni for kidnap, rape, and murder of Dorcas Nqanqali

    Sonke Gender Justice (“Sonke”) welcomes the expeditious conclusion of the trial against Lungephi Ngeshweni for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Dorcas Nqanqali — a 14 year old girl from Dadamba village in the Eastern Cape — which resulted in a guilty verdict on all three counts.

    The verdict was presented a week ago on June 17th, a day after Youth Day, in South Africa. Community members, activists and representatives from Sonke stood by the Nqanqali family as they braved the winter winds outside the Willovale Regional Court calling for justice.

    In July of 2014, Ngeshweni coerced Nqanqali from her home, and then dragged her to the bushes, where he proceeded to brutally beat and rape her. Examinations completed by the district surgeon found that the young victim suffered bruises to the face, a broken jaw and tearing of the vagina. At the time of the attack, Ngeshweni was out on parole for the rape of his 10-year-old niece in 1996.

    On the witness stand, Ngeshweni in fact pleaded guilty to all three counts, and expressed remorse for his actions. His defence lawyer continued with a request for leniency from the victim’s family and the magistrate. Given Ngeshweni’s criminal record and the brutal nature of the attack, however, he was sentenced to four years for kidnapping, and two consecutive life sentences for rape and murder.

    “The court will look at the purpose of this sentence. Firstly, it’s for retribution so that the community can see that this court serves justice. Secondly, it’s for rehabilitation, and thirdly it’s for deterrence and to give a message to the public that crime has no place in our society,” the magistrate said. “The court really sees this as a horrible act for a 14-year-old to be killed in this fashion. These three offences are common in the village, and boys are learning from you adults how badly to treat women.”

    Sonke’s involvement with this trial began on the same day that we celebrated justice for Sandiswa Mhlawuli —the 27-year-old woman whose ex-boyfriend was pronounced guilty, on September 11, 2014, for killing Mhlawuli nine months earlier. Sonke, alongside Community Action Teams (CATs), travelled to the site of Dorcas Nqanqali’s grave in her village to pray with the family and begin working to ensure that Dorcas’ murder is remembered in the ongoing struggle to end Violence Against Children (VAC) in South Africa. Later, CATs, which are teams of community members who mobilise to address justice and other issues locally, led a march to the local South African Police Services (SAPS) office, and staged a sit-in to ensure that state agencies were working to resolve the case efficiently and transparently.

    “We knew, by law, that the investigator was supposed to be communicating with the Nqanqali family and he was not doing that,” says Sonke and MenCare’s Government & Media Liaison, Patrick Godana.

    The community sit-in resulted in the Station Commander ordering the investigator to respond to the grievances and allegations of the community.

    “When [the investigator] arrived at the police station, he was in a state of shock — outside the offices CATs were singing freedom and accountability songs, and inside, the station commander was calling him to account,” Godana recalls.

    The investigator apologised to the community and the Nqanqali family for the mishandling of the case and committed to expediting DNA samples and extending social services to the family.

    “The road towards this victorious day was never easy,” said Godana remembering the collective efforts of the CATs.

    Sonke Gender Justice celebrates the fact that the legal outcome provides justice for Dorcas Nqanqali and her family, as it did for Sandiswa Mhlawuli last year. Although these murder trials are over, we remember the victims of gender-based violence (GBV) and continue to dedicate ourselves to the prevention of GBV in the first place.

    Sonke renews our urgent call on the South African government and the Minister of Women in the Presidency, Susan Shabangu, to immediately develop, fund and implement a comprehensive, multi-sectoral national strategic plan to end GBV, with strong prevention strategies at its heart.

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    Media Contact:

    Patrick Godana
    Sonke Gender Justice and MenCare Government & Media Liaison
    patrick@genderjustice.org.za
    Office +27 (0)21 423 7088 x211

  • African Countries above global average for providing paternity leave

    MenCare: Involved fatherhood leads to gender equality and child development.

    Tuesday, 16 June 2015, Nairobi — Encouraging and supporting fathers to play bigger roles in the lives of their children through innovative global health and social initiatives is vital if real gender equality is to be achieved, finds a new MenCare report, State of the World’s Fathers (SOWF).

    “Despite the fact that around 80% of the world’s men and boys will become fathers in their lifetime, engaging men in caregiving is only just beginning to find its way onto the global gender equality agenda,” says Wessel van den Berg, Child Rights and Positive Parenting, Sonke Gender Justice.

    The SOWF report reveals long-lasting disparities in Africa where women do more unpaid care work than men, which negatively affects women and girls. However, 55 percent of African countries do provide paternity leave, which is higher than the global percentage (47 percent), but the uptake falls short.

    “Fathers matter deeply in terms of child development, and they are as biologically hard-wired to provide care as mothers are. Furthermore, fathers with close connections to their children live longer, have fewer health problems, are more productive, and generally happier.

    “The involvement of fathers before, during, and after childbirth has been shown to have positive effects on maternal health behaviors, women’s use of maternal and newborn health services, and fathers’ longer-term support and involvement in the lives of their children,” van den Berg adds.

    However, despite these benefits, little has been done in the way of research or policy development, either at national or international level, to understand and promote fathers’ involvement. This is especially true of the African continent.

    As much of the world celebrates Father’s Day on the 21st of June, the landmark SOWF report reveals that women continue to spend between twice and 10 times longer than men caring for a child or elderly person. These inequalities persist despite the fact that women today make up 40% of the formal global workforce and half of the world’s food producers. While improving year on year, men’s caregiving has not kept pace with women’s overall participation in the job market, and caregiving dynamics across Africa reflect this imbalance. Although a number of international conventions have made reference to men’s caregiving, more needs to be done to redistribute the division of labour equally between men and women,  such as providing leave policies for fathers and encouraging them to be used.

    Data from Africa suggests that men participate in caregiving practices to varying degrees across countries. The fact that women do more unpaid care work than men has widespread negative effects on women and girls.

    Available data in Africa reveals that most couples do not use contraception and many men make the decisions about contraceptive use and family planning as well as greatly influence decisions around abortion. However, other African data seems to contradict this as research found that a varying degree of men (5 to 61 percent) believe that contraception is a women’s responsibility. Men’s presence at prenatal care also ranges vastly – from 14 to 86 percent.

    Attitudes about violence against women and children vary greatly by country in Africa, with men becoming more consistently opposed to violence against women and children. African data shows that there are low levels of violence against women during pregnancy, ranging from 2 to 17 percent, but high levels of violence, especially corporal punishment, persist against children – 72 to 94 percent – by both mothers and fathers, who are both equally likely to support it.

    Limited evidence also suggests that there is variation in how fathers interact with their children in Africa, with between 10 percent and 56 percent of fathers involved in at least one learning activity with their children.

    “Although the data indicates variability across countries, more research needs to be done to determine the reasons for the variability as well as to better understand caregiving practices relevant to Africa. This will help to inform recommendations to transform current caregiving practices in Africa,” says van den Berg.

    This first State of the World’s Fathers report reaffirms that fathers matter for children and that caregiving is good for fathers,” says David Wright, East Africa Regional Director for Save the Children, “and with it we want to begin to lay the groundwork to influence future policy and programs in Africa that address the current lack of men’s and boys’ equitable participation in caregiving, and that address rigid ideas about gender – and the harm that these issues bring to women, to children, and to men themselves. Gender equality requires a revolution in the lives of men and boys, not just in Africa but all over the globe, including their full participation in domestic life.”

    For more information, interviews, and report assets please contact:

    NOTES TO EDITORS:

    • Published by MenCare, a global fatherhood campaign, the State of the World Father’s report provides an international snapshot of men’s contributions to parenting and caregiving. The report analyses four crucial issues related to fatherhood: unpaid care work in the home; sexual and reproductive health; domestic violence against children and women; and child development.
    • Download the full SOWF report here: WWW.SOWF.MEN-CARE.ORG
    • MenCare is coordinated globally by Promundo and Sonke Gender Justice and jointly steered by Save the Children, Rutgers, and the MenEngage Alliance.

    KEY REPORT FINDINGS:

    UNPAID CARE WORK IN THE HOME

    While it is increasing, men’s unpaid caregiving has not kept pace with women’s participation in the labor force. The amount of care work done by men varies from country to country and family to family, but nowhere do men and boys contribute equally.

    • Women’s time spent and responsibility for unpaid care remains disproportionate to men’s: women spend 2 to 10 times longer, on average, caring for a child or older person than men do.
    • Women spend more time on combined paid and unpaid work, including in developed economies: women in OECD countries spend 22 more minutes a day on paid and unpaid care work than men do. The largest disparities are in Latin America, where women spend 6 to 23 more hours a week than men do.
    • Women, as compared to men, spend over 3 times as much time on unpaid care work in Mexico, New Zealand, and Japan; nearly 5 times as much in Korea; 8 times as much in South Africa; and nearly 10 times as much in India. Even in Europe, which as a region has achieved the greatest degree of equality, women do 26 hours of domestic and care work on average per week, as compared to 9 hours per week for men.
    • The double burden carried by many women reduces their ability to contribute to the household economy, as well as to develop their own skills and talents outside the home. In a study in Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 50% of women aged 20 to 24 said that their unpaid responsibilities in the home were the main reason they could not look for paid work.
    • Studies from India, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia have found that children’s ages and fathers’ marital satisfaction, as well as their relationships with their own fathers, are all important drivers of change.
    • Between 61 and 77% of fathers report that they would work less if it meant that they could have more time with their children.
    • While maternity leave is now offered in nearly all countries, only 92 offer paternity leave for fathers.
    • Iceland seems to be the world champion in men’s use of paternity leave: men there now average 103 days of paid leave. However, women in Iceland still take 3 times more than this. In other countries, fathers only take around 20% of the leave that mothers do.

    SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS (SRHR) AND MATERNAL, NEWBORN, AND CHILD HEALTH (MNCH)

    The report provides evidence that even though unmet sexual and reproductive health needs continue to be the biggest threat to women’s and girls’ health worldwide, men have not been adequately engaged in the solution.

    • In the Global South, men’s presence at pre-natal care visits varies greatly, from 96% in the Maldives to only 18% in Burundi. However, fathers around the world are often not closely engaged during pregnancy and are absent at birth and in early infancy, despite evidence to suggest that engaging men and boys can have important benefits for the health of mothers and children.
    • Contraception is still seen globally as primarily the responsibility of women. Women account for 75% of the world’s contraceptive use, even though they are half of the population.
    • One woman dies every 2 minutes from complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Across the globe, 34 of 1,000 babies alive at birth, die before the age of 1, and 46 of 1,000 die before the age of 5.
    • The involvement of fathers before, during, and after the birth of a child has been shown to have positive effects on maternal health behaviors, women’s use of maternal and newborn health services, and fathers’ longer-term support and involvement in the lives of their children.
    • A recent analysis of research from low- and middle-income countries found that male involvement was significantly associated with improved skilled birth attendance, utilization of post-natal care, and fewer women dying in childbirth.
    • In high-income countries, fathers’ presence has been shown to be helpful in encouraging and supporting mothers to breastfeed.
    • Fathers’ support also influences women’s decision to immunize their children and to seek care for childhood illnesses.

    MEN’S VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN

    The report reiterates that the majority of women who suffer violence do so at the hands of an intimate male partner. It examines how the gendered nature of parenting and experiences of violence as children can lead some men to use violence against women and against children in adulthood. The result is that only a minority of children make it to adulthood without experiencing or witnessing some kind of violence in their homes, schools, or communities – often at the hands of adults who are supposed to care for them.

    • Approximately 1 in 3 women globally experiences violence at the hands of a male partner in her lifetime – a level that the World Health Organization has called an “epidemic.”
    • Research from Norway found that the incidence of violence against women or children in father-dominated homes was 3 times higher than in more equitable homes.
    • Gender-based violence (GBV) against pregnant women ranged from 2% in Australia, Cambodia, Denmark, and the Philippines to 14% in Uganda.
    • Between 500 million and 1.5 billion children experience violence every year, and 60% of children between the ages of 2 and 4 around the world (nearly 1 billion children) are subjected to physical punishment by their caregivers on a regular basis.
    • The most common form of violence by parents against children is corporal punishment, including physical and humiliating punishment, and it is widespread.
    • Approximately 75% of children between the ages of 2 and 14 experience violent discipline in the home in low- and middle-income countries.
    • Studies in high-income countries suggest that anywhere between 45 and 70% of children whose mothers are experiencing violence themselves experience physical abuse.

    CHILD DEVELOPMENT

    The report finds that children need at least one deeply involved and dedicated caregiver to thrive, and that this can be a man or a woman. Children need care and the world needs men – as biological as well as social fathers – to be part of that care.

    • Evolution has left men as deeply biologically wired for emotional connections to children as women are. In other words, children similarly affect the development of both mothers and fathers, just as fathers and mothers affect children.
    • Fathers’ involvement has been linked to lower rates of depression, fear, and self-doubt in their young adult children, and it may also protect sons from delinquency.
    • Levels of fathers’ involvement in children’s educational activities vary greatly by country: between 10% of fathers in Swaziland and 79% of fathers in Montenegro report being involved in at least one learning activity with their children.
    • However non-residence does not equal absence, as fathers often maintain varying degrees of involvement with their children. In the United Kingdom, 87% of non-resident fathers say they have contact with their children, and nearly 50% say that their children stay with them on a regular basis.

    POLICY CALLS TO ACTION

    • States should adopt and implement parental leave policies for both mothers and fathers that guarantee paid parental leave that is equitable and non-transferable between parents.
    • States should adopt and implement policies in the public health sector that promote and support men’s and boys’ involvement, education, and awareness-raising in sexual and reproductive health and rights, men’s involvement in maternal and child health, before and after the child’s birth.
    • States should pass and enforce laws to ban physical and humiliating punishment of children and implement the laws through policies that promote non-violent child rearing that involves fathers, mothers, educators, and social workers.
    • States should adopt and implement policies that specifically encourage and support fathers’ and caregivers’ involvement in early childhood development, care, and education.

  • Sonke calls on SA government to end discrimination of foreign nationals on Africa Day

    Monday, May 25, is “Africa Day,” and Sonke urges the South African government to take urgent steps to repair relations with other countries in Africa, and to embrace African unity, amidst serious xenophobic violence and government crackdowns targeting African and Asian migrants in South Africa.

    Africa Day is the commemoration of the 1963 founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union (AU), and is a day that people around the world celebrate African culture and African unity.

    In fact, at the 50th anniversary of the OAU two years ago, President Zuma said, “The fathers of Pan Africanism held a vision of a united, economically and politically emancipated continent at peace with itself and the world. This was a profound vision of a united Africa, totally emancipated from the bondage of colonialism and imperialism.”

    But the concepts of African unity and an Africa at peace with itself have been severely undermined in South Africa by xenophobic and Afrophobic violence and rhetoric, the latest outbreak which came on the heels of irresponsible and discriminatory comments by Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini, against foreign nationals in South Africa.

    Following Zwelithini’s incendiary remarks, and the violence that ensued which resulted in a number of foreign nationals’ deaths, citizens and officials in other African countries have responded strongly, calling for boycotts of South African goods and diplomatic reprisals. Some violent activity against South Africans has also caused South African businesses to suspend operations in neighbouring countries, and to evacuate employees back to South Africa.1

    In response, Minister of Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa announced the inaugural celebration of “Africa Month” during the month of May, with this year’s theme: “We are Africa – Opening the doors of learning and culture to promote peace and friendship from Cape to Cairo.”

    We acknowledge and support Minister Mthethwa’s response to xenophobia, both in terms of the launching of Africa Month as a way to promote African unity, and in terms of his comments challenging discrimination and calling for African unity and cooperation.

    However, we draw attention to the mixed messages government has been sending about its commitment to African unity as it condemns xenophobia in one breath, and then blatantly stigmatises foreign nationals by introducing raids that target them, deploying the army, and opening deportation camps, serving only to deepen wrong and dangerous ideas that foreign nationals are criminals and deserve to be sent back to their countries.

    “How can we mitigate xenophobia by a government-sponsored campaign that suggests a link between migrancy and crime and criminality?,” says Sonke’s Policy Development and Advocacy Specialist, Marlise Richter, “South Africa can choose to either repair relations with the rest of Africa, or to risk further isolation as well as instability nationally.”

    In fact, this week, Zimbabwe’s information minister warned South Africa that it needed to take a sterner stance on xenophobia or it risks “sow[ing] the seeds of genocide.”2

    “The government should focus attention on building social cohesion and protecting foreign nationals, but instead it has responded to xenophobic violence conducted by citizens, with an institutionalised xenophobia conducted by the army and the police,” says Sonke’s Communications Manager, Czerina Patel, “Operation Fiela stigmatises non South Africans and exacerbates the wrong idea that foreign migrants, who make up a small percentage of our population, are to blame for government’s massive failures around education, job creation and service delivery. The government is failing to address the real structural issues of poverty in South Africa, and putting all migrants, documented and undocumented, at risk of violence and police and military corruption.”

    Sonke’s staff working in local communities have heard from documented migrant shop-owners, that their goods and cash are being confiscated by the police and military forces who are implementing the raids, without even receipts being given when cash is confiscated. We demand that the government investigate the many complaints of police and/or army harassment, corruption and blatant xenophobia that have surfaced since Operation Fiela began.3

    The African Union and the United Nations must investigate the conditions at the Lindela Repatriation Centre and other locations where foreign nationals are being detained, as well as camps where displaced migrants are staying, to ensure that international laws are being followed and that the rights of migrants, both those with and without papers, are protected, including refugees and asylum-seekers. We also call on the South African government to ensure that it follows due process as it attempts to identify foreign nationals that are in South Africa without the requisite documentation, and remind it of the foundation of equality enshrined in our Constitution and the principle of diversity, expressed in the Constitution’s preamble: “We, the people of South Africa…
believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity…”

    We strongly condemn the unplanned short-term approach the South African government is taking by conducting raids that undermine constitutional and human rights, and encourage it to instead do the thoughtful, long-term work to promote democracy and economic growth throughout Africa. South Africa should seek to strengthen democracy in neighbouring countries, not undermine it as has happened with Zimbabwe.4 When democracy collapses in neighbouring countries, where do we expect people seeking freedom to go?

    We call on President Zuma and the South African government to work to reduce corruption, strengthen provision of service delivery and job creation, and to stop stigmatising foreign nationals through Operation Fiela and other processes that target non South Africans. We remind President Zuma of the “profound vision of a united Africa,” he espoused two years ago.

    Media Contacts

    Marlise Richter, Policy Development and Advocacy Specialist at Sonke Gender Justice
    marlise@genderjustice.org.za
    021 423 7088

    Czerina Patel, Communication and Strategic Information Manager at Sonke Gender Justice
    czerina@genderjustice.org.za
    021 423 7088

    Notes

    1. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32354993
    2. http://www.ibtimes.com/south-africa-xenophobia-2015-zimbabwe-official-condemns-violence-says-it-could-sow-1926559
    3. http://www.voanews.com/content/south-africa-johannesburg-raid-on-foreigners/2760181.html
    4. http://www.issafrica.org/acpst/news/thabo-mbekis-quietly-destructive-policy-on-zimbabwe

  • UN grants Sonke ECOSOC special consultative status

    Sonke is pleased to announce that we have been granted Special Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the UN’s central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development.1

    Consultative status is granted by ECOSOC upon recommendation of the Committee on NGOs, which is comprised of 19 Member States.2 It was through ECOSOC that non-governmental organisations first took a role in formal UN deliberations.

    Consultative Status, depending on the level, gives NGOs a number of rights to participate in the work of the UN, to present their views and deliver testimony. Organisations enjoying general and special status can attend the Council’s meetings and circulate statements. Special consultative status is granted to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have a special competence in, and are concerned with, only a few fields of activity covered by the ECOSOC.

    “In Sonke’s case, our work straddles gender and human rights, equality and HIV and AIDS. Being awarded Special Consultative Status means that Sonke’s advocacy work with the UN, and most importantly within Africa through UNECA (the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa), will be a little bit easier as this will allow us access to high level sessions and facilitates easier participation within these processes,” says Itumeleng Komanyane, manager of Sonke’s International Programmes and Networks Unit.

    ECOSOC serves as the central forum for formulating policy recommendations addressed to member states and the United Nations system. Fifty-four UN member states from various geographical locations are represented on the Council, including South Africa which was elected to ECOSOC in 2012, saying then that it will “pursue a global development agenda with a view to contribute to the reduction of insecurity in Africa and in the World. South Africa will utilize its membership to promote the African Agenda and the general developmental interest of Africa.”3

    ECOSOC engages a wide variety of stakeholders in a productive dialogue on sustainable development through a programmatic cycle of meetings. Consultative status provides NGOs with access to not only ECOSOC, but also to its many subsidiary bodies, to the various human rights mechanisms of the UN ad-hoc processes on small arms, as well as special events organised by the President of the UN General Assembly.

    The awarding of Consultative Status follows a rigorous application and thorough vetting of an organisation’s governance and financial systems, including its credibility as a leader in its field. “Sonke is very grateful for this recognition and the opportunities it presents for our global advocacy work,” says Komanyane, “We will use this Consultative Status to strengthen our work championing social justice and gender transformation in Africa and the rest of the world.”

    Recognising the importance of NGOs to participate in such global processes, Sonke also is encouraging peer organisations to apply for Consultative Status before the next deadline on June 1, 2015.

    MEDIA CONTACTS:

    Itumeleng Komanyane, International Programmes and Networks Manager – Sonke Gender Justice
    Email: Itumeleng@genderjustice.org.za
    Tel: 011 339 3589

    Bafana Khumalo, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Co-Founder, Sonke Gender Justice
    Email: bafana@genderjustice.org.za
    Tel: 011 339 3589

    Notes

    1. http://csonet.org/?menu=100
    2. http://csonet.org/?menu=30
    3. http://www.dirco.gov.za/docs/2012/ecosoc1109.html

  • On Freedom Day, Sonke calls on South Africans and government to stand up for equality, freedom and democracy

    Sonke Gender Justice (“Sonke”) joins millions of South Africans condemning the xenophobic violence that has taken place regularly in South Africa during the past decade. We call on our government to take decisive action now, and to ensure that all those perpetrating violent crimes in our country are held accountable for their crimes. We also call on all of those who have made discriminatory or xenophobic comments, especially members of government and the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini, to unreservedly apologise for their incendiary remarks, and to be held accountable for their role in the current violence experienced by foreign nationals in South Africa, including by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).

    We call on the South African Presidency, and President Zuma himself, to publicly request that  Zwelithini withdraw and apologise for his harmful remarks in which he told foreigners to return to their countries, knowing full well that he made those statements in a country rife with xenophobia and xenophobic violence, and that he desist from blaming the media or “third forces”.

    Following recent  and impressive nationwide protests against xenophobia, including a massive march by civil society in Johannesburg this week, we remind our leaders that our democracy was established upon ideals of equality, non discrimination and freedom, and that South Africans will not sit quietly while some attempt to destroy the foundations of a free and equal South Africa.

    We condemn violence, and in particular violent acts flowing from prejudice and hate.  We therefore call on the government to develop sustainable structures to protect all who live in South Africa. We call on government and civil society to increase the investment in containing the current violence, and to put long-term measures in place to prevent and address violence and hostility, particularly by addressing the underlying causes of xenophobia such as endemic poverty, inequality, unemployment and pervasive generalised violence by promoting social cohesion and by fostering a culture of respect for human rights and the law. We at Sonke commit ourselves to expanding our work to end discrimination, stigma and violence in the communities in which we work in South Africa.

    We also call on President Zuma and government to address violence generally in South Africa, reminding them of the high levels of murder, gender-based violence and violent crime. “South Africa has a deeply violent history and that continues to play out in our society today, at great harm to our people – through crime, gender-based violence and xenophobia,” says Czerina Patel, Sonke’s Communications Manager, “The experience of violence, both historical and current, is eating away at our social fabric, and is literally killing our people. We need to work to reduce violence everywhere, and we are again reiterating our demand to President Zuma and Minister Shabangu to urgently develop a funded national strategic plan to end gender-based violence which must include broad violence prevention strategies in communities throughout South Africa.”

    Foreign nationals in South Africa are being used as scapegoats for widespread economic problems in South Africa that are not their fault; and which will continue to exist whether or not foreign nationals reside in South Africa unless the government responds properly and massively improves service delivery.

    Government is failing at providing quality education, creating jobs and getting people out of poverty. “The real enemy to South Africa is corruption and nepotism,” says Patel, “If individuals in government spent less effort looking for ways to enrich themselves and to garner power and money for themselves and their families, more resources would be directed towards the improvement of South Africans’ lives; If government put South Africans’ best interests ahead of political interests, we’d have a stronger leadership, one which would be better equipped to deal with the huge challenges of building a new democracy and creating economic opportunity for the poor. Right now, the poor are being left out, and South Africa has become the most unequal country in the world. This has little to nothing to do with African migrants in South Africa, and has everything to do with the failures on the part of our government to govern.”

    We invite South Africans and anyone who believes in equality to join us in our advocacy to call for long-term measures to build social cohesion, fight xenophobia and violence, and strengthen democracy, and to march with us for social justice, including in a march this Monday: On Freedom Day, April 27, 2015, we will stand up for democracy, human dignity and a violence-free South Africa and march against xenophobia, afrophobia and all discrimination, rejecting the brutal discrimination of the Apartheid government of the past.

    March details:

    When: Monday 27th April, 11h00
    Where: Town Two Khayelitsha, corner Spine Rd and Jeff Masemola, marching to Site C
    [March organized by Equal Education, Treatment Action Campaign, Ndifuni Ukwazi, Social Justice Coalition and Sonke Gender Justice]

    [If you can’t join us in Khayelitsha, there will also be a smaller march against xenophobia in Mfuleni (organised by Sonke’s MenCare team), leaving Mfuleni High School at 10am on Monday, April 27, 2015. Call Thulani Velebayi for more details: 060 492-5739]

    Media Contact:

    Czerina Patel, Sonke Communications Manager
    021 423 7088
    czerina@genderjustice.org.za

  • TAC, Ndifuna Ukwazi, Sonke, Triangle Project and Gay and Lesbian Network condemn xenophobic attacks and remarks

    The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Ndifuna Ukwazi, Sonke Gender Justice (“Sonke”), Triangle Project and the Gay and Lesbian Network (Pietermaritzburg) condemn in the strongest terms the recent attacks on foreign nationals and the looting of shops run by foreign nationals in Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal.

    We hold that foreign nationals have a right to all the same protections under the law as South Africans. We reject any and all attempts to undermine the dignity and human rights of foreign nationals. We consider xenophobic violence to be a direct attack on the freedom we struggled for so many years in this country and an antithesis to our democracy.

    In 2008, TAC and a diverse group of individuals who went on to form the Social Justice Coalition played an integral part in the civil society response to a serious outbreak of xenophobic violence in Cape Town and surrounds. It is very disappointing that seven years later we are faced with a similarly disturbing situation.

    We urge all who live in South Africa, and especially those who hold public office, to refrain from making comments that can intentionally or unintentionally fuel the spread of xenophobia. We are particularly alarmed by xenophobic comments reportedly made by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, saying that foreign nationals should return to their countries. We urge Zwelithini to make a public apology to all foreign nationals living in South Africa, to use his influence to urge people to cease xenophobic attacks immediately. Besides the fact that returning to their countries would put many foreign nationals at great risk, Zwelithini should not be adding to the hostility facing foreign nationals in South Africa, nor contributing to a xenophobic environment here.

    We also urge the public not to be misled by populist politicians who blame unemployment and other social problems on foreign nationals. Blaming foreign nationals is a red herring and disguises the fact that South Africa benefits from international skills, experience and the additional jobs that are created by many cross-border migrants. We should not allow this populism to distract us from the pressing problems of inequality, social justice and a dysfunctional public service.

    We welcome President Jacob Zuma’s decision to deploy Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba, Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko, and Minister of State Security David Mahlobo to Kwazulu-Natal to address the outbreak of xenophobic violence there. While this is a positive development, government must take more proactive steps to ensure that the rights of foreign nationals are not infringed upon, to remove barriers for foreign nationals to legally reside and work in South Africa and to strengthen social cohesion for all living in South Africa.

    We are also concerned that the displacement of foreign nationals may restrict their access to healthcare and other services. Government has an obligation to ensure that foreign nationals can continue to access these services. Failure to do so poses great risk to both South Africans and foreign nationals living here.

    Sonke Media Contacts:

  • One year later, more than 200 Nigerian girls are still missing

    Sonke-logo-1 MenEngage_Logo_Low-res

    Sonke Gender Justice (“Sonke”) and MenEngage Africa stand with the people of Nigeria and the global community in remembering the more than 200 girls from Chibok who were abducted a year ago, and call on the government of Nigeria, the African Union (AU), African leaders and global leaders to take action to find out what happened to the girls who are still missing, and to urgently redouble efforts to rescue any surviving girls.

    The 276 school girls were abducted by the terrorist group, Boko Haram (which means “Western education is forbidden”), from their hostels atthe Chibok Secondary School, a government-run boarding school in the early hours of April 15th, 2014. Fifty-seven girls managed to escape in the days following their abduction, but 219 of them are still missing, despite a huge international social media campaign, with celebrities, individuals, and even United States First Lady Michelle Obama, sharing selfies with the viral slogan #Bringbackourgirls that was used on twitter more than one million times in the first month following the abduction.

    The attack on the Chibok Secondary School remains the largest abduction1 by Boko Haram since it increasingly started targeting schools and students in early 2012, worsening already dire education levels in the north-eastern part of Nigeria, which has the lowest primary and secondary school net attendance ratio in the country.

    There is no official confirmation of what may have happened to the girls since they were abducted. All speculation is horrifying – that some have been forcibly married off – including to Boko Haram insurgents themselves; that some were trafficked to neighbouring countries; that some may have been used as suicide bombers or shields in Boko Haram operations; or that some have been murdered.

    “It is unacceptable that the government of Nigeria has neither found the girls, nor found out what has happened to them a year later,” says Itumeleng Komanyane, the International Programmes and Networks Manager at Sonke Gender Justice which, along with HopeM, co-coordinates MenEngage Africa, a regional body of hundreds of organisations in Africa that work to engage men and boys in the promotion of gender equality and gender justice, “All over the world, girls are being oppressed, trafficked, marginalised and brutalised. The international community must send a strong message that we will not tolerate such atrocities.”

    “Nigerian citizens have been protesting and reminding their government not to forget about the girls all year long,” says Czerina Patel, Sonke’s Communications Manager, “The global community can use this anniversary as an opportunity to renew international pressure, and to tell both current President, Goodluck Jonathan, and President-Elect, Muhammadu Buhari that they must take urgent and serious action now.”

    Patel suggests that celebrities, media, social media personalities, global leaders and people all over the world create a “social media storm” on April 15th and revive the iconic hashtag #bringbackourgirls to tell global leaders, the African Union and Nigeria’s government to not allow the more than 200 girls from Chibok to “simply disappear,” adding that international agencies and governments must not back off until the question as to where the girls are, is answered.

    Citizens from countries all over the world can also lend support to the Global Week of Action in Nigeria co-ordinated by the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group this week by also using the hashtags #ChibokGirls and #NeverToBeForgotten.

    Sonke and MenEngage Africa call on global leaders, governments, UN and EU agencies, the people of Nigeria, civil society organisations including women and child rights groups, the media and people all over the world to demand that the African Union and the Nigerian government reprioritise the efforts to locate and rescue the abducted girls, and to recognise that the failure to rescue the girls a year later is an international crisis that deserves serious attention.

    Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the kidnapped girls, and all the people of Nigeria, as they mark one year of pain, without any closure, and a stressful uncertainty about where the girls are, and whether or not they are still alive.

    MEDIA CONTACTS

    Notes

    1. http://features.hrw.org/features/HRW_2014_report/Those_Terrible_Weeks_in_Their_Camp/index.html

  • Selfies to Parliament: Sex at the Specs

    A spectacle at the spectacles

    The “Perceiving Freedom” glasses sculpture on Cape Town’s Sea Point promenade looking towards Robben Island, commemorates late President Nelson Mandela and the values of freedom and equality. Human rights activists, including from Sonke Gender Justice, Sisonke Sex Workers Movement and SWEAT, will be honouring the lives lost in the “Sizzlers massacre”1 that took place in 2003 when nine men — seven sex workers — were murdered in Sea Point. The activists will erect a three meter mirror in front of the spectacles, symbolically directing the spectator’s gaze westwards towards where the Sizzlers gay massage parlour used to operate from.

    The demonstration will raise awareness about the harmful laws used against sex workers in South Africa and the rest of the continent. Twelve years since the Sizzler massacre — and more than 20 years into democracy — South Africa still criminalises sex work and by doing so increases violence, discrimination, and intolerance against sex workers. Furthermore, the criminalisation impedes national responses to HIV. UNAIDS reports that female sex workers are 13.5 times more likely to be living with HIV than other women.

    The criminalisation of sex work drives sex workers underground and increases stigma, which creates obstacles for sex workers to access vital health, legal, and social services. Considered criminals, sex workers are vulnerable to human rights violations and even violent death. Just two weeks ago, a sex worker was brutally murdered in Woodstock, Cape Town.

    Activists will create a “spectacle at the spectacles”, encouraging passers-by to interact with sex workers and ask them questions. They will be invited to take selfies to tweet government officials demanding the decriminalisation of sex work.

    Pictures from the day will be available at the hashtags ‪#‎spexxx‬ and ‪#‎decrimsexwork‬.

    Media Contacts

    • Ruvimbo Tenga
      Sisonke Sex Worker Movement
      072 885 6141
    • Marlise Richter
      Sonke Gender Justice
      marlise@genderjustice.org.za
    • Lesego Tlhwale
      SWEAT
      021 448-7875

  • Our Struggle: Now is the time for a people’s budget

    We are the United Front! We are a growing people’s front that represents at least 120 organisations of our people: we represent farm workers, farm dwellers, the unemployed, youth, women and workers.

    We are marching today, on the day that you will table government’s 2014/2015 budget to Parliament. Government alone prepared this budget without our participation as the mass of the people. What you will present today is only decided by a small group of people yet we are a country of millions. It is impossible for the unemployed, for poor people, for workers, for youth, for women to make their voices heard if you do not consult them on the budget. We therefore demand a democratic participatory budgeting process. We demand a law to allow us as ordinary people to take part in developing our country’s budget.

    It is impossible to live on the small social security grants your government gives to us. Yet your government pays millions of rands to a few politicians and senior managers at ESKOM and other public institutions. Yet our country has enough money and wealth to wipe out poverty. Who can live on the monthly old age grant of R1,350? Many members of parliament and senior public servants spend R1,350 on a restaurant outing. Which child can have enough food, clothes, medicine and other basic needs from the R350 you pay in the Child Support Grant? Which disabled person can have all their needs met by the R1,350 you pay in the Disability Grant? We reject the proposal from National Treasury to cut social grant from 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP – representing the total output of our country’s economy) to 2.3% of GDP. This means that the small increases in social security grant that you will announce today will not meet the rising costs of food, transport and living. This also means that your government is not prepared or willing to provide sufficient social security grants for decent living.

    The budgets decided by your government over the last 20 years have given us failing schools. As the Equal Education Campaign has said to your government previously: “It is impossible to learn and to teach when there are 130 learners in a class. It is impossible to learn and to teach when the roof may fall on your head; It is impossible to learn to love reading when there is no library with books. It is impossible to concentrate when there is no water to drink all day at school. It is impossible to respect school when our toilets don’t work and we feel undignified.” In 2012, the Department of Basic Education promised that every school in the country will have access to potable water and adequate sanitation by March 2015. This has of course failed dismally. All these problems in the education system come from the decisions made by your government and its failure to change apartheid education. Your decisions and your actions have given millions of township and rural children gutter education. Under your government, millions of our children have no education upon which to build a future.

    As if the education crisis was not enough, your budgets have given us many more problems and misery. Under your government, half of working South Africans – meaning 7 million people – receive a monthly salary of less than R3,033. Under your government, we still have 12 million people without sanitation. They live undignified lives of unsafe and unhealthy sanitation. Accessing a toilet in an informal settlement or a rural village is dangerous for women and children. Your government and past budgets allow only 25L of water per person per day. This water is too little and leads to poor health. Even this promised 25L is not received by a large number of people. Instead of providing this 25L, many municipalities have increased tariffs above the free volume of water. As a result, the families of poor and working people lose out. Under your watch, the National Treasury refuses to make sufficiently large – and ring-fenced (i.e. for water/sanitation only) – subsidies available, sufficiently large that municipalities could provide even their poorest residents 50 litres per person per day as was promised by the 1994 Reconstruction and Development Programme.

    Your government failed to invest enough public money on ESKOM to ensure a continuous supply of electricity. We are suffering load-shedding due to this failure. There are still a few million households without electricity. Your government has also failed to invest sufficient funds in renewable energy sources. Instead, your government has continued to support polluting coal power stations and is even preparing to invest vast amounts of money in dangerous and expensive nuclear energy sources.

    Under your government and your past budgets, gender-based violence has increased. Gender-based violence and in particular violence against women, is one of the most expensive public health problems. Earlier this month, exactly two years to the day after Annene Booysen was found brutally raped and disemboweled in Bredasdorp, a five-year old girl, Kayde Williams, was found dead in the same area, also after being raped and murdered. These two Bredasdorp murders, two years apart, signal a failure on the part of the South African government to follow through on its many commitments to ending rape and domestic violence, including abject failure to develop a national strategic plan on gender-based violence.

    Under your government and your past budgets, our people get houses of poor quality located in Delft, Blikkiesdorp and other places far, far away from the city centre and other economic centres. Your past budgets have kept the geography of apartheid as it was: Constantia, Camps Bay, Sandton and other rich place remain lily white and filthy rich; Bonteheuwel, Khayelitsha, Soweto and New Brighton remain the poor ghettoes we had under apartheid. Your past budgets have not changed this at all. As a result of your past budgets, in 2013, the housing backlog was estimated to be at least 2,1 million houses. It is also under your past budgets that farm workers, farm dwellers and other rural people remain without land and support to produce their own food.

    These problems in the education system, in housing, in water and sanitation, in housing, in electricity and many other aspects of our lives are all true. We experience them daily. They are the experience your government seeks to hide. In 2011, 27.7 million South Africans lived in poverty and 12.2 million in extreme poverty. With unemployment levels at 25 percent national and over 15 million people receiving social grants, people do not have enough money to buy food. One in four South Africans are going hungry. Women are facing hunger more often than men. The wealth of the richest two people in South Africa equals to 50% or the poorest 26.5 million of the population. Inequality in South Africa is worse in 2015 than at the end of apartheid in 1994. All these failures strip away our basic dignity as a people.

    Your economic policies have allowed R100 billion to leave this country every year between 2002 and 2011. This rose to R300 billion in 2012. This is a big crime committed by private companies. Your economic policies allow this crime to continue. Your National Development Plan does not even mention how it proposes to deal with this crime.

    In January this year, the Institute of Internal Auditors estimated that R700 billion has been lost to corruption since 1994. Instead of your government successfully fighting corruption, we see rising corruption every day. Under your watch, municipalities claim total power over budgets. Municipalities claim that they have the fiscal right to use the Equitable Share for other purposes, including massive salaries and perks for elites, plus tenderpreneurship corruption, instead of providing basic services.

    Your government decided to reduce corporate taxes from 48% in 1994 to less than 30% today. In spite of lower taxes, the corporates engaged in job cuts that doubled the unemployment rate after 1994, and it never fell substantially since.

    In addition, your economic policies allow private companies to move billion of rands out of reach of taxation with so-called ‘transfer pricing,’ right under the nose of the South African Revenue Service. Against the government’s claim that the savings are low, your policies have allowed private companies to keep at least R1.3 trillion in bank deposits. This is money that can be used for key social infrastructure projects.

    Clearly, we are a country with enough resources and wealth to meet all the needs of our people. We therefore reject your increasing calls to reduce social expenditure. We say, cut corruption and not services. We say, put the needs of the people first before profits.

    With a working people’s government in power, all these problems could have been solved very quickly. We DEMAND a People’s Budget that Cuts Corruption and not Basic Services. We DEMAND a budget that puts people before profits. We DEMAND a People’s Budget that is shaped and decided by us as the people.

    YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO BUDGET TO MEET PEOPLE’S NEEDS

    Our country’s Constitution requires you as government to ensure that our people have the right to health, food, social security, education, housing, water, sanitation, waste removal and electricity. The Constitution requires your government and municipalities to give priority to the basic needs of the local community; to promote the development of the local community; and to ensure that all members of the local community have access to at least the minimum level of basic municipal services. It is your constitutional duty as government to meet these rights. The problems we have stated above show that your government is failing in its constitutional duties.

    Your October 2014 mini-budget (“the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement”) failed to show how the budget will meet these constitutional duties. Your mini-Budget showed that government wants to limit services it budgets for instead of the service needs of the people being the ones that determine the budget. If budgets are not shaped by the service delivery needs of our population, then there is no prospect of progressively realising the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

    After many years of broken promises, we can no longer rely on promises. We demand action. Nothing less will do.

    OUR DEMANDS

      1. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING
        • We demand a democratic participatory budgeting process!
        • We demand a law to allow us as ordinary people to take democratically part in developing our country’s budget. This law must be passed by the end of this year!
      2. NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE AND A LIVING INCOME FOR THE UNEMPLOYED
        • We demand a living wage!
        • Government must set a decent national minimum wage to ensure a living wage.
        • Government must set a provide living allowances for the unemployed.
      3. ENERGY /ELECTRICITY
        • We demand a Budget that finances an immediate action plan to end load shedding!
        • We demand a democratic energy system that moves away from dirty, polluting and inefficient coal, and that prioritises a socially owned renewable energy sector!
        • Government must not sell public assets as a means to addressing the ESKOM crisis.
        • Government must provide a clear plan to finance the end of load-shedding.
        • Government must use the budget to provide funds for the maintenance and refurbishment of South Africa’s current power stations.
        • Government must not not pursue any further expensive energy related infrastructure projects such as Nuclear or Fossil Fuel Power Stations.
        • Government’s funding of electricity must punish bigger and richer users through a rising step block tariff. Government must generate funding for electricity through an environmental levy ring-fenced for Free Basic Electricity and another levy placed on bigger and richer users of electricity.
        • Government must pursue a renewable energy policy that increases South Africa’s ability to provide power to all. By pursuing renewable energy the government will be also addressing unemployment and poverty through initiatives. Government must commit to achieving and funding the target of 15% of electricity generation by 2020 from renewable sources.
        • Government must change the law governing those living and working on farms to ensure that such legislation ensures access to electricity on private land.
        • Government must institute free basic electricity for all in line with the goal of free basic electricity to 200kWh per month per household.
      4. WATER
        • We demand a Budget that gives free basic water for all!
        • In 2015, government must increase the 25L per person per day standard to 50L free basic water.
        • Government must block municipalities from increasing tariffs above the minimum basic level of free water.
        • Government must introduce minimum norms and standards that municipalities must follow to provide 50L of free basic water per person per day.
        • Government must fund and monitor the implementation of the Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure to ensure that the provision of clean drinking water.
        • Government must budget for the upgrading of water and waste water treatment plants that are dysfunctional or in disrepair with appropriate timelines and in a manner that promotes job creation in those areas where such upgrading and maintenance is required.
        • Government must make all information on contracts with the private sector readily available to all public bodies, civil society organisations and publicised on relevant government websites, community halls, and other easily accessible public places.
        • Government must ensure that all mines operating without water use licences are instructed to suspend operations immediately in a manner that does not unfairly prejudice those working in these mines.
        • Government must amend legislation governing those living and working on farms to ensure that such legislation ensures access to clean water on private land.
      5. SANITATION
        • We demand the dignity of proper, decent and healthy sanitation for all!
        • Government must fund and implement a programme to eradicate the bucket system in all provinces by the end of 2015.
        • Government in 2015 must establish minimum norms and standards that can be used at a local level to ensure that the planning, budgeting and provision of dignified sanitation.
        • Government must provide funds to roll out the South African Human Rights Commission’s sanitation plan.
        • Government must fund and monitor the implementation of the Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure to ensure that the provision of dignified sanitation to schools.
        • Government must amend legislation governing those living and working on farms to ensure that such legislation ensures access to dignified sanitation on private land.
      6. GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
        • We demand a Budget that provides sufficient money to end gender-based violence!
        • Government ensure that all departments incorporate gender-responsive budget planning, monitoring and evaluation in order to adequately plan for and spend resources to address gender-based violence.
        • Government must prioritise the development and implementation of the country’s first National Strategic Plan (NSP) on Gender-Based Violence. This plan must be based on the participation of the people, must be fully costed and must ensure that resources allocated address all the root causes that violence has on women’s empowerment and well-being in South Africa.
        • Government must invest in services for survivors of gender-based violence including the provision of services, social workers, peer counsellors, enhanced policing, paralegals, community advice officers and community health care workers.
      7. TAXATION
        • We demand a tax system that gives us enough money to meet all our needs!
        • Government must stop limiting tax to a particular percentage of the GDP. Instead, the level of tax must be determined by the needs of the people.
        • Government must rule out any increase of the VAT, which would further hit the poor and the working class.
        • Municipalities must stop trying to balance their budgets by increasing tariffs on water and electricity.
        • Government must increase property rates on the wealthy and rich.
        • Government must increase corporate taxes.
        • Government must stop the illicit flow of capital and profits from the country.
        • We demand massive state investment of at least 5% of the country’s GDP for building decent housing located in active economic zones and that can stimulate the depressed downstream industries and create the millions of jobs we desperately need.

    BEYOND THE BUDGET WE WILL ACT TO WIN THESE DEMANDS!

    With these demands, we also say we shall no longer be satisified by your rhetoric of a caring government. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

    If implemented by government, these demands would give the poor, unemployed and working class people a real chance at improving their lives and a real share in the country’s wealth. A people’s budget that works for us is not something to wait for but to struggle for daily. We see this fight as part of other struggles for equality and freedom, against inequality and exploitation, against racism and class inequality, for employment, in South Africa and across the world. Our fight will never cease until there is a decent life for all who live and work in South Africa! We all deserve good, decent lives; it is our right!

    We won’t stop fighting for all these demands. We are the people. We, the people, shall create real and permanent change for decent lives for all, social justice, equality and geuine democracy in our country.

  • 

Sonke calls for immediate publication of SA Human Rights Commission report on Joshua Generation Church promotion of corporal punishment

    In October 2013, Sonke Gender Justice joined the complaint by Hannah and Adriaan Mostert laid with the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) against the Joshua Generation Church (JGC) about a parenting booklet published on their website and used in their “parenting classes” which devoted four of its 39 pages to describing the length and thickness of the rod that should be used to beat children as young as one year old. After an unsuccessful conciliation meeting between the complainants and JGC mediated by the HRC in November 2013 the next step was for the HRC to report back to the complainants about their decision and the corrective actions they would be proposing to JGC. The report is now 18 months late.

    In a country with among the highest levels of interpersonal violence, including violence against children, the arguments mounted by the pro-spanking lobby are harmful to individual children and to society at large. Children are entitled to at least the same level of protection from random assault as are adults. Hitting people is wrong, and children are people too. South Africa is bound by its ratification of international and regional treaties, its acceptance of various Universal Periodic Review recommendations and its own Constitution to ensure that the rights of children to be protected from physical assault, no matter how “mild”, is realised. In addition, a large and growing body of research provides clear evidence that corporal punishment experienced in early childhood has a range of negative, developmental, emotional, behavioural, physical and cognitive consequences, including a higher likelihood of boys growing into abusive men and girls tending to seek relationships as adult women which re-victimise them.

    In the 18 months that the report has been delayed:

    • Over 1,000 children have died due to abuse, and around another 810 almost did.
    • Pro-spanking groups like the JGC have been lobbying the African Christian Democratic Party and other faith-based bodies about what they have described as their “persecution” and “an assault on freedom of religion”.
    • The JGC has continued to “teach” parents to “train” their children using physical punishment of even very young children.

    “We’re still waiting for the JGC to apologise to the children of South Africa, whom they believe deserve to be beaten with rods”; says Patrick Godana of Sonke, who works on the MenCare campaign for gender-equal and non-violent parenting.

    The fact that the report is late is especially unfortunate, since it exemplifies the debate on corporal punishment in the country. The delay of the report happens against the background of the parliamentary process of an amendment to the Children’s Act that will prohibit corporal punishment in all spaces. In 2014, the honourable Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini expressed her commitment to see through the amendment.

    “Children are impressionable and when those in positions of authority use violent means to encourage discipline, the children understand this as saying violence is permissible when trying to persuade others to act in a certain way. This is why we are going to forge ahead with banning corporal punishment even in the home environment,” said DSD Minister Dlamini.

    Sonke commends the Minister for her statement. Physical punishment of children is contrary to our own Constitution, and to several international treaties that South Africa has signed. We believe the Minister’s statement expresses the intention to improve relationships and reduce violence between adults, youth and children, and we support this vision.

    The institutions that have been established to maintain the human rights framework demanded by our Constitution play a vital role in ensuring that all people in South Africa, including children, live a life free from violence.

    Sonke, therefore, calls on the HRC to deliver the late report to the complainants by mid-April, and to support the process that will follow the release of the report, which may include an escalation to the Equality Court.

    For further information, contact:

    To read the Amendment Bill (2014), click here: www.gov.za/documents/childrens-amendment-bill-comments-invited-0

    A record of the process of developing the Children’s Act and its amendments can be found here.

  • SA civil society demands that President Zuma retract stigmatising teenage pregnancy remarks

    This week South African President Jacob Zuma said that teenage mothers and fathers should have their new-born babies taken away from them and they should be sent to Robben Island to finish school before they see their children again.

    On Tuesday, while addressing the National House of Traditional Leaders, Zuma repeated, by way of reference, shocking comments he first made in 2009 saying that teenage mothers should be separated from their babies until they finished their schooling. “They must be taken and be forced to go to school, far away,” he was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association (SAPA), “They must be educated by government until they are empowered and they can take care of their kids; take them to Robben Island or any other island, sit there, study until they are qualified to come back and work to look after their kids.”

    The President’s comments are of deep concern because it indicates that he assumes that all teenage pregnancies are unwanted – by the young women themselves or their families when in reality this is not true. Sending young mothers “far away” would be a direct violation of their human rights under the constitution and stigmatise them and their families and their children. Zuma’s comments encourage a weakening of social and family bonds by tearing babies away from their parents rather than strengthening them. In a country with as serious an HIV burden as ours, Zuma also makes no mention of the risks to young people of having unprotected sex and becoming infected with HIV or other sexually transmitted infections that can even become life threatening and life altering, nor of the importance for schools and government to provide easy access to contraception. Most troubling is that Zuma’s statement is about owning and therefore deciding on the lives, bodies, sexualities and reproductive choices of girls. The fact is that young girls have sexual and reproductive rights that are to be protected and advanced, and that should not be ruled over – not by their families, the president, men, boys, or anyone else.

    Early and unintended pregnancies are caused by gender-based violence and gender inequality, poor access to contraceptives, lack of provision of termination of pregnancy services, and the stigmatisation of young women’s sexuality. Other contributing factors include a wish to prove they are fertile, a fear of adults’ punishment, peer pressure, worries about confidentiality and pressure from the male partner.

    A better way to respond to South Africa’s teen pregnancy rate would be to acknowledge that there are a lot of complex and varied reasons and solutions to this issue. Effective and appropriate preventative measures for unwanted pregnancies among young women and adolescents need to be provided by government, including information and access to a variety of contraceptive measures through youth-friendly and trained clinics are vital in lowering teenage pregnancy rates. Government, civil society and other organisations are already collaborating in Mmoho, a nationwide advocacy campaign that seeks to reduce the occurrence of unplanned teenage pregnancies. By using a positive rights-based approach, Mmoho aims to openly talk about teenage sex and pregnancy, and advocate for increased access to contraception for young women and men.

    Government also needs to educate parents and guardians to play their role in educating and discussing sexual and reproductive health issues with their children – both boys and girls. Male involvement programmes should also be made available so that boys and men also are held responsible and are given the information they need.

    President Zuma’s comments correctly place an importance on education yet performance by government on quality education delivery is failing massively. “If we want youth to stay in school, we should improve schools and education provision” says Czerina Patel of Sonke Gender Justice, “Also, President Zuma should be removing the barriers that prevent pregnant teenagers and teen mothers from staying in schools – this includes stopping schools from kicking out pregnant teens or otherwise failing to provide facilities and mechanisms that support teenage parents when they want to finish school and raise their children.”

    Yumnah Hattas, Senior Researcher at AIDS Accountability International, responded, “Every child from grade R to grade 11 and older should have access to comprehensive sexuality education and information in and out of schools to help them make better informed decisions about their sexuality and this should be backed up by services provided to them in a non-judgmental and supportive environment that is rights based and encourages the better development of these children.”

    Worryingly, in defence of Zuma’s statements, the Presidency said this week that President Zuma’s remarks were not only targeted at teenage mothers, but also at teenage fathers. Whether directed at teenage mothers alone, or at teenage mothers and fathers, Zuma’s comments are incredibly harmful.

    The President also contradicts his own government’s efforts, showing no responsibility and accountability to the decisions made within his own ranks, rather publicly espousing values which are not in alignment with those of the country. Indeed, just two weeks ago, the National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Framework Strategy (NASRHRFS) was launched by government and it is a progressive, informed and clear strategy for dealing with this issue amongst others that affect youths.

    The South African government, the religious sector, civil society and even business have invested significant time and money to destigmatise teenage mothers (and fathers) in our country and to educate, inform and create high quality dialogue around this issue in our country. President Zuma’s remarks only serve to derail the progress that is being made.

    In short, we affirm the rights of South African youth to education and also to keep and raise their children, and we find it disturbing that President Zuma chose to pit these two rights against each other.

    We, South African civil society, are therefore requesting that, as a public servant to the South Arican nation, that the President immediately, retract his statement and correct the stigmatising, harmful and rights-violating position he expressed this week.

    Civil society is available to assist him in sending accurate and informed positive messages that speak to family cohesiveness and which openly talk about sex, sexuality and health with youth.

    Media Contacts:

    Endorsed by the following individuals and organisations:

    • Phillipa Tucker, Co-Founder, AIDS Accountability International
    • Andrea Thompson, Head of Client Services, Marie Stopes Clinics
    • Jackie Dugard, Director, Gender Equity Office at WITS University
    • Gordon Isaacs, Outreach & Knowledge-Innovation Manager, SWEAT
    • Anthony Manion, Director, Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA)
    • Jonothan Gunthorp, Executive Director, Southern African AIDS Trust
    • Bonita Meyersfield, Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, WITS
    • Czerina Patel, Communications Manager, Sonke Gender Justice
    • Remmy Shawa, Acting Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Manager, Sonke Gender Justice
    • Naomi Lince-Deroche, Teenage pregnancy and sexual and reproductive health and rights economics expert, South Africa

  • Statement on the Political Declaration of the Commission on the Status of Women

    There has been tremendous progress toward gender equality and the realisation of the human rights of women and girls. However, many of the gains that women and girls have made are under threat and women and girls worldwide face extraordinary and unprecedented challenges, including economic inequality, climate change and ocean acidification, and rising, violent fundamentalisms. At a time when urgent action is needed to fully realize gender equality, the human rights and empowerment of women and girls, we need renewed commitment, a heightened level of ambition, real resources, and accountability. This Political Declaration, instead, represents a bland reaffirmation of existing commitments that fails to match the level of ambition in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and in fact threatens a major step backward.

    As women’s organizations, feminist organizations, and organizations that work to achieve the full realization of the human rights of women and girls, we demand a Political Declaration that:

    • Expresses unequivocal commitments toward fully realizing gender equality, the human rights and empowerment of women and girls. The term “realize gender equality, empowerment and the human rights of women and girls” should be used throughout the political declaration. The goal of ensuring the full enjoyment by women and girls of all of their human rights and fundamental freedoms is cross-cutting and emphasized throughout the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, not just in one chapter. In the Beijing Declaration alone, the goal of realizing the human rights of women and girls is affirmed in paragraphs 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 23, 31, 32. Furthermore, the Platform for Action explicitly recognizes that gender equality is a matter of human rights (para 1) and in paragraph 2 states “As an agenda for action, the Platform seeks to promote and protect the full enjoyment of all human rights and the fundamental freedoms of all women throughout their life cycle.” Governments cannot pick and choose when to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of women and should not do so in this declaration.
    • Commits to accelerated implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, along with the outcomes of the 23rd United Nations General Assembly Special Session, the Beijing+10 and Beijing+15 political declarations, the agreed conclusions and resolutions of the Commission on the Status of Women, as well as regional-level declarations on gender equality and the human rights of women and girls.
    • Commits to universal ratification and implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and regional-level treaties on the human rights of women and girls and gender equality.
    • Recognizes the critical and unequivocal role women’s organizations, feminist organizations and women human rights defenders have played in pushing for gender equality, the human rights and empowerment of women and girls. Without feminist organizations, there would be no Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, nor progress in its implementation. Progress has occurred not because of the benevolence of governments, but because feminist organizations and women human rights defenders have fought for it, every step of the way. The attempt of governments to marginalize the role of these groups is an affront to women, everywhere.
    • Commits to create an enabling environment and resources to allow women’s organizations, feminist organizations and women human rights defenders to be able to do their work free from violence.
    • Recognizes and commits to address the emerging challenges that are setting back our fight for equality and the realization of the human rights of all women and girls. These include increasing fundamentalisms, violent extremism, increased number of displaced persons, increasing inequalities within and between countries, and climate change and ocean acidification, among others. The evidence is clear: women and girls suffer the disproportionate impact of these challenges and without real commitment to address them, gender equality and the full realization of the human rights of women and girls is a pipe dream.
    • Ensures real accountability for governments including detailed measures to reform and strengthen public institutions to address the structural causes of gender inequality; ensuring an enabling economic environment for women’s rights and gender equality beyond sector-specific financing and gender-responsive budgeting; creating national, regional and international systems that hold State and non-State actors, including multilateral institutions, to account for their role in perpetuating gender inequality and violations of the human rights of women and girls; and affirming the principle of international solidarity as the basis for international partnership between States for just, sustainable and equitable development.
    • Affirms the strong linkages between Beijing, Post-2015 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Realizing gender equality, empowerment and the human rights of women and girls will be critical for the success of the post-2015 development agenda. The Political Declaration should state unequivocal support for the stand-alone gender equality goal and targets as defined by the Open Working Group; recognize the centrality of gender equality, empowerment and human rights of women and girls for sustainable development; Commit to fully implementing the SDG on gender equality and women’s empowerment and ensuring a gender and human rights perspective throughout the post-2015 development agenda; and commit to gender-sensitive targets and indicators and ensure that gender is integrated into the means of implementation, financing and mechanisms for review, monitoring and accountability.
    • Recognizes the links between the human rights of women and girls and development. The Political Declaration must reaffirm the links between the human rights of women and girls and development, particularly as women and girls disproportionately are affected by the consequences of under-development. None of the three pillars of sustainable development – economic, social or environmental – can be achieved without the full participation of women and girls and without all of their human rights being fulfilled. When 61 million children, more than half of them girls, have no access to education, when 35% of women have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence, and when 1 in 3 girls in the developing world are married by 18, there is a clear failure of development and a serious denial of human rights.

    Anything less than the above would be a political failure, at a time when significantly more effort is needed to achieve the goals of fully realizing gender equality, the human rights and empowerment of all women and girls everywhere.

  • Advancing Gender Equality and Women’s rights at the International Conference on Masculinities and the UN CSW

    Reaching planet 50:50 by 2030

    On this year’s International Women’s Day (March 8, 2015), activists, governments, NGOs, international agencies and people around the world will reflect on how women, men, boys, girls and gender non-conforming people are faring on the 20-year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+20), and on what steps need to be taken to ensure that gender parity is realised.

    “This year offers a strategic moment to breathe new life into the gender agenda,” writes Keiko Nowacka of the OECD Development Centre in The Guardian, “The synergy between the review of the Beijing Platform and the debates around the targets of goal 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment of the SDGs opens an unprecedented opportunity to ensure that the promises of 1995 can deliver transformative change for women and girls.”

    As the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are about to expire, to be replaced soon by the post-2015 agenda (which will be adopted by the United Nations in September), Sonke and other global gender activists are calling for a standalone transformative gender equality goal in the new sustainable development goals (SDGs), and for gender equality to be integrated into all of the other SDGs.

    20 years post Beijing, women are still being paid significantly less than men across the globe,1 and an estimated one in three women worldwide is beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.2

    In her message for this year’s International Women’s Day, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says gender parity must be reached before 2030, so that the sluggish trajectory of progress that condemns a child born today to wait 80 years before they see an equal world can be reversed. She calls on all countries to “step it up” for gender equality, to reach ‘Planet 50:50’ before 2030.

    A Sonke delegation is in New York now to engage on these and other important issues related to gender, gender equality, gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) at both the 59th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and the International Conference on Masculinities (ICM) which starts on Friday.

    Sonke’s Executive Director, Dean Peacock, joins Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka and others for an Intergenerational Dialogue Day on Friday March 13th at the United Nations to discuss strategies to accelerate the achievement of gender equality by 2030.

    Please see the programme attached for full details about all of our activities in New York, and, for those in or near New York City, please join us at the March for Gender Equality on International Women’s Day (March 8th) where the Sonke delegation will demand (with our banners, signs and voices) that the South African government develop and fund a national strategic plan to end gender-based violence.

    Endnotes

    1. http://www.cityam.com/1405427494/women-wont-receive-equal-pay-until-2075-and-its-hurting-economy-report-says
      https://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2012/Resources/7778105-1299699968583/7786210-1315936222006/Complete-Report.pdf
    2. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/196468.pdf
      Heise, L., Ellsberg, M., and Gottemoeller, M. 1999. Ending Violence Against Women. Population Reports, Series L, No. 11. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Population Information Program.

    Twitter hashtags:
    #Beijing20
    #NSPNOW
    #GBVPLAN

    More

    www.genderjustice.org.za
    facebook.com/SonkeGenderJusticeNGO
    twitter.com/sonketogether
    email: info@genderjustice.org.za

    Media Inquiries

    czerina@genderjustice.org.za

  • Detention Justice Forum Annual General Meeting 2015: Forging synergies for human rights and dignity

    Sonke is co-founder and co-coordinator of the Detention Justice Forum, a civil society coalition that promotes and protects the rights and well-being of detainees in South Africa. This press statement is released after the Forum’s annual general meeting, and highlights key concerns around impunity for torture and assault of inmates, dysfunction in healthcare services in prisons, severe short staffing in prisons, and overcrowding in Pollsmoor Remand Detention Facility.

    Detention Justice Forum

    Human rights groups and organisations affirmed their commitment to advocating for human rights and constitutional compliance within the criminal justice sector in South Africa.

    The Detention Justice Forum (DJF) comprises of civil society organisations concerned with the rights of detainees. It was established in March 2012 with the aim of ensuring that the rights and well-being of those who are detained are protected, promoted, and fulfilled.

    On 12 and 13 February, member organisations attended the Forum’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Braamfontein. The Wits Justice Project, Just Detention International-South Africa, and Sonke Gender Justice were unanimously elected to serve on the coordinating committee of the DJF.

    Various human rights issues were discussed during the two-day meeting. The DJF noted with grave concern a number of instances where the health of both inmates and warders was being endangered in correctional centres. This includes cases of ARV and TB medication not being made available to detainees, as well as of inmates with chronic and emergency medical needs being neglected by both public hospitals and the Department of Correctional Services (DCS).

    Of particular concern to the Forum was the issue of the working conditions of warders. Correctional Services officials face challenges such as shocking inmate-to-warder ratios — where four or five officers are often required to oversee up to 1400 inmates; feel inadequately trained for the complexity and high demands of their jobs, and unsupported by their leadership.  In addition, the DJF received a briefing on the severe overcrowding in Pollsmoor Correctional Centre and expressed strong concerns about the complaints received by Independent Correctional Centre Visitors (ICCV) regarding the 200 inmates who had to sleep on the floor in Pollsmoor for months. Despite various attempts by the ICCVs and civil society organisations to escalate the problem to the appropriate Department of Correctional Services (DCS) authorities, no action had been taken. Pollsmoor is currently at 300% capacity and has been greater than 200% for the last decade.

    DJF members also discussed the ongoing inability of the Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services (JICS) to provide effective and independent oversight. Research commissioned by the Forum (http://detentionjusticeforum.org.za/resources/research-reports/) and presented at the AGM shows how JICS’s administrative dependence on DCS and its limited resources requires urgent statutory reform, to ensure that it is able to carry out its vital oversight responsibilities.

    In this regard, the Forum discussed the vital importance of the ratification of the Optional Protocol of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), seeing it as a foundation stone for effective oversight in South Africa, through the establishment of the OPCAT-required national preventative mechanism. DJF members agreed to continue to advocate for the ratification of the OPCAT by South African authorities, especially given the increase in the number of reported cases of torture and assaults of inmates.

    Member organisations noted with appreciation the positive impact resulting from the prison visitors programme of the Constitutional Court, in which the Justices of that court visit correctional centres on an annual basis. The DJF noted in particular the reports of visits to Boksburg and Modderbee correctional centres by Justice Edwin Cameron, which document the positive outcomes such visits can have. Importantly, the Boksburg Siyanakekela HIV Support Group for inmates, which was disbanded by DCS after the Group complained about disruptions in the supply of antiretroviral medicines, was re-established at Justice Cameron’s urging.

    Member organisations resolved to continue their rights-based work and improve the conditions of people living and working within correctional facilities.

    [Note to Editors]

    The Detention Justice Forum (DJF) consists of civil society organisations concerned with detainees’ rights. It was established in March 2012 with the explicit aim to ensure that the rights and well-being of those who are detained are respected and upheld, as enshrined under the South African Constitution, laws, and international human rights norms and standards.

    For further information please contact:

    To download, click here

  • TAC and South Africa civil society under attack

    Sonke Gender Justice, AIDS Accountability International and Grass Root Soccer, strongly condemn the efforts of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL), the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAPWA) and the Free State Men’s Forum to de-register the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), and we condemn their march on the TAC offices in the Free State today.

    We find it contradictory to democracy and South Africa’s struggle for freedom and equality that these groups are attacking an organisation that has represented the health interests of millions of South Africans and the rights of more than six million HIV-positive South Africans to have access to anti-retroviral treatment (ART). The TAC has been vocal in exposing the ills of the health system in the Free State. Clearly, today’s actions are a retaliatory attack against the TAC for its bringing forth of charges of corruption against Free State Minister of Health, Benny Malakoane, last year, and for its calling for his firing, despite the fact that their doing so was in the interest of health, democracy and transparency for all South Africans.

    Government’s speedy and respectful response to civil society’s demands for accountability are part of the foundation of good governance and a strong democracy where public servants serve their constituency. This march and call to de-register TAC go against the various national and global obligations of the South African government.

    The health system in the Free State is deteriorating. Reports of drug stock-outs, including such basic medications as antibiotics, lack of essential supplies, and the turning away of patients in need of critical care abound.1 Health professionals and activists who have dared to speak out against the MEC for Health, Benny Malakoane, and the failing health system have had their free speech responded to with victimisation, retaliation and intimidation, such as when 129 community healthcare workers and TAC members were arrested during a peaceful vigil to bring attention to health systems failures in the Free State last year.2

    We appeal to all organisations to work together to ensure that proper health service delivery is restored to the Free State province, instead of playing to political party agendas, and we call on all South Africans to raise their voices to protect the rights and freedom of organizations like TAC to stand up against corruption and to be able to hold the government accountable for service delivery in South Africa without fear of such intimidation, distraction and retaliation tactics.

    Notes

    1. http://www.tac.org.za/news/free-state-health-system-collapse-%E2%80%93-lives-are-being-lost-urgent-immediate-intervention-minister
    2. http://www.tac.org.za/news/police-arrest-over-100-health-workers-and-activists-staging-peaceful-vigil-outside-fs-health

    Media contacts

    1. Vuyiseka Dubula, Policy Development and Advocacy Unit Manager, Sonke Gender Justice
      vuyiseka@genderjustice.org.za
    2. Phillipa Tucker, AIDS Accountability International
      phillipa@aidsaccountability.org
    3. Jenn Warren, Grassroot Soccer
      jwarren@grasrootsoccer.org

  • HANDS OFF The Treatment Action Campaign

    We are appalled at the call of the ANC in the Free State for the de-registration of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). We find this call disturbing, to say the least, given the huge track record of the TAC in the fight against poor health services, and given its positive contribution towards the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, which is recognised the world over.

    It is our view that this call to de-register a national civil society organisation, which has thousands of members throughout the country, is primarily intended to intimidate civil society, and the TAC in particular, for the sterling work they have been doing in the Free State to hold government accountable for a crumbling health system. It is saddening that the interests of individuals involved in charges of corruption are held above those of communities and South Africa’s citizens. We interpret this latest move as a retaliatory attack against the TAC for its bringing forth of charges of corruption against Free State Minister of Health in the Free State, Benny Malakoane last year, and for its calling for his firing.

    We also note with grave concern the attempts to intimidate the SANAC civil society national chairperson Steve Letsike with threatening calls. Such cowardly acts will not sway us, nor other civil society groups (many who are releasing similar statements to ours) from the urgent task of holding duty bearers accountable in the HIV response in South Africa.

    Brothers For Life notes with serious concern that its logo was used illegally in the promotion of this march against the TAC. We find this highly unprofessional and unacceptable. Brothers For Life supports the TAC and firmly stands with civil society in our endeavor to fight for adequate health systems that respond to the challenge of HIV and AIDS.

    We encourage civil society organisations in the Free State to not allow themselves to be used for narrow political interests that seek to protect corrupt individuals, and to stand their ground against bullying practices so as not to allow civil society unity to be undermined. We will remain focused on the task ahead to ensure that the health system in the Free State is held accountable and that it delivers quality services to the citizens. On that note, Asijiki!

    #HandsoffTAC

    Issued by the SANAC Men’s Sector

    SANAC Men’s Sector Media Contacts

  • Too Little, Too Late: Ministry of Women Races to Report on Beijing+20

    Just three weeks before governments around the world gather in New York to review progress on the Beijing Platform for Action, South Africa’s Ministry of Women hosted a meeting in Kempton Park on 16 February 2015 for civil society organisations to give input into South Africa’s official report to be presented at the 59th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW). The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action are documents that state parties negotiated and agreed to at the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing, China.

    This year, the UNCSW will review implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action twenty years after its inception. A report on South Africa’s progress was submitted to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in June 2014. However, by the Ministry’s own admission, the report was not widely consultative. While we commend the Minister of Women for withdrawing the initial submission to the UNECA, we are deeply concerned with how the consultative process was handled. We cannot, with good conscience, endorse a process that claims to be inclusive but only amounts to the contributions of approximately 80 people. At the meeting on Monday, attendees were handed copies of South Africa’s Beijing+20 report and split into small groups to try to fill in the gaps. The few hours given to do this was not nearly enough to even scratch the surface. If the final product is to be a true reflection of the status of women in South Africa then sufficient time must be set aside to garner meaningful engagement.

    “We are struggling to locate the experiences of South African women within this process,” said Jabu Tugwana of People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), “The integrity and complex nature of South African women’s experiences and interpretations of their experience is missing.”

    The need for wide consultation and legitimate engagement was raised by representatives of COSATU and the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL). In response, the Minister of Women, Susan Shabangu acknowledged the late timing of the consultation and offered attendees a week’s grace to submit further comments. Furthermore, the Minister tried to remedy the problem by saying that the consultation process was not only about the UNCSW or “a trip to New York”, but a long-term discussion with the nation that will continue when the official delegation returns to South Africa. However, despite Minister Shabangu’s efforts, more doubt set in when it was discovered that there were at least two versions of the country report doing the rounds at the meeting.

    Elizabeth Petersen from the South African Faith and Family Institute (SAFFI) was part of the break out group (“commission”) at Monday’s meeting focusing on the “Human Rights of Women, Violence against Women and Armed Conflict”. She shared her disappointment in the slow progress made, saying, “at the dawn of our democracy, violence against women (VAW) was a national priority but today very little time was given to thrash out VAW issues and even less civil society voice was heard on this matter in our commission.”

    Although the Minister of Women has said that discussions will continue after the UNCSW, a report is going to be presented on the status of women in South Africa at the UN global platform next month and that report will not show the realities that South African women face. Things cannot continue in this manner.

    The National Strategic Plan (NSP) for Gender-Based Violence Campaign partners continue to demand fully consultative processes for all issues relating to women and particularly issues addressing and assessing violence against women in South Africa. It is our hope that the South African government will honestly reflect on where we are as a country as we seek to find healthy partnerships between government and civil society on this critical matter. We will not be forced to to rush our own processes to catch up with the global discourse at the expense of countless women who experience violence and abuse in both the private and public spaces.

    NSP Campaign Partners: Access Chapter 2, Amnesty International, Community Law Centre, Disability Sector, Eastern Cape AIDS Crisis, Embrace Dignity, Emtonjeni CBO, ESSET, FEDUSA, Gender Dynamix, Gender Links, Grassroots Soccer, GRIP, JAW, Love 167, LRC, Masimanyane, Matrix Men, MOSAIC, MSF, NACOSA, NAMKO, New World Foundation, PACSA, Positive Women’s Network, POWA, Progressive Women’s Movement, Project Empower, Rape Crisis, SA Council of Churches, SACWF, SAFFI, SANAC , Sekwele Centre for Social Reflection, Sisonke Sex Workers’Movement, Social Justice Coalition, Sonke Gender Justice, SWEAT, TAC, TB/HIV Care, TEARS, Thusanang, TLAC, TVEP, University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights + Centre for Study of AIDS, WC Network on Violence Against Women, Women on Farms and World AIDS Campaign International.

    MEDIA CONTACTS

  • NSP campaign partners’ media statement

    Tonight’s SONA will mark two years of inaction and empty promises from government on gender based violence – the NSP campaign partners1 call on President Zuma to commit to a national plan to end gender-based violence now

    On the 2nd of February 2015, exactly two years to the day after Anene Booysen was found brutally raped and disemboweled in Bredasdorp, a five-year old girl, Kayde Williams, was found dead in the same area, also after being raped and murdered. These two Bredasdorp murders, two years apart, signal a failure on the part of the South African government to follow through on its many commitments to ending rape and domestic violence, including abject failure to develop a national strategic plan (NSP) on gender-based violence (GBV).

    When Booysen was attacked, and graphic details of her murder hit the headlines and shocked the nation two years ago, President Zuma spoke of the need for unity in action to eradicate the “scourge” of GBV in South Africa. In his State of the Nation address then, Zuma urged the National Council on Gender Based Violence, which had been established the previous year2, to make combating violence against women an “everyday campaign.” But in the two years since, we have not seen a commitment to ending GBV in the daily words and actions of government. Instead, rape and domestic violence have continued unabated every day. Every single day, we hear horrific stories of women being raped, of gays, lesbians and transgender people being raped, of men being raped, of inmates being raped, of babies being raped. In the two years between the rape and murder of Anene, and the rape and murder of Kayde, incidences of GBV have occurred with numbing regularity all across the country, with tens to hundreds of thousands of lives devastated by rape3 and millions restricted by the ongoing, daily fear of it.

    “Men, girls, boys and gender non-conforming persons are all falling prey to escalating levels of brutal sexual violence being perpetrated,” says Glynis Rhodes of the Western Cape Network on Violence Against Women, “The women in South Africa do not share in the ‘2013 Very Good Story that SA has to tell’ when they are not safe at home, at work and generally live in fear of rape and sexual assault.”

    “We stand outside courthouses with placards and loudspeakers calling for justice in the cases of murders related to gender-based violence and calling for urgent government action and investment in prevention,” says Vuyiseka Dubula, Sonke Gender Justice’s Director for Advocacy and Accountability, “but the stories keep filling the headlines, every single day: Sandiswa (mother-of-two) who was killed by her partner; Queen, a nine-year old raped, set on fire and left to die; David, a gay man raped and murdered; Kayde; Anene… all the names could not be read during the time President Zuma starts and finishes his address tonight.”

    Conservative estimates indicate that GBV costs South Africa as much as R40.2 billion4 each year. Despite the massive cost of this violence – more than 1% of South Africa’s GDP – our government has failed to act on its many commitments to ensure survivors have the health and criminal justice sector services they need and it has failed to put in place effective violence prevention strategies.

    Now, as President Zuma is about to give his eighth State of the Nation Address, South African civil society1 renew our call on President Zuma to commit to developing a multisectoral, fully costed national strategic plan to address GBV. “Like last year, this year again we urge President Zuma and his cabinet to ensure meaningful follow-through to address and prevent gender-based violence,” says Anele Yawa, General Secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign, “Our members in TAC branches all over the country–women and men alike–demand that our government deliver on its constitutional obligations.”

    Despite President Zuma’s directive two years ago, the National Council on Gender-Based Violence has failed to develop and implement a national strategic plan to address GBV, and has been suspended for over six months now pending “restructuring” of the new Women’s Ministry by incoming Minister Shabangu, a Minister, who when challenged by civil society, last year, showed evident commitment towards the retention of patriarchal dictates.

    Minister Shabangu has failed to commit to implementing a comprehensive, costed and multisectoral national plan. And when challenged on this, she has only mentioned an outdated, non-costed, non-consultative, non-accountable, non-binding “365 Day National Action Plan” from 2006 which was never actually finalised nor implemented in the more than eight years since it was “drafted” and which is unlikely to see any real implementation now either. We reject 365 days of rhetoric, of empty talk about non-plans and old plans, and demand a real plan with a timeline, and with specific measures that will effect real change.

    Government’s response to GBV to date has focused on response. Vital health and criminal justice system services are still sorely inadequate but even less attention has been paid to preventing the violence from occurring in the first place. Prevention strategies must be front and centre in the GBV national plan that we are calling on government to develop and implement. There are many examples of effective prevention initiatives: the Stepping Stones intervention implemented across the rural Eastern Cape significantly reduced levels of violence by men against women, as did the IMAGE project implemented and rigorously evaluated in rural Limpopo. Similarly, we know that providing psycho-social support to children exposed to violence in their homes decreases the likelihood that those children grow up to perpetrate or experience violence. Reducing access to alcohol and decreasing binge drinking also achieves this. In reality, we know what needs to be done to prevent South Africa’s frighteningly high rates of violence – what we’re missing is government’s commitment to do it.

    Many countries have realised that the cost of inaction is too high and are implementing national plans to combat GBV. There is no excuse for South Africa to not be doing the same.

    We call on President Zuma and government to show leadership, to invest in services for survivors and in violence prevention, to consult with civil society, to put money into ending gender-based violence and to urgently and comprehensively develop a multisectoral and costed national strategic plan to end gender-based violence in South Africa, and to do this now.

    Without such a plan, South Africans won’t see service delivery, but will only be the victims of more lip service. We can’t afford another two years.

    MEDIA CONTACTS

    Vuyiseka Dubula
    Sonke Gender Justice
    Director for Advocacy and Accountability
    vuyiseka@sonkegenderjustice.org.za
    021 423 7088

    Mapule Maema
    Sekwele Centre for Social Reflection
    Gender Programme Manager
    mapspulliet@gmail.com
    053 303 1459

    Kim Pillay
    New World Foundation
    Programme Manger
    kimpillay@newworldfoundation.org.za
    021 701 1150

    Portia Serote
    Treatment Action Campaign
    National Women’s Representative
    port​ia.serote@mail.tac.org.za
    071 825 3095

    Notes

    1. NSP Campaign Partners: Access Chapter 2, Amnesty International, Community Law Centre, Disability Sector, Eastern Cape AIDS Crisis, Embrace Dignity, Emtonjeni CBO, ESSET, FEDUSA, Gender Dynamix, Gender Links, Grassroots Soccer, GRIP, JAW, Love 167, LRC, Masimanyane, Matrix Men, MOSAIC, MSF, NACOSA, NAMKO, New World Foundation, PACSA, Positive Women’s Network, POWA, Progressive Women’s Movement, Project Empower, Rape Crisis, SA Council of Churches, SACWF, SAFFI, SANAC, Sekwele Centre for Social Reflection, Sisonke Sex Workers’Movement, Social Justice Coalition, Sonke Gender Justice, SWEAT, TAC, TB/HIV Care, TEARS, Thusanang, TLAC, TVEP, University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights + Centre for Study of AIDS, WC Network on Violence Against Women, Women on Farms and World AIDS Campaign International.
    2. The National Council for Gender-Based Violence was launched in August, 2012 following Cabinet’s approval for its establishment on 25 December 2011.
    3. While actual reports of rape and sexual assault amount to around 50,000 per year, studies show that only 1 in 9 to 1 in 25 rapes* are actually being reported. Thus, the number of actual rapes that occur in South Africa every year may be higher than a million.
      *”The War @ Home Study” by Gender Links and the Medical Research Council found that women in Gauteng had only reported one in 25 rapes: www.mrc.ac.za/gender/gbvthewar.pdf
    4. KPMG’s 2014 study on the cost of gender-based violence in South Africa says that “There is no national prevalence rate for GBV, but based on local level prevalence rates of between 20 percent and 30 percent of women experiencing violence within a given year, this study estimates that the economic impact of that violence is between at least R28.4 billion and R42.4 billion for the year 2012/2013, representing 0.9 percent and 1.3 percent of GDP respectively.” http://www.kpmg.com/za/en/issuesandinsights/articlespublications/press-releases/pages/violence-against-women-costs-country-r284billion.aspx

  • South African civil society groups call for the reinstatement of Joint Committee on HIV & AIDS

    On the eve of President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) to Parliament, the undersigned civil society organisations1 renew our demand that the Joint Committee on HIV and AIDS be reinstated. The committee, initially set up in 2012, was disbanded in 2014.

    “Even setting the committee up in 2012 was a painfully slow process that took about four years of talks with key political office bearers, including the national Health Minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, with very little movement towards results,” says Rukia Cornelius of Sonke Gender Justice, one of the organisations calling for the reconstitution of the committee.

    Last year, civil society groups wrote two letters to both the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), Thandi Modise, and the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, in July 2014 and again in September, 2014.  We have also written to the Chairperson of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, in November 2014. Until now, our letters have not been answered.2

    “Their silence on this matter indicates an apparent lack of accountability, political will and leadership,” says Phillipa Tucker, Co-Founder of AIDS Accountability International, “Government should be using the mechanisms that have been created to ensure financial transparency and to make sure that the 6.4 million South Africans living with HIV receive the full benefit of the funds that are dedicated to our nation’s HIV and AIDS response.”

    We are seeking clarity on the status and future of the Joint Committee on HIV and AIDS, and call for the committee which was to act as an advisory, influential and consultative body comprising of members of parliament from different political parties in the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) to be immediately reconstitued and reinstated. The committee was formed to  monitor and evaluate the implementation of government’s HIV and AIDS strategy, policy and programmes; to examine and evaluate existing and proposed HIV-related legislation, policies and budgetary allocations; as well as to ensure that HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment remain as priorities on the national agenda. Without the committee’s existence and attention, all South Africans, including the more than six million citizens living with HIV are at risk for the negative consequences that can be expected when HIV spending is not being monitored and if HIV gets deprioritised as a national issue.

    Executive Director of the Network of African People Living with HIV in the Southern African region, Thanduxolo Doro, says that “civil society organisations recognise the sterling progress that South Africa has made over the years in responding to the HIV epidemic, particularly in the areas of access to treatment, care and support for people living with HIV and AIDS and we don’t want to see those gains being reversed.”

    The committee was established to focus on the HIV and AIDS pandemic and how its spread could be prevented. It was borne out of necessity, as South Africa was struggling with one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. Now with less AIDS-related morbidity due to the scale-up of antiretroviral treatment (ART), South Africa has the enormous challenge of reducing the number of new infections which has grown by 1.2 million – from 5.2 million to 6.4 million – HIV-positive people from 2008 to 20123 according to the Human Sciences Research Council’s 2012 national HIV prevalence survey.

    Dr. Fareed Abdullah, the Chief Executive Officer of SANAC, says that the SANAC Secretariat joins civil society’s call to reconstitute the committee, which would also force SANAC to be accountable to Parliament, saying “SANAC supports the call to reconstitute Parliament’s Joint Committee on HIV and AIDS as HIV needs a multi-sectoral response and a multi-sectoral committee. It’s time South Africa understands that the HIV response, especially prevention, goes well beyond the health function.”

    The Chair of SANAC’s Men’s Sector and member of its Civil Society Forum, and Co-Founder of Sonke Gender Justice, Reverend Bafana Khumalo, adds that “as civil society members who are engaged in SANAC processes, we call for Parliament’s Joint Committee on HIV and AIDS to be re-established because it plays a pivotal role in ensuring that there is adequate accountability on the HIV response in the country.  As things stand, it is unclear who in South Africa holds SANAC stakeholders accountable. This committee will ensure that there are proper systems in place to advance the course of the response as we seek to put an end to new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths.”

    Media Contacts

    Notes

    1. Civil society groups calling for the reinstatement of the Joint Committee on HIV and AIDS:
      • Access Chapter 2
      • African Men for Sexual Health and Rights
      • AIDS Accountability International
      • AIDS and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa
      • AIDS Healthcare Foundation South Africa
      • Coalition of African Lesbians
      • Desmond Tutu Foundation
      • Doctors Without Borders
      • International HIV/AIDS Alliance
      • National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS
      • Network of East African AIDS Service Organisations
      • Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa
      • Networking HIV/AIDS Community of South Africa
      • Pan African Treatment Access Movement
      • Positive Women’s Network
      • Section 27
      • Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT)
      • Sonke Gender Justice
      • Southern African AIDS Information Dissemination Services
      • Southern African AIDS Trust
      • Southern African HIV Clinicians Association
      • South African National AIDS Council (Civil Society Forum)
      • TB/HIV Care Association
      • Treatment Action Campaign
      • Wellness Foundation
      • World AIDS Campaign International
    1. Civil society’s letters are available here: https://genderjustice.org.za/policy-development-advocacy/joint-committee-hiv-aids/
    2. 2012 HSRC HIV prevalence study: www.hsrc.ac.za/en/research-outputs/view/6871

    Additional Information for Journalists

    Ten reasons why the Joint Committee on HIV and AIDS needs to be reconstituted:

    1. It’s necessary to hold SANAC accountable to Parliament.
    2. It will strengthen the National Development Plan for a South Africa free of  HIV.
    3. It will make it easy for Parliament to hold other government departments, such as Basic Education, Higher Education, Social Development, Correctional Services and Defence and Military Veterans accountable for their budgets and programmes on HIV and AIDS.
    4. It will support the monitoring of interventions made by the private sector in relation to HIV and AIDS.
    5. It will strengthen Parliament’s oversight on HIV and HIV spending and strategies.
    6. HIV and AIDS will be addressed as a development issue that cuts across all sectors and won’t be relegated as only a health problem.
    7. It will help release blockages in service delivery of basic needs which – in their absence – make people vulnerable to HIV.
    8. It will influence the effectiveness of provincial, district and local councils on AIDS.
    9. It will improve Parliament’s interaction with civil society in the field of HIV and AIDS as well as TB.
    10. It will aid proper planning which will result in considerate and equitable distribution of resources to people in semi-urban and peripheral areas.

  • Sonke Gender Justice condemns the outbreak of Xenophobic violence in Gauteng

    Sonke Gender Justice (Sonke) joins fellow human rights activists around the globe to condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence against non-South African individuals living and working within our borders and calls on our government to take urgent action to both protect all people in South Africa, and to prosecute strongly those perpetrating violence against others.

    Sonke reminds the South African government that equality is the hard-fought for cornerstone of our democracy, and there is no space for any violence against people based on their race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or identity, ethnicity, disability, religion or creed. “When South Africans fighting for equality were being persecuted by the Apartheid government, it was many of our neighbours in Africa who gave safe refuge to those fighting the cause of freedom,” says Sonke’s Communication Manager, Czerina Patel, “All South Africans have a responsibility to speak out against violence meted out against vulnerable or marginalised people, but also to ensure that South Africa’s international reputation as a country that embraces equality and human rights is not damaged by those who seek to oppress on the basis of difference.”

    Sonke notes with sadness the tragic deaths in Soweto and Langlaagte following the looting of small businesses such as spaza shops and cafes, and where shops owned by cross-border migrants seem to be the main targets. This looting and violence draw attention to ongoing levels of xenophobia in South Africa following, in particular, the brutal deaths of at least 62 people during widespread xenophobic attacks in May 2008. The African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of Witwatersrand points out that those xenophobic attacks didn’t stop in May 2008, and that in fact more people have died in attacks against foreign nationals every year, than in 2008. Many reports cite government inaction as one reason for the continued violence.

    Sonke urgently calls on government to step up efforts to protect foreign nationals and all people within South Africa’s borders, and to provide strong leadership to stop the violence.

    “In our daily work, we encounter a lot of misunderstanding of migrants in South African communities,” says Saint Expedit Ondzongo, a trainer with Sonke’s Refugee Health & Rights programme, “Often this misunderstanding, or misinformation such as ‘Foreigners come to South Africa to take South African jobs’, lead to xenophobia. This violence and hostility hurts South Africans and non-South Africans.

    Today is also the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust (and the 70th anniversary of the Second World War and the founding of the United Nations). Amongst other things, U.N. Resolution 60/7 which establishes 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day “condemns without reserve all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur”.

    “As the world remembers the millions of Jews who were killed in the holocaust,” says Patel, “we also remember and send our sympathies to the families of those killed on the basis of their nationality and race within our own borders in the twenty-first century.”

    Sonke’s work is firmly grounded in the principle of equality, and that all people have the right to live in a world free from violence, hate crimes and oppression. We condemn violence, and in particular violent acts flowing from prejudice and hate. We therefore, call on the government to issue an unequivocal statement that the current attacks are xenophobic in nature, and to protect all who live in South Africa. We call on government and civil society to increase the investment in containing the current violence, and to put long-term measures in place to prevent and address violence and hostility, particularly through the promotion of social cohesion and fostering a culture of respect for human rights and the law.

    Media contacts

  • International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

    Today, sex workers and sex worker advocates commemorate the International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers. In provinces around the country, sex workers and community activists will gather to pay tribute to their many colleagues who have been subjected to violence, abuse, death and brutality at the hands of police, clients and the general community.

    In particular, we remember Kleintjie, a 19-year sex workers stabbed to death in Kenilworth, Cape Town in August.

    We also evoke the memory of Desiree, a 39-year old mother of one who was raped and decapitated in Chatsworth, Durban in the same month.

    Research has shown that female sex workers are 18 times more likely to be murdered than other women.

    Sonke stands in solidarity with sex workers around the world who bear the brunt of working within a profession that is criminalised, a fact that has far-reaching effects on sex worker – and community – health and safety.

    We note that the criminalisation of sex work:

    • Increases violence in the sex work context
    • Drives sex workers underground and away from services
    • Increases stigma and create obstacles to accessing health and social programmes
    • Reduces sex workers’ power, rendering them vulnerable to violence, human rights violations, corruption, HIV and ill-health

    Today we renew our call on the South African government to tackle these harmful effects by decriminalising sex work; and to draft, fully cost and implement a gender-based violence National Strategic Plan. We also call on South African society to interrogate and resist the stigma attached to sex work.

    Media Contacts

    • Marlise Richter, Sonke Gender Justice, marlise@genderjustice.org.za, 021-423-7088
    • Lesego Tlhwale, Sex Worker Education & Advocacy Taskforce, 021-448-7875

  • Sonke co-founder speaks at White House rally and recognised alongside US Vice President Joe Biden

    On the last day of the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and Violence Against Children campaign, Sonke’s Co-founder and Senior Programmes Specialist, Bafana Khumalo will be recognised alongside the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, celebrity athlete and educator Donald McPherson, and actor and activist Patrick Stewart for their leadership in pursuing a world free from gender-based violence. The four men will be receiving the inaugural Vital Voices Solidarity Award which recognises men who work to stop violence against women at an event “Voices of Solidarity” which will be held in New York City on December 10, 2014, which is also International Human Rights Day.

    The Vital Voices Solidarity Award acknowledges men who have shown courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls in the United States and around the world.

    On the day before receiving the award, Khumalo will be speaking at a rally in front of the White House urging United States President Barack Obama to take executive action on correct implementation of the Helms Amendment1 and to allow U.S. funding for termination of pregnancy services overseas for women raped in conflict, and globally, in cases of rape, incest and life endangerment. The December 9th rally, being organised by the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) and involving more than 20 international advocacy organisations is part of the #BreakBarriers campaign that seeks to ensure access to comprehensive, post-rape care and services for survivors of sexual violence in conflict. Earlier this year, at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict which was held in London, Sonke and other partners asked international organisations to fund mobile clinics to assist survivors of sexual violence in conflict areas, where sexual violence is prevalent, and where stigma often causes survivors to fail to seek help. Khumalo says that women and girls suffer unimaginable brutalities and sexual assault in conflict and often don’t have access to post-rape services including counselling and basic medical support. Sexual violence becomes a tactic of war, and women suffer assault upon assault.

    “The levels of violence against women in conflict and post conflict settings is unacceptable,” says Khumalo, “It is an indictment against our leaders who continue to look the other way. The abduction of the over 200 girls in Nigeria eight months ago and failure to rescue them up to now demonstrates just how cheaply women’s lives are treated. If only a fraction of the resources and focused leadership deployed in the search for the missing Malaysian plane were used to search for the missing girls, I’m sure they would have been found by now. We need responsive and accountable leadership, and we need it now!”

    Sonke’s International Programmes and Networks Manager, Itumeleng Komanyane, says about Khumalo: “Across South Africa and southern Africa, Bafana is recognised for his determined work to advance peace and social justice and for his visionary efforts to get men to support women’s rights. As a co-founder and senior director at Sonke Gender Justice, he has built one of the most successful human rights organisations in Africa.”

    The four men receiving the Vital Voices award are being recognised for their exemplary leadership in pursuit of a world free of gender based and a world in which women live free from violence. USAID says that “one out of three women will be beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime, with rates of abuse reaching 70% in some countries.”

    “Everyone is affected by gender-based violence,” says Khumalo, “if not directly, then indirectly. Our friends, partners, sisters, and children are being abused, assaulted, attacked, neglected and harassed. In South Africa, most of the women who are murdered are killed by an intimate partner – as many as three women per day die this way. There is a great economic cost to this violence, but more importantly there is the human cost that is felt in great suffering and represented by scars, broken bones, rape trauma and an ever-increasing number of graves. Every citizen has a role to play in speaking up and working against such violence.”

    1. The Helms Amendment, a decades-old provision, forbids the U.S. to “pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning,” but does not prohibit U.S. foreign assistance in cases of rape, incest or life endangerment. Despite the distinction, lack of clarity around the implementation of Helms has served as a barrier to safe abortion services for women and girls, including those raped in conflict.

    Media Contacts

    Czerina Patel / Sonke Gender Justice, Communications South Africa: czerina@genderjustice.org.za

    Bafana Khumalo / Sonke Gender Justice, Senior Programmes Specialist bafana@genderjustice.org.za

    Resources

    VITAL VOICES – VOICES OF SOLIDARITY AWARD EVENT

    December 10th 2014
    6.30pm-10.30pm
    IAC Building in New York City
    IAC HQ 555 West 18th St, New York, NY 10011, United States
    http://www.vitalvoices.org

    About Sonke

    Sonke’s vision is a world in which men, women and children can enjoy equitable, healthy and happy relationships that contribute to the development of just and democratic societies. Sonke Gender Justice works across Africa to strengthen government, civil society and citizen capacity to promote gender equality, prevent domestic and sexual violence, and reduce the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS.

    About Vital Voices

    For more than 17 years, the Vital Voices Global Partnership has collaborated with civil society, the private sector and government to end violence against women. They advocate for effective legislation to ensure the full protection of women’s rights; provide innovative training programs for judges, prosecutors and police; and in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State, offer emergency assistance directly to victims facing extreme acts of gender-based violence around the world.

    White House Rally to Call for Executive Action to Support Access to Abortion Services for Women and Girls Raped in Conflict and Break Barriers to Post-Rape Care

    WHEN: 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, December 9, 2014
    WHERE: White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, D.C.

    WHO: This call to action has been supported by former USAID Administrator Brian Atwood, more than 30 US faith-based leaders, and a diverse coalition of NGOs.

    Speakers:

    • Serra Sippel – President: CHANGE
    • Purnima Mane – President: Pathfinder International
    • Bafana Khumalo – Co-Founder: Sonke Gender Justice
    • Rev. Harry Knox – President: Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
    • David Grosso – D.C. Councilmember
    • Liesl Gerntholtz – Executive Director: Women’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch
    • Joel Davis – Executive Director: Youth to End Sexual Violence
    • Tala Haikal – American Task Force on Palestine
    • Imani Marks – Advocates for Youth
    • Jon O’Brien – President: Catholics for Choice

    Note for journalists and editors

    US voters support executive action to ensure funding for safe abortion in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment. A January 2014 poll found that 57% of U.S. voters favor such action.

    At the UN in September, President Obama acknowledged that “mothers, sisters, and daughters have been subjected to rape as a weapon of war.”

    All audio and visual equipment must be hand-held. Tripods and other stands are not permitted on Pennsylvania Avenue.