Programme of Action Addressing Violence Against Women and Children, with Ministers of Higher Education & Women + Deputy Ministers of Transport & Communications

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed everyone present and outlined agenda for the day. She said the Multi-Party Women Caucus (MPWC) doubled as the Commonwealth Women Chapter and the objective of the caucus was to increase the number of women participating in politics and to attend to issues related to women's health, especially cancer. She said the caucus co-hosted a number of multiparty women conferences where resolutions had been made. She encouraged members to be vigilant when scrutinising the Annual Performance Plan (APP) of Departments under their various Portfolio Committees. She briefed the caucus about the agenda of the day and congratulated Ministers Bathabile Dlamini and Naledi Pandor on their new appointments as the new Minister for Women in the Presidency and Higher Education respectively. She said the MPWC meeting would henceforth hold once every month. She said everyone had to take ownership, attend the meetings and participate in the discussions.

Briefing by Committee Researcher
Ms Joy Watson, Committee Researcher, said the International Conference hosted by the Parliament in August 2017 had the same theme as the one hosted in the United States during the 61st session of the Commission for the Status of Women in March 2017. The theme of the Conference had been ‘Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50:50 by 2030. At the end of the conference there had been a list of actions which Women Parliamentarians present at the meeting were expected to pursue. The implementation suggested areas of action for the MPWC and the areas that would be referred to other Committees.

She highlighted some of the issues that negatively affect women. These included the lack of empowerment of women, sexual harassment and violence against women, income inequality, and lack of proper gender-sensitive workplaces. She also enumerated some of the action plans to promote the rights of women and girls. Some of the actions listed were to implement the Sustainable Development Goal, to actualise the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to engage technology as a tool for the empowerment of women, the development of gender-sensitive policies and the involvement of Parliament in pursuing legislation that promotes gender equality and engaging in gender-sensitive budgeting. She said a meeting was held by the MPWC to further discuss the action plans proposed at the conference. It had been decided that members working within their respective Committees; had to uphold the resolutions of the international conference within the limited timeframe left for the fifth Parliament. The two resolutions made by MPWC during the meeting were that Parliament ensured that a responsive budgeting and planning framework by the Department of Women and all Committees had to scrutinise the budget with gender-sensitive motives. Also, it was decided that the national gender machinery should be prioritised.
 
The Chairperson observed that there was no representative from the Department of Social Development at the meeting. She said they would be called at another time to give their input on the issues discussed. She invited the Minister of Women in the Presidency to give her presentation.

Briefing by the Minister
Minister Dlamini said the Department provided a high-level report and said she would present a detailed report at a later time. She indicated the need to return to Gender Budgeting (GB) as a way of addressing women related problems. She was delighted to see that members have embraced GB. She argued that the statistics on gender-based violence may not reflect the true position of the challenge in the country because the reports were based on the number of cases reported at the police stations and not the actual number of cases that happened in families and also that it did not include the number recorded by NGOs dealing with gender-based violence in the communities.

She suggested a need to change the indicators used for the assessment of gender issues so that the country could have a clear understanding of the problem. She said because of the need for strong gender machinery on issues concerning women; it was important to fight patriarchy and ensure that everyone was aware of patriarchy and how to fight it. Therefore, the women had to be educated on how to fight patriarchy. She emphasised the need for South African women to fight together and not politicise the issue of violence against women and children, knowing well that sometimes the need to defend organisations could conflict with the need to defend the cause of a fellow woman.
 
She said South Africa had adopted the 16 days of activism against violence towards women and children programme which had since been extended to 365 days through the collaboration of DOW and other stakeholders. She said there was a social media campaign called ‘count me in' which served as a mass mobilization tool to fight violence against women and children. She said the implementation model of the Department included social mapping, multi-sectoral, intergovernmental and localized approaches, partnership with civil society organization and more. There was a need to look into the source of anger that influenced violence in the country. Some of the collaborating partners included all spheres of government, Chapter nine institutions, faith-based organisations, traditional Leadership Institutions, sports fraternity and more.  The Department had identified several social ills in the communities which may be responsible for violence against women and children, such as alcoholism and substance abuse, teenage pregnancies, dysfunctional families, inadequate service delivery, and incest.
 
She mentioned situations where certain women were aware that their husbands were having sexual relations with their children. She mentioned efforts made by the Department to improve the justice system.

Discussion
The Chairperson highlighted the issues identified in the presentation by the Minister. She requested that members should comment on the presentation made by the Minister.
 
Ms V Mogotsi (ANC) requested for a documented report on the dialogues that happened between the Department of Women and the Provinces so that members can follow up on the issues during their oversight.
 
Ms S Shope-Sithole (ANC) welcomed the Minister. There was a need to discuss the budget and to ensure that women's voice is reflected in the 2019 budget. She added that the women in the different parliamentary committees should verify how much each department has set aside for women.
 
The Chairperson congratulated Ms Pinky Kekana on her appointment as the Deputy Minister for Communication.
 
Ms P Bhengu-Kombe (ANC) congratulated the Minister for Women on her appointment and noted that there was no working relationship between the Department and other Departments in the past, so the Minister should meet with other Ministers to achieve a gender-sensitive budget.
 
Ms R Semenya (ANC) welcomed the presentation. She said there is a need for a collaboration of all the structures in order to conquer gender-based violence. Also, she identified the porous nature at South Africa's point of entry as a challenge to combating the crime of women trafficking. She agreed with Ms Shope-Sithole on the need for gender-based budgeting. She emphasised the need for women to work together to protect other women who may suffer harassment, even within the Parliament. She said women must become the first line of defense for other women. 
 
Ms M Chueu (ANC) commended the Department for the adoption of 365 days of no violence against women campaign. She observed a need for coherence and a united effort by all stakeholders. She asked for the report that provides details of gender-based violence in all the Provinces. She said young people had to be included in the awareness programmes. This will ensure that the issue is tackled from the root. Also, she noted that the boy child had been left out of the programmes listed by the Department.
 
Ms Pinky Kekana, Deputy Minister of Communication, said there was a need to partner with captains of industries so that they identify what they could do to address the issue under their Corporate Social Investments (CSI) which would come at no cost to the Department. There was a need for dialogue between the Minister and the prosecutors, also the police, so as to understand why women lost cases despite obvious evidence against the perpetrators. This would help to empower women to win judicial battles against perpetrators of sexual violence. Additionally, the Minister had to converse about a lower rate or zero rating of Value Added Tax (VAT) on some of the women products so that the women, especially the poor would not be victims of the rise in the VAT.
 
The Chairperson said the Caucus had demanded zero rating on some products and it had been approved.
 
Ms D Magadzi (ANC) said there is need to focus on research and development as a means of dealing with matters that concern women. She requested that the Department should provide an action plan. She added that statistics are important so as to develop a tailor-made approach to the problems rather than using a blanket approach for all the Provinces because issues are always in context.
 
Ms Sindy Chikunga, Deputy Minister of Transport, said there should be a structure where women meet to account for the work done at each level; ministry, industry etc. She said there should be people who take responsibility for driving the objective of promoting gender sensitivity within each industry and ministry. The MPWC should assess itself to identify achievement in the last one year. Because poverty in itself is violent, interventions against poverty is critical. She said women who work in transport industry such as railway and people who work in the ship have accepted violence and abuse as a culture because several complaints in the past were not addressed. There was a need to look at how best women are protected in Maritime and this needs the support of the MWC so that women can be attracted to these careers.
 
The Chairperson thanked the speakers.
 
Ms P Ngwenya-Mabila (ANC) recommended that the programmes in the Provinces should be shared with the Commonwealth Parliament Offices (CPOs) for purpose of follow up. She said parliamentary committees had not altered the budgets of their Departments to ensure that it benefits women. A holistic approach to solving the problem would require that other Departments were invited to make a presentation on gender issues in their Departments. Although several programmes were initiated they were not adequately implemented in a way that would favor the women. VAT is an issue for public debate and must be debated to ensure that the public has an understanding of it. She added that there are problems with women living in the border area because some of their children cannot attend school due to lack of identity document.
 
Ms D Raphuti (ANC) congratulated the Minister and encouraged her to focus on budget allocation. She asked her to look into how technology could be used to advance the agenda of women; especially the young women. A focus on early childhood development was important to the young girls. She stated that women violated one another through their reactions. She also noted that violence of women against women was also very high.
 
Ms E Coleman (ANC) welcomed the Minister and celebrated the achievement of Ms Naledi Pandor. She appreciated the work she had done at the Department of Science and Technology. In her view, although there had always been lots of information and objectives the challenge had always been with the implementation.  Women's struggles were the nation's struggle and women had to not personalise the struggle and noted that it was unfortunate that the MPWC had not gone to any of the broader caucuses. She said there was a need to focus on the education of rural women, young girls who were out of school and young mothers. She recommended that all stakeholders had to be involved to empower the girl child. She encouraged leaders to live by example so that they can earn the trust of their followers. She said it was better to work on specific targets that were measurable so that it would be easy to commit to the work and to reporting on the progress of work done.
 
The Chairperson thanked everyone for their inputs. She said the MPWC would engage with the Minister of Women to develop a revised policy on gender machinery. The policy would be used to deal with issues that had led to the dismantling of the gender machinery. Parliament had been requesting for the report of the Commission on the Status of Women’s (CSW) for the last 10 years. She requested that the Minister of women should comment on the CSW report. Finally, she asked Ms Naledi Pandor to make her contribution on the issues discussed.

Ministerial Input
Ms Naledi Pandor, Minister for Higher Education, said she agreed with everything said. There was a need to begin intervention and commitment to gathering relevant data. There was a need for a holistic assessment. Monitoring of the budget was essential. There was a need to take into account the recommendations of research. There is a need to focus on how women can support the economy to grow.  The budget should not only be the responsibility of Treasury but the responsibility of the ANC members also. Women had to consider actions needed to address the challenges identified.
 
The Chairperson requested that the Minister respond to contributions made by members.
 
Response by the Minister 
The Minister thanked the Committee and her colleague for the reception that she received. She noted that there was a lot of work that could be done working with other stakeholders. The theme of the CSW for the year was the ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Achieving Gender Equality and Empowerment of Rural Women and Girls'. The conference focused on bridging rural divide and access to technology. The Department would engage with other Departments and could include Provinces, SALGA, NGOs and Committee as a preparation for the CSW. She pleaded that Ministries had to send senior officials that have the capability of making decisions in their organizations to maximize the impact of the CSW. The Department would also strengthen its relationship with young people through the Department of Higher Education and Department of Science and Technology. She encouraged the Committee to call other Departments to report on their gender-related activities. Women had to address violation in all the political parties. Parliament was a law making environment and should not allow violence in any way. She encouraged the celebration of Masi Zulu who is a women advocate, she pushed for the emancipation of Early Childhood Development Centres and encouraged other women to champion the same cause. She said there was a need to have the list of zero-rated items. There was a need for women to apply their minds to other products that should be on the list. Sanitary pads should not be compared with condoms because menstruation was not optional. Medication should also be considered. In some countries like the United Kingdom, children's clothing had been zero-rated. She encouraged people to accept the gradual growth of Zero-rated items. The Department of Social Development would be launching a pilot simulation in 320 ECD centers through the use of children computers. She agreed with the need to work with other Departments.

Summit to discuss South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) Report on Sexual Offences and Adult Prostitution
The Chairperson welcomed the Minister's response and invited the Secretary to brief the Committee on the Summit planned to get responses to the report of the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) on Sexual Offences and Adult Prostitution.
 
Mr Brian Mantyi, Committee Secretary, said it was agreed in the last meeting that all stakeholders would be called to respond to the SALRC. The Summit would take place in the Old Assembly Chamber on 5 March 2018, starting at 9 am and lasting all day. The Committee had received 67 submissions with many indicating an interest in making presentations at the summit.
 
The Chairperson said the Summit would take place but said there was a challenge with an NGO led by one of the members of Parliament. There had been several reports against the MPWC concerning the summit. Although, an interruption is envisaged, she assured members that the situation would be dealt with in a diplomatic way and hopes for a successful summit.  She invited all members to the summit.

She invited Ms T Memela (ANC), the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Women in Presidency to give her the closing remark.
 
Ms Memela encouraged the women to work harder. She said the law of the country is failing concerning women trafficking. Women should stand together, to work in unity and should respect other women. She said Home Affairs had been invited because there were places where children could not write Matric examination because they do not have an identity document. There was a need to work on this. She said afterwards more people would understand the issue of the sex workers.
 
The meeting was adjourned.