Riyaz Patel
President Ramaphosa has participated in a dialogue on femicide, gender based violence and the killing of people with albinism in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape Province.
Lusikisiki was chosen because of the high prevalence of gender based violence cases reported, along with the worrying practice of ‘ukuthwala’ and teenage pregnancy.
Ukuthwala is a form of abduction that involves kidnapping a girl or a young woman with the intention of compelling the girl or young woman’s family to agree a marriage.
Ramaphosa said women across South Africa have stood up to say that “enough is enough,” and that government will act decisively to stamp out gender based violence.
“We stand firmly with them in our efforts to end this violence, and to create a society in which women enjoy safety, dignity and respect,” said Ramaphosa.
He said “2 700 adult women were murdered in 2018/2019. Although a decrease of 5% from the previous year, this means that a woman is murdered every three hours on average.”
Quoting figures from the World Health Organisation, Ramaphosa said South Africa has the fourth-highest interpersonal violence death rate in the world, at 12.5 per 100 000 adult women.
There were 52,000 sexual offences reported in South Africa in 2018/2019, an increase of 4.6% on the previous year, the latest crime stats released Friday showed.
President Ramaphosa also provided an update on the implementation of the Declaration emanating from Presidential Summit on Gender Based Violence and Femicide held last year.
Ramaphosa said among the measures to address GBV, he has called an extraordinary Joint Sitting of Parliament on Wednesday to discuss the scourge of gender based violence.
“We will be calling on Parliament to consider emergency measures that can be undertaken to respond to this crisis,” he said.
Earlier, the president visited the Mangxabane family in Lusikisiki, whose six-year-old daughter was raped by a education department official in Lusikisiki.
