Date: 24/11/2005
Source: Department of Correctional Services
Title: Balfour: National Prayer Service as part of 16 Days of Activism
Address of the Minister of Correctional Services at a National Prayer Service held at Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria
Tomorrow South Africa joins the rest of the world under the auspices of the United Nations in launching 16 Days of Activism on No Violence Against Women and Children. For the eighth year, we will be part of a massive international campaign by all sectors, which starts on the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women - 25 November - and runs through to the International Human Rights Day - 10 December.
The Presidency led South Africa in endorsing the campaign, which has since been assigned to the Department of Correctional Services under the able leadership of Deputy Minister Cheryl Gillwald. She has been at the forefront of social mobilisation and the formation of various social compacts with different sectors of our society, inclusive of business, labour, traditional leaders, departments and other institutions of governance, various spheres of government, civil society organisations and also the religious community. Today’s prayer service is but one in series of demonstrations of collaboration by all sectors of the society to play their niche role in building better, well rounded and balanced individuals that by their strongly held beliefs in peace and respect of human rights, reject violence and abuse.
As an age old tradition, before any step a society or an individual ventures in, we need to call on the supernatural being to give wisdom, guidance and blessings to ensure success. That is the purpose of today’s prayer service organised jointly by the Department Correctional Services, the South African Police Service, the Freedom Park Trust and the National Religious Leaders Forum. We are gathered here today, to demonstrate to the nation that alone as normal mortals, we cannot win the battle against the scourge of violence against women and children, nor our struggle to build a society based on high moral values.
As South Africans, we have set ourselves a noble goal of building a caring society that truly belongs to all, especially the most vulnerable sectors of our society like women and children. The success of our society cannot be judged on how it treats is highest and most powerful citizens, but on how friendly and fitting it is for the most weak and vulnerable within our midst. Through our internationally celebrated Constitution, we made a commitment to build a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa where all enjoy a great quality of life.
We have reached a national consensus on these goals and values, we have overhauled our legislative framework to prioritise domestic violence and create an enabling environment for people to come forward with these incidents for effective intervention of state agencies established to address these challenges. These include the South African Police Service, which are doing a great job in prioritising and investigating these incidents, our justice system that has even created over 40 Sexual Offences Courts across the country and Correctional Services that has designed programmes aimed at rehabilitating the increasing number of sexual offenders over the past 10 years.
Lives of millions of our people are indeed progressively improving as we strive to eliminate poverty, underdevelopment and to build a just, peaceful and secure society. One of the greatest threats to these efforts is the continued violence and abuse of the weak and vulnerable sectors of our society. The long term ramifications of these abuses that continue to bedevil our country, hit the essence of creating a better future where all will enjoy safety, peace and justice as a prerequisite for sustainable development of any society.
Extensive research work done in this area, clearly shows that violence and abuse perpetrated against women and children today will result in an overwhelming number of those children metering out the same level of abuse to other people in future with various negative consequences including the incarceration of over 50% of them for a variety of serious crimes. Over the past 10 years, we have had a continuous increase of reported cases that were investigated by the South African Police Service (SAPS), prosecuted and convicted by Justice and subsequently incarcerated by Correctional Services.
There is no doubt any more that government alone can never solve the social ills that emanate from individual families, communities and organisations. Many of these incidents we seek to reduce are perpetrated in family or community circumstances by mostly people known to the victims. As government, we wish to reassure everyone experiencing these atrocities that if you stand up to report sexual, physical and emotional abuses, the state has the capacity and the will to investigate, prosecute, convict and rehabilitate anyone involved. We have committed as government to leave no stone unturned in any sexual abuse case, and the rate of successes in getting convictions is absolutely should be a sufficient encouragement to all to come forward and report.
So you individually and collectively hold the key to the elimination of this scourge. We strongly believe that crime prevention, character and generation building, correcting of the offending behaviour is a societal responsibility.
The societal responsibility starts in the primary unit of a society, the family, where parents, communities, churches, government departments, businesses and others should focus, to rebuild this critical base of a society.
As witnessed in the recent past, the scourge of women and child abuse knows no boundaries of race, age, gender, socio economic status or spirituality, as more and more people are coming forward to report even incidents that took place over 30 years ago. We do need to celebrate the improvements in the reporting rate of these incidents as more and more people become aware and gain confidence in the legislative and institutional framework created during the first decade of freedom to address the problems.
However, the ultimate picture of the extent of the problem have yet to be known, because of a number of social factors such as poverty, high levels of illiteracy, ignorance, strong patriarchal family relations as well as conservative cultural and religious beliefs.
We are absolutely encouraged by the levels of commitment demonstrated by various faiths in South Africa that have stood up to be counted among those rejecting all forms of abuse. Churches were at the forefront in the struggle for the liberation of South Africa, and we know they will not flinch in taking the lead to fight against abuse. We have also observed progress made by many churches in affirming women. I trust and believe that any vestiges of conservative religious beliefs and practices that perpetuate the abuses will be scrutinised and changed for the benefit of our nation.
As a nation, South Africa has made a commitment to strive to meet millennium development goals of halving poverty, ensuring universal primary education, eliminating gender disparities, reduce child mortality rate and halting the spread of HIV and AIDS by 2015. These goals are dependent on our success rate in dealing with the scourge of women and child abuse, as much as they will be critical in enhancing efforts to eliminate the scourge.
We have witnessed over the years a commendable unity among various sectors of the society, with millions more South Africans heeding the call and putting their shoulders behind efforts to build a national movement against women and child abuse. We urge everyone at home, at school, at work and in the community to commit to this noble cause and wear a white ribbon to demonstrate his or her rejection of women and child abuse. As President Mbeki last year implored all of us, let us make every minute, every hour and every day of the year, a day for acting against abuse of women and children.
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
24 November 2005
Source: Department of Correctional Services
Title: Balfour: National Prayer Service as part of 16 Days of Activism
Address of the Minister of Correctional Services at a National Prayer Service held at Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria
Tomorrow South Africa joins the rest of the world under the auspices of the United Nations in launching 16 Days of Activism on No Violence Against Women and Children. For the eighth year, we will be part of a massive international campaign by all sectors, which starts on the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women - 25 November - and runs through to the International Human Rights Day - 10 December.
The Presidency led South Africa in endorsing the campaign, which has since been assigned to the Department of Correctional Services under the able leadership of Deputy Minister Cheryl Gillwald. She has been at the forefront of social mobilisation and the formation of various social compacts with different sectors of our society, inclusive of business, labour, traditional leaders, departments and other institutions of governance, various spheres of government, civil society organisations and also the religious community. Today’s prayer service is but one in series of demonstrations of collaboration by all sectors of the society to play their niche role in building better, well rounded and balanced individuals that by their strongly held beliefs in peace and respect of human rights, reject violence and abuse.
As an age old tradition, before any step a society or an individual ventures in, we need to call on the supernatural being to give wisdom, guidance and blessings to ensure success. That is the purpose of today’s prayer service organised jointly by the Department Correctional Services, the South African Police Service, the Freedom Park Trust and the National Religious Leaders Forum. We are gathered here today, to demonstrate to the nation that alone as normal mortals, we cannot win the battle against the scourge of violence against women and children, nor our struggle to build a society based on high moral values.
As South Africans, we have set ourselves a noble goal of building a caring society that truly belongs to all, especially the most vulnerable sectors of our society like women and children. The success of our society cannot be judged on how it treats is highest and most powerful citizens, but on how friendly and fitting it is for the most weak and vulnerable within our midst. Through our internationally celebrated Constitution, we made a commitment to build a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa where all enjoy a great quality of life.
We have reached a national consensus on these goals and values, we have overhauled our legislative framework to prioritise domestic violence and create an enabling environment for people to come forward with these incidents for effective intervention of state agencies established to address these challenges. These include the South African Police Service, which are doing a great job in prioritising and investigating these incidents, our justice system that has even created over 40 Sexual Offences Courts across the country and Correctional Services that has designed programmes aimed at rehabilitating the increasing number of sexual offenders over the past 10 years.
Lives of millions of our people are indeed progressively improving as we strive to eliminate poverty, underdevelopment and to build a just, peaceful and secure society. One of the greatest threats to these efforts is the continued violence and abuse of the weak and vulnerable sectors of our society. The long term ramifications of these abuses that continue to bedevil our country, hit the essence of creating a better future where all will enjoy safety, peace and justice as a prerequisite for sustainable development of any society.
Extensive research work done in this area, clearly shows that violence and abuse perpetrated against women and children today will result in an overwhelming number of those children metering out the same level of abuse to other people in future with various negative consequences including the incarceration of over 50% of them for a variety of serious crimes. Over the past 10 years, we have had a continuous increase of reported cases that were investigated by the South African Police Service (SAPS), prosecuted and convicted by Justice and subsequently incarcerated by Correctional Services.
There is no doubt any more that government alone can never solve the social ills that emanate from individual families, communities and organisations. Many of these incidents we seek to reduce are perpetrated in family or community circumstances by mostly people known to the victims. As government, we wish to reassure everyone experiencing these atrocities that if you stand up to report sexual, physical and emotional abuses, the state has the capacity and the will to investigate, prosecute, convict and rehabilitate anyone involved. We have committed as government to leave no stone unturned in any sexual abuse case, and the rate of successes in getting convictions is absolutely should be a sufficient encouragement to all to come forward and report.
So you individually and collectively hold the key to the elimination of this scourge. We strongly believe that crime prevention, character and generation building, correcting of the offending behaviour is a societal responsibility.
The societal responsibility starts in the primary unit of a society, the family, where parents, communities, churches, government departments, businesses and others should focus, to rebuild this critical base of a society.
As witnessed in the recent past, the scourge of women and child abuse knows no boundaries of race, age, gender, socio economic status or spirituality, as more and more people are coming forward to report even incidents that took place over 30 years ago. We do need to celebrate the improvements in the reporting rate of these incidents as more and more people become aware and gain confidence in the legislative and institutional framework created during the first decade of freedom to address the problems.
However, the ultimate picture of the extent of the problem have yet to be known, because of a number of social factors such as poverty, high levels of illiteracy, ignorance, strong patriarchal family relations as well as conservative cultural and religious beliefs.
We are absolutely encouraged by the levels of commitment demonstrated by various faiths in South Africa that have stood up to be counted among those rejecting all forms of abuse. Churches were at the forefront in the struggle for the liberation of South Africa, and we know they will not flinch in taking the lead to fight against abuse. We have also observed progress made by many churches in affirming women. I trust and believe that any vestiges of conservative religious beliefs and practices that perpetuate the abuses will be scrutinised and changed for the benefit of our nation.
As a nation, South Africa has made a commitment to strive to meet millennium development goals of halving poverty, ensuring universal primary education, eliminating gender disparities, reduce child mortality rate and halting the spread of HIV and AIDS by 2015. These goals are dependent on our success rate in dealing with the scourge of women and child abuse, as much as they will be critical in enhancing efforts to eliminate the scourge.
We have witnessed over the years a commendable unity among various sectors of the society, with millions more South Africans heeding the call and putting their shoulders behind efforts to build a national movement against women and child abuse. We urge everyone at home, at school, at work and in the community to commit to this noble cause and wear a white ribbon to demonstrate his or her rejection of women and child abuse. As President Mbeki last year implored all of us, let us make every minute, every hour and every day of the year, a day for acting against abuse of women and children.
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
24 November 2005
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