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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
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