Speech of the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services at the Western Cape Women's Day Celebration and the handing over of computers for women offenders at Worcester Correctional Centre, Worcester

Programme directors
The Inspecting Judge, Judge Yekiso
The Mayer of the Breede River Valley
Regional Commissioner
Deputy Regional Commissioner and members of your Management Team
Representatives from South African Media and Gender Institute (SAMGI), Kanya Corporate Social Investment and Dell South Africa, our sponsors
Honoured guests
Managers and officials of Correctional Services
Offenders here present
Ladies and gentlemen

It is now the 51st year since the historic march of hundreds of thousands of women to the Union Buildings to make their indelible mark in the struggle for freedom, democracy and development in South Africa. From then to date women have been at the forefront of the struggles and sacrifices to bring a better life for all our people.

Today, our historical and moral obligation is to pay tribute to these pioneers and many other women that followed on their footsteps over the years, not just by partying and fanfares, but by asking the critical question, how far are we as a nation to the ideals they sacrificed for and how can we expedite the advances to those ideals?

Over the past 13 years of freedom and democracy we have made strides as a nation to mainstream gender issues through our new constitution, many pieces of legislation and various policies adopted by our government. The numbers of women in key strategic position of power and influence has grown phenomenally over the years including the Cabinet, provincial executive councils, municipal councils, government agencies and also in terms of employment figures in all these structures including government departments. Various other interventions aimed at fighting poverty and underdevelopments including the social wage provided by our government have made some difference to millions of women who would have otherwise gone hungry and very poor with their children. The indications are that numbers of people in the lowest three Living Standards Measures (LSMs), the overwhelming majority of whom are women is decreasing. More women have access to housing, education, health, free basic services and other broader issues to realise gender equity in all spheres of life.

As government we have renewed our pledge to women's emancipation, empowerment, equality and poverty eradication through programmes such as the Expanded Public Works Programme, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), and the cluster-based programmes focusing on women. The government will continue to work with its social partners to promote the economic empowerment of women in accessing finance and fast-tracking of skills development at all levels.

Although we do acknowledge that at a macro level there we have made a significant difference through the interventions in have mentioned, the rate of change is still unacceptably slow if we want to effectively deal with the legacy of the past. The acceleration of women's emancipation, empowerment, ensuring of equality and in eradication of poverty, will need multiplied and collective national effort beyond government.

This is a framework within which we delivery correctional services in South Africa and as a microcosm of society, we need to ask exactly the same national questions that are facing our nation during the second decade of freedom.

What is our contribution to accelerating the emancipation, empowerment, equality and eradication of poverty for the benefit of all women within our care, most of which will be released to a less receptive society with greater propensity for them to fall into the tentacles of the grinding poverty facing millions of women outside there.

In Correctional Services with about 161 000 inmates, women constitute an absolute minority with just above two percent of the total offender population. The threat of ignoring such a minority is real especially if one considers the challenges of delivering on our core mandate and the impediments we have to surpass.

As I believe most people are now aware, the White Paper adopted by the Cabinet in February 2005 enjoins us to entrench a new ethos in delivering correctional services. In keeping with that direction we have finalised a model for giving practical meaning to the new policy direction, the Offender Rehabilitation Path (ORP). The nine phase programme seeks to re-engineer our offender management approach to be needs based and informed by an offender's life cycle as each stage demands different interventions by the Department and other players in government and society.

The nine phases of the ORP include:

1. admissions to correctional facility
2. assessments which include orientation and profiling
3. allocation to an incarceration unit in line with one's risk profile and classification
4. interventions that are informed by a sentence plan
5. monitoring and evaluation of progress made in implementing the sentence plan
6. placement phase that includes consideration of placement on parole or correctional supervision
7. allocation to a pre-release unit for training or last interventions before placement in communities
8. admission to a community corrections office with a clear plan as well for implementation
9. with the last phase focusing on the management of probationers, who are directly placed under community corrections by courts.

Today, in receiving the computer equipment donated by South African Media Gender Institute (SAMGI) and their sponsor Dell South Africa we will be able to equip women in our care for the information age. This kind of gesture could not have come at a better time. These computers are a beacon of hope for about 120 women offenders housed in this Correctional Centre who will learn the skills necessary for accessing the information highway. With information you have power to exercise and demand your rights, access opportunities and gain even greater power to play a role in determining not just your individual future, but our national destiny.

At the core of people's poverty and underdevelopment is lack of access to information critical for them to change their lives for the better, like accessing government support, economic opportunities available as well as exercise of rights guaranteed in our constitution and legislation etc.

Development trends of the current information age across the world shows that the exponential growth of information and technology remains skewed in favour the wealthy and the haves, while those trapped in poverty and underdevelopment remain without or very limited access to these tools of today's trade.

We have an obligation to consciously strive to balance these social ills by asking ourselves, are these services, skills and capabilities available to the weakest in our society, which is women in rural areas, informal settlements and women in our correctional facilities? If the question is not affirmative, we should know there is still a long way to go to realise the ideals for which our 1956 pioneers struggled and sacrificed.

One critical inhibiting factor is that the costs of these facilities that help enhance the emancipation, empowerment and the fight against poverty are out of reach of many people because of costs. In the context of many competing priorities of building additional correctional centres to help reduce overcrowding, development and rollout of corrections and rehabilitation programmes as well as beefing up the security in our facilities, the provision of computers for underserved staff in outlying areas and for women offenders in our care suffers.

In the light of these challenges, the donation of computers and skills for our women offenders in Worcester Correctional Centre comes as a life saver.

We therefore take our hats off to the donors. We will forever cherish your great hearts that have inspired you to give to those in great need. This is an investment not just in Correctional Services but to our nation which aspires to be among the best in the world.

We should equally take our hats off the Regional Commissioner and his management, the staff of Correctional Services in this facility for their role in making this dream a reality. May you continue to open your hearts, use your energies and make your mark in building a national partnership to correct, rehabilitate and re-integrate offenders back into society for a safer and a prosperous South Africa? South Africa is our home, with our lives inextricably linked to one another in more ways than meets the eye and the conscious mind, and therefore every contribution you are making whether materially of in kind is most valuable to us.

I want to believe the improvement of women representation in key decision making structure of various societal institutions including the private sectors has a lot to do with these great decisions being made both in the private sector and government. Women have taken their place in a democratic South Africa by taking advantage of the opportunities brought about through democracy.

Definitely a commitment exists in government to recognise women as critical players in a developmental society.

However the vision of a non-sexist, non-racial, democratic, united and prosperous South Africa can only be realised when women are free of domestic violence and abuse, when they can access all opportunities available with equal chances at every sphere of society.

To all of you I appeal today, let us not take for granted the environment we have created as government, but optimise the use of the opportunities created by this environment. By doing so I do believe that all of you will be able to serve with pride and making Correctional Services indeed a place of new beginnings.

I thank you

Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
13 August 2007