The 16 days of activism this year comes and finds us still in the same position we were last year and the year before and with unanswered questions.

Why the levels of violence against women and children in South Africa continue to be to be staggering high?

What explains the increase of the level of rape and brutality against women, children and the elderly? What are we doing or not doing?

Patriarchy, sexism and lack of political interventions are the root causes of Gender Based Violence.

As much as we have seen political emancipation, women are still marginalised in many spheres of our society.

Tradition is used to discriminate against women instead of protecting them.

Yes, we have come a long way in the last 20 years. Today our Parliament has a third largest number of women sitting in the world, at 44%.

Bu, it is not being controversial to say that South Africa remains a deeply sexist and patriarchal society, this is a fact.

This is true despite the fact that our Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and gender and protects the rights of individuals to enjoy their culture to the equality provision in the Bill of Rights.

The Constitution also makes it clear that gender equality trumps culture and tradition and as women living in the rural areas are probably the most vulnerable and most marginalized in the country, it is important that any attempt to address gender inequality focuses on the way in which traditional cultural practices.

Sexual violence on the other hand has become a socially endorsed punitive project for the purpose of maintaining patriarchal order.

There are approximately 172 sexual assaults in South Africa every day.

How can our government deal with patriarchy when our president is a patriarch himself.

What is most alarming is that the Minister of women whilst recently attending a meeting agreed with anti-feminist and said that women should gain their confidence and men should be protectors of society and families.

These statements were both shocking and irresponsible. Yes minister, we welcome the statement that the women should gain their confidence but we cannot go back to the days when women depended on men but we cant afford to make these comments in a society where women are still marginalized when it comes to land ownership, education and economic empowerment.

According to KPMG’s recent report, the economic impact of gender based violence in South Africa was between at least R28 billion and R42 billion for the year 2012/2013.

GBV is in one of the most expensive health problems and it costs South Africa between 0.9% and 1.3% of GDP every year.

These numbers should be more than enough to convince President Zuma that we need a comprehensive, fully-funded, multi-sectoral national strategic plan to combat gender based violence.

GBV also results in wasted resources that could be used towards achieving the NDP’s goals of productive economic growth. The significant investments made by government and the private sector to grow to South African economy will be eroded as violence against women prevails.

In a country facing the level of GBV as South Africa does. The people responsible for addressing these issues are therefore all the more important

The Ministry of Women is in a shambles. As you will hear when the Minister responds, the Ministry is in the process of transferring Programme 3 which deals with children and Programme 4 dealing with people with disability to the Department of Social Development and hence.

She will omit to tell us that Programme 1 and 2 are still fully functioning and therefore the transfer of the two Programmes do not really interfere with the functioning of the ministry but this transfer is used as an excuse for her poor performance.

In fact, the responsibility of the Minister has diminished drastically by 66%.

The ministry, which has been in existence since 2009, should by now have a base and the transfer of the programmes should not affect its performance.

As the DA we have believed that the function of this ministry should be incorporated in Health and Social Development and Monitoring because it does not meet its mandate.

The Ministry only meet 40% of its first quarter targets and 32% of its second quarter targets.

The Ministry spends approximately on 60% of its budget on salaries. And the rest goes on goods and services.

We still await the National Strategic Plan, which will be essential in stemming our country’s epidemic of violence.

The ministry could only meet its target other position of the budget is spent on Administration Program leaving the ministry without funds to run other Programmes that deal with issues that affect women.

The bottom line is that the Ministry of Women in Presidency is failing women.

It seems that the real purpose of the Ministry is to give jobs to the Friends of the President.

We have become a society that is known of raping four months babies, 100yr old elderly women and hate filled attacks on lesbians and mutilating women.

The fiber of our society has collapsed.

We need to take real measures to deal with this pandemic.

We need to come up with measures that will insure we increase the number of arrests and prosecutions. Harsh sentences means nothing if the perpetrators know that chances of being caught are minimum.

We need to train more specialized police, provide resources and have a political will.

We are confronted with an epidemic that forces us to consider all dimensions of violence against women and children as well as the role we play as a society.

One study reports one in four South African men admit to having perpetrated a rape.

The Government needs to come up with a comprehensive plan with timelines and measures for accountability.

We cannot afford widespread corruption in our institutions when there are places where our revenue can be invested efficiently.

Little has been achieved; women and children continue to be victims of rape in this country now more than ever.

The Government should lead the change and make fundamental input. There must be less talk and more action on the ground. We all need to be on the ground visiting care centres, have dialogues with survivors so that their voice of the victims can be heard.

Gender equality and women’s empowerment are human rights that lie at the heart of development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Empowering Women aims to inspire women with the courage to break free from the chains of limiting belief patterns and societal or religious conditioning that have traditionally kept women suppressed and unable to see their true potential.

In Conclusion

Gender Based Violence is a breach of the Constitution.

It is our moral, social and constitutional responsibility to ensure progress by providing women with equal rights and opportunities providing the fundamental framework for development of women and guarantees equality for them.