South Africa: Activism to End Violence against Women and Children

Government and all other role players use the time between  25 November and 10 December to raise awareness on violence against women and children. This is why Premier Hazel Jenkins, together with her Cabinet, saw it necessary to convene a meeting with all the retail owners and managers in Kimberley on the 20 October 2011, to lobby for their involvement in this year’s programme against child and women abuse.

However, all should make every effort to extend this programme to one that will last for 365 days in a year. Because children are abused every day, women are raped and murdered every day, we must realise the vision of “365 Days of Action”.

Exposure to violence in childhood has profound and lasting effects on children’s overall development, with often debilitating and chronic effects that extent well into adulthood. Violence against boys and girls can lead to far-reaching physical and psychological consequences, some with fatal outcomes.

Sexually abused children are more likely to engage in risky behaviour such as early sexual intercourse and are at risk of acquiring Sexually Transmitted Infectionsand unwanted pregnancies among girls.In May 2006, at a conference held in Benoni, a resolution was taken to deepen and strengthen our activism to end genderbased violence and to extend the 16 Days of activism to 365 days of action.

This approach is informed by the evidence that efforts to reduce levels of gender based violence are more likely to succeed if they are collaborative, inter-sectoral and involve a range of stakeholders including government, civil society and business. This is because gender based violence is a societal problem and it therefore requires wide-ranging societal response.

The response from the business community to the Premier’s meeting was overwhelming and commendable. One manager responded by saying, “We are over-joyed that government has called us to join hands in this type of programme, because it is an issue that affects all of us in society”.

All of the business people committed to make a contribution to ensure the success of this programme, from wearing white ribbons, to displaying the logo of the campaign in their shops and to conducting in-house workshops on the gender based violence, these are all activities that will form part of the programme.

A joint task team of government and business will be arranging this programme, and civil societyhas been invited to get involved.Let us stand together in fighting the abuse of children and violence against women.

Adapted from a press release by Northern Cape Office of the Premier
Source: AllAfrica.com