SA: Women, violence and vaccine roll out

Women call for end to violence, resumption of vaccine roll out

Johannesburg, 14 July 2021, The Women’s Voice and Leadership South Africa (WVLSA) project condemns the violence and criminal looting that is ravaging South Africa amid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. WVLSA calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to ensure that law and order are restored and that the vaccine roll-out crucial for defending women’s hard earned rights is resumed as a matter of urgency.

WVL is a fund created and funded by Global Affairs Canada as part of its feminist foreign assistance policy. In South Africa, where the fund is managed by Gender Links, WVL brings together 51 Women’s Rights Organisations (WRO) across the country, especially in Gauteng, Kwa Zulu Natal, the Western Cape and Limpopo provinces.

“There can be no justification for a breakdown of the rule of law on account of a Constitutional Court ruling to jail a former president for contempt of court,” noted Colleen Lowe Morna, Special Adviser to Gender Links. “The fact that this violence is jeopardising vaccine roll out – the only real hope for emerging from the COVID-19 crisis which has a disproportionate effect on women– makes such behaviour particularly painful and unacceptable.”

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