Gauteng government to invest in girls and empower young women
Gauteng Premier David Makhura to launch 'Invest in a girl and empower a young woman' campaign.
To mark the beginning of Women’s Month, Gauteng Premier David Makhura will launch the ‘Invest in a girl and empower a young woman’ campaign tomorrow, 1 August.
The objective of the campaign is to highlight the trials girls and young women face in the province. The campaign is necessitated by the alarming femicide statistics, as well as the high numbers of children killed in the province.
Gauteng Social Development MEC, Nandi Mayathula-Khoza, said the Premier is concerned that Gauteng experiences a lot of gender-based violence and brutal attacks, where most cases resulted in women being burned beyond recognition. Many of the young women died at the hands of their boyfriends or men they knew, and the challenges young women go through are worsened by the spectre of HIV infection which haunts this sector of society.
“Notwithstanding the fact that the prevalence rate in youth in general has dropped by four per cent from 10 per cent in 2008 to 5,8 per cent in 2012, new HIV infection rates remain the highest in girls and young women aged 15 to 24 years, while human trafficking continues to be on the rise in the country,” said Mayathula-Khoza.
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