President Ramaphosa to host Presidential Summit on GBVF at Gallagher Convention Centre
It has been four years since the Presidential Summit and the adoption of the Presidential Summit Declaration, and two years since the President signed the National Strategic Plan on GBVF into effect.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will convene the second Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) next month.
According to the latest SAPS First Quarter Crime Statistics 2022/2023: From April 2018 to June 2022, 15 rapes and seven sexual assaults were reported to Midrand Police Station. Some of the surrounding suburbs within the Midrand Reporter’s distribution area fall under the Tembisa and Ivory Park police stations. Their case statics are as follows: 46 rapes and three sexual assaults (Tembisa); 23 rapes and seven sexual assaults (Ivory Park).
The summit, to be held at Gallagher Estate from November 1 to 2 under the theme, ‘Accountability, Acceleration, and Amplification now’, will reflect on the work undertaken since the first Presidential Summit on GBVF in November 2018.
It will also report on key successes and challenges and outline clear strategies to overcome them.
The first Presidential Summit on GBVF in 2018 was in response to the 24 demands submitted by the #TheTotalShutdown Intersectional Women’s Movement to Ramaphosa, following 27 nationwide marches on August 1, 2018.
The movement protested against the country’s pervasive scourge of gender-based violence and femicide and offered the 24 demands as a solution.
Chief among the demands was the call to the President to convene the first-ever summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide on the African continent.
This resulted in a Summit Declaration, which officially declared GBVF as a national crisis in March 2019 and was the first step in developing the National Strategic Plan on GBVF.
The Strategic Plan on GBVF provides a strategic roadmap and sets out specific plans for a multisectoral approach to end GBVF and build a society where women, children, and the LGBTQIA+ community are safe from violence directed at them because of patriarchal stereotyping.
It is outlined in six pillars, which include accountability, coordination and leadership, prevention and rebuilding social cohesion, justice, safety and protection, response, care, support and healing, economic power, and research and information management.
The Presidency said it has been four years since the Presidential Summit and the adoption of the Presidential Summit Declaration, and two years since the National Strategic Plan on GBVF was signed into effect by the President on April 31, 2020.
While progress has been made in the implementation of the 2019 Presidential Summit Declaration and its national GBVF plan, the government warned that the levels of gender-based violence and the brutal ways in which violence is meted out against women across age groups and geographies fundamentally undermine democracy and women’s human rights.
Co-chairperson of the Presidential Summit Planning Committee, Dr Olive Shisana, said this year’s summit will provide an opportunity for feedback and accountability for issues raised in the last summit.
“As a country, we must double our efforts to prevent and respond to GBVF and hold each other accountable to implement the National Strategic Plan. As a planning committee for the summit, we are hard at work to prepare for all to account for commitments made, and accelerate and amplify implementation,” said Shisana.
