Pretoria – Despite efforts to stop violence against women and children in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the numbers were increasing and the violence continues unabated.
Ramaphosa was speaking on Tuesday during the Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) held at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand.
This was the second summit convened to reflect on the work undertaken since the first summit on GBVF in November 2018, and also report on key successes and challenges, and outline clear strategies to overcome them.
Ramaphosa said its not women who are responsible for ending gender based violence, but the responsibility has to be carried by the men.
“We are confronted with an immensely difficult task to turn the mindsets of the men of our country who are intoxicated often with their sense of masculinity and a sense that they are superior to the women of our country.
“We have in recent times seen a spate of rapes and killings of elderly women, our mothers and grandmothers that are meant to be respected and treated with dignity. These horrors defy comprehension. There are really no words for them,” Ramaphosa said.
He said that during the first summit, participants collectively made a firm commitment to the nation to undertake a comprehensive, effective and united response to gender-based violence and femicide.
“This is an accountability summit. This second presidential summit is for us to assess progress in fulfilling the commitments we made at the first summit in 2018 and in implementing the National Strategic Plan.
“What we have stressed throughout this process is the importance of a collaborative and co-ordinated approach towards combating gender-based violence and femicide. We need to plan together, implement together and account together.
“The actions we take now will determine whether this crime forever remains a feature of our national life, or whether we can say we are the generation that ended it,” he said.
The summit was expected to run until Wednesday.
IOL