Department of Women, Youth, Children & People with Disabilities response to 2011 State of Nation Address

Meeting report

Ms Nonhlanhla Mkhize, Director General of the Department of Women, Youth, Children & People with Disabilities (DWCPD) presented the Committee with the Department’s analysis of the State of the Nation and its impact on the work of the Department.

Together with the Labour Department, the Department would be working on increasing the job opportunities in sheltered factories for people with disabilities with a particular aim of increasing the number of women and black people with disabilities employed in these factories. The Department would also work with the Department of Social Development to improve support for sheltered workshops.

The Department would undertake a campaign on Access to Education for All Children in 2011. The campaign would be targeted at orphaned and vulnerable children who may still face difficulties in accessing education, children with disabilities and children affected by child labour, including child migrants. The Department would conduct an audit of all special schools in the country to establish the current conditions and measures needed to address various challenges that had been reported. The Department’s advocacy activities would focus on supporting the implementation of an inclusive education policy as required by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The Department had initiated the Sanitary Dignity Campaign aimed at improving access to sanitary towels for indigent women and girl children. It had mobilized a number of partners including manufacturers of the product for commitment to this campaign. The campaign would assist in kick-starting the implementation of the policy announcement by the President on this matter while sustainable procurement and distribution mechanisms were being put in place. The Department would be supporting the Campaign against HIV and AIDS which remains a key factor affecting maternal and infant mortality. It would be emphasising the link between violence against women and children and increased risk of HIV infection.

Various forms of abuse of women and children had remained a major challenge for the country. Acknowledging the magnitude and complexity of the factors driving that scourge, an advisory council comprising of key government departments, civil society organizations and other relevant partners would be formed. The Advisory Council would strengthen and coordinate the implementation of the 365 Days Plan of Action to stop violence against women and children. It would also assist in monitoring the implementation and compliance with the Domestic Violence Act, Sexual Offences Act and other relevant legislation. The Department for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities would constitute an appropriate secretarial support and drive the work of this Advisory Council. The Department was targeting June 2011 for the Secretariat and Advisory Council to be up and running. The DWCPD was in discussion with the Department of Public Works about unused government buildings for overnight shelters for the abused and resource centres.

Through a partnership between UNDP and Parliament, a programme would be launched later in February to train women from all political parties who were potential candidates for local government elections. These capacity building programmes would assist in improving the number and capacity of women representation at local government level.  As part of the DWCPD Strategic Plan, capacity building was a continual activity that would be coordinated by a Chief Directorate within the Department. Accessibility for people with disabilities was also a critical matter to be raised for the oncoming local government elections.

Discussion
Ms P Maduna-Peterson (ANC) thanked the Director General (DG) for her presentation. She asked how many people with disabilities had been interviewed for vacant positions in the Department thus far. She was happy that the DG had commented on special schools and the need to visit those schools to ensure that they were doing a good job.

Ms Mkhize responded that it was difficult to respond to the question as the Department only had five posts which it had interviewed for. People with disabilities had been shortlisted for some of those positions. A person with a disability had been recommended for appointment to a vacant Deputy Director General post. The Department targeted to employ 30% of people who were disabled. The Department was carrying out an audit on special schools because the Department of Basic Education could not be expected to be both a referee and a player in monitoring special schools. That responsibility fell under the purview of the Department, thus they were carrying out the audit.   

Mr D Kekana (ANC) commented that the Department always seemed to be on trips to either Geneva or Beijing. He asked that the DG make provision for documents to be provided to members even if the DG was unable to attend a Committee meeting due to other commitments. He commented that unused buildings which were owned by the government should be better utilised to provide shelter for the homeless and destitute.   

Ms Mkhize replied that the Department had started talks with the Department of Public Works and would seek to identify buildings which were empty or unused. The Department hoped to identify such buildings all over the country which could be utilised to provide shelter for the homeless. There had not been a specific budget set up to address the setting up of shelters under the Department but the hope was that other departments such as the Departments of Social Development and Justice and Constitutional Development would provide some funding for the establishment of these shelters as it was in their interests to assist in that project.

Ms S Rwexana (COPE) expressed concern over access to education for children in special schools. In Soweto, there were a limited number of special schools to cater for disabled children and more had to be done to address the issue of special schools through a campaign or other means.

Ms Mkhize replied that the campaign that the Department would undertake to address access to special schools for the disabled would be far reaching and comprehensive and would address all issues pertaining to that topic.

Ms G Tseke (ANC) echoed Mr Kekana's point on the need to use unused government buildings. She asked whether the sheltered employment factories noted in the presentation employed disabled people and whether they were doing a good job. She asked where the buildings identified for use as overnight shelters were located in the country. 

She answered that the sheltered factory employment project ran in 12 factories and operated in seven provinces with Mpumalanga and Limpopo being the exceptions. There were two such factories in the Western Cape. The factory in Cape Town had 1 100 people working in it and had the capacity to employ up to 3 000 people. The sheltered employment factories could be used to employ many unemployed disabled people as the equipment in the factories was designed for disabled people.

Ms D Robinson (DA) expressed her happiness with the intent shown by the Department and the new energy being shown by the Department. Budgets seemed to be a problem in general but in special schools specifically. Had the Department received increased funding or special funding to alleviate that problem? Special schools seemed to be too far away from people who needed them the most and this would be an area of great importance in future. She expressed her support for the Department’s sanitary campaign but in her oversight travels she had seen toilets in appalling states, she asked whether there was a campaign which the Department could think of which could place onus on communities to look after the welfare of schools in their areas. She asked whether the Department would make provision for children who had suffered abuse so that they could be looked after in shelters. She asked for elaboration on the sheltered factory employment project targeted for special needs people.

Ms Mkhize replied that the campaign that the Department would undertake to address access to special schools for the disabled would be far reaching and comprehensive and would address all issues pertaining to that topic including specialised funding. She answered that the sheltered factory employment project ran in 12 factories and operated in seven provinces with Mpumalanga and Limpopo being the exceptions. There were two such factories in the Western Cape. The factory in Cape Town had 1100 people working in it and had the capacity to employ up to 3000 people. The sheltered employment factories could be used to employ many unemployed disabled people as the equipment in the factories was designed for disabled people. The problem with the factories was that people working in the factories were mainly old people and more needed to be done to employ younger people.

Ms H Makhuba (IFP) asked how sustainable the campaign on sanitary pads was and would the campaign be far reaching enough. She asked how the Advisory Council would deal with violence against women. What was the Department’s plan to ensure that people with disabilities were mainstreamed in the workforce? Some of the campaigns initiated by the Department were good but links needed to be made on alleviating poverty in addressing issues affecting women. What would the Department do to address special schools?

Ms Mkhize replied that the sanitary pads campaign was undertaken to provide dignity to women on an essential issue which some knew little about or had no access to. The campaign would target poor women and vulnerable children. Sanitary pads would be handed out to female learners at the beginning of an academic year. The Advisory Council on Gender Based Violence would be a council that worked in an interdepartmental manner to fully address the issue of gender based violence. There would be a 365 Days campaign undertaken by the Council against gender based violence. The sheltered employment factories would assist in mainstreaming disabled people into the workforce. The campaign the Department would undertake to address access to special schools for the disabled would be far reaching and comprehensive and would address all issues pertaining to that topic.

The Chairperson emphasised the concerns raised by members on shelters for people with disabilities and the mainstreaming of work for disabled people. According to the United Nations it was discriminatory to deny disabled people work in mainstream industries. She asked about women in rural areas and job creation pertaining to those people. The State of the Nation had been silent on that issue. She expressed her gratitude on the HIV/AIDS campaign to be undertaken by the Department. 

Ms Mkhize addressed some of those issues in her responses to other members of the Committee. The Department was working with the Department of Rural Development to address the issue of rural women and the need for employment in rural areas. A proposal on that issue would be brought before the Committee in early March 2011.  

Ms Robinson commented that she liked the idea of distributing sanitary pads with school books. She noted that there had been problems with the distribution of school books and she hoped that similar problems would not hinder the distribution of pads. The Department was good at coming up with ideas but sometimes less effective at implementing those ideas. Cooperation with other departments was important but the dependence on other department’s budgets was concerning and she sought clarity on how that would work. She commented that there were many levels of disability and that posed a problem on mainstreaming people into the workforce. Would not sheltered employment factories entrench the problems affecting disabled employment? 

Mr Benny Palime, Director: Rights of Persons with Disabilities Branch, DWCPD, replied that sheltered employment factories provided employment. Disabled people needed to participate in the open labour market. The Department would look at a myriad of legislation to assess what the rights to be granted to disabled people were with regards to getting them into the open labour market. The Department was dealing with the distribution of sanitary pads and this would be done in schools and outside schools to reach a large number of people.

Ms I Ditshetelo (UCDP) recommended that the Department should monitor gender based violence and what the statistics on that were. How much revenue from the 2010 FIFA World Cup went to women issues?

The Department’s response was that the strategic plan to be proposed by the Department would monitor the indicators set out by the Department and look into the issues raised by Ms Ditshetelo.

Ms Rwexana asked how the Department would audit special schools considering that the Department was short staffed. What would the Department do to address climate change as it pertained to women and children? The Department needed to have its own funding rather than be primarily concerned with monitoring other departments’ implementation on issues relating to the Department.

Ms Mkhize replied that the Department would partner UNICEF in order to audit the special schools through funding and on the ground assistance. She replied that the Department was not only about monitoring, the Department did advocacy and capacity building as well as monitoring and performance evaluation. The Department was finalising its strategic plan. The strategic plan had been aligned with performance monitoring and outcomes as prescribed by Cabinet. The strategic plan would be presented to the Committee in March. The Department was in the process of getting more money from National Treasury to address some of the issues under its purview.

Ms Robinson commented that women could do anything and gender equality should be enforced across the board in every industry.

The Chairperson thanked all present for participating in the meeting.

The meeting was adjourned.