Hon Chair and hon Deputy Minister, I just want to check in terms of the levels of engagement between government and
civil society organisations, especially those that are community- based to ensure that we fully realise our objectives for a national strategy on gender-based violence? Thanks.
The DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS
WITH DISABILITIES: Hon Chairperson and hon members, civil society organisations play a major role in this area. I am sure hon members will agree when I say; when it comes to awareness they are the first ones to speak out about what is happening in the different communities. Also they are very strong in terms of mobilising community structures to come together to defend the survivors.
It is NGOs, but also the faith-based organisations. We have seen more and more of them standing up, and sometimes even using formal religious services to actually have young people leading and talking about the scourge of gender-based violence.
The National Strategic Plan, NSP, and the National Steering Strategy Framework are really being developed in partnership with civil society. The steering committee sits and civil society organisations play a critical role. They are part of the National Strategic Plan. They have been part of the consultations being supported of course
by our own officials and some elements within the Presidency who have come forward to support the process.
At the end we hope with the resources that will be made available that will capacitate even more civil society structures to work in this area. We encourage whenever we are in rural communities make a call for more local people like even under the traditional leaders and tribal authorities that it is important to have civil society groups working in partnership with communities to tackle this problem.
Of late we have seen even university-based initiatives doing research on this, giving us more information on perpetrators. Generally assisting us to understand where we are and giving us options of how to approach this problem and be able to see the results much faster or just to curb the escalation that we have seen over the past few months. Thank you.