It is not true. As black people, we have always been proud of ourselves. We have always provided for our families and all. It is just that we were disrupted by a system which made my grandparents hewers of wood and drawers of water. Hon Speaker, as a government we are obliged to address the scourge of social ills confronting our communities across our country. These include the intersection between the unacceptably high levels of alcohol and substance abuse, gender-based violence and femicide, as well as rising HIV infections, particularly among young women, and the relatively low numbers of men testing for HIV and actually starting treatment. To this end the department has partnered with the SA
National Aids Council, Sanac, and the Men's Sector for the implementation of Goal 4 of the National Strategic Plan for HIV, Tuberculosis, TB and sexually transmitted infections, STIs. We are currently rolling out the boys and Men and Championing Change programme. And this we believe, Mr President, working together, both men and women, it is our responsibility and not the responsibility of women to negotiate around these issues.
Working together with provinces, municipalities and social partners, the mobilisation of both men and boys in the fight against HIV and Aids and gender-based violence seeks to lay a solid foundation to transform existing gender imbalances. We will work with communities and the National House of Traditional Leaders to confront harmful cultural practices, norms and values that make young girls and boys as well as women, more vulnerable to gender-based violence. Almost every hon member in this House has witnessed the horrors of drug addiction, whether it is through the struggle of one of our own family member or through the struggle of a friend, a colleague or a neighbour's child. It might take us many years or even decades to bring this scourge under control, but we must start in earnest in the coming
months, working together with the police as well as the justice system. To this end, we will table the National Drug Master Plan to Cabinet in this financial year, with priority given to strengthening the Central Drug Authority's capacity to carry out its work. Our efforts to confront this scourge include making treatment and rehabilitation available to help our young people.
Mr President, as you pointed out during the Sona, we need a new social compact if we are to achieve a South Africa we want and I also do want to say that, in the building of that new South Africa that we are talking about we should not just be thinking of the houses, the workplace, we should also think about the South African who has to inhabit that South Africa, so I put together the South Africa we want but also the South African we want to live in it.
On a related matter, we have also successfully concluded provincial dialogues in all provinces as part of the build-up activities towards the Presidential Social Sector Summit to be held later this year. Our social transformation agenda, which is part of the overall vision of a South Africa we want, has been
delivering positive and encouraging results for our people. We must continue to build on this by remaining a nation and a people committed to ideals of human rights and human dignity as espoused in the Freedom Charter and concretised in our Constitution. These are the values of which we must never lose sight as we deliver on our new mandate. Thank you, Chair. [Applause.]
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