ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula suggested, two days ago, that the planned nationwide protests against gender-based violence and femicide should be postponed until after the upcoming G20 summit.
Though he did not put it in those words, the ruling party’s third-most senior official seems to think that having the national shutdown just when the world’s eyes are on SA because a group of heads of state and government, from some of the most powerful economies, are here, is a form of embarrassment.
Hence his comments that suggested that the world is not going to help us resolve the problem, but that the situation lies with South Africans themselves.
While indeed it is true that the fight against GBV can only be won by South Africans, the reality is that despite all the right-sounding statements by politician and the government, as a country we are not winning the battle against the scourge.
Therefore, there is a need for a renewed spotlight on the crisis as sweeping it under the carpet, to make the country look good in front of the international community, will not benefit the university students and other categories of women who are falling victim to such crimes on a daily basis.
If the attention of the world is going to force the state to take concrete action, including beefing up trained personnel at police station level and ensuring that GBV cases are dealt with swiftly by the criminal justice system, then the planned protests would be worth it.
Women for Change, the organisation behind the planned national shutdown, would not have had to go this route had many of the resolutions adopted when President Cyril Ramaphosa first convened a summit on GBV close to five years ago, had been implemented.
Instead of trying to persuade South Africans to handle the crisis “internally”, Mbalula should be encouraging his party’s deployees to openly speak up against the scourge even at the G20 Summit and commit to a concrete government plan to tackle it.
The Herald
