Tonight President Cyril Ramaphosa has again addressed South Africans about gender-based violence, just days after the 11th body of a woman since July was found in Ekurhuleni. But after years of plans, summits, declarations and funding announcements, what will actually be different tomorrow morning?
Under a DA national government our criminal justice system would be focused relentlessly on detection, arrest and successful prosecution. Those who rape, abuse and murder women must know that the state will pursue them, put them before a court, and put them in jail.
The DA measures success by the number of perpetrators convicted and behind bars. Not by the number of times promises have been made to end GBVF.
Where the DA governs after November, we will build strong municipal law-enforcement capacity, put more visible officers into crime hotspots, use technology intelligently, make public spaces safer, and work directly with neighbourhood watches, community organisations, private security and SAPS.
DA governments will use every lawful power we have to prevent crime and protect our communities. We will not sit on our hands waiting for a broken national system to fix itself.
No South African woman should have to plan her ordinary daily life around the possibility that she may be attacked or killed. Safety is the basic condition of freedom. And currently South African women are not free.
President Ramaphosa has been announcing emergency responses to GBVF since 2019.
There has been an Emergency Response Action Plan, a National Strategic Plan, successive multi-billion-rand funding commitments, new legislation, summits, a statutory Council, and finally the classification of GBV and femicide as a national disaster in November last year.
But eight years into this presidency, there is a recurring gap between what is announced and what women experience in their communities.
Another announcement must therefore be judged by implementation, not just the empty election promises President Ramaphosa just made.
The South Africa the DA wants to build is one where every sphere of government uses every power available to it, where government and communities work together, and where a woman’s freedom does not end when she steps outside her front door. That is how we build a country that works — for her, for her family, and for everyone.