SA is failing its women, says Cyril Ramaphosa
The president sets a date for a national gender summit to discuss ways to end the scourge of violence against women and children in SA
The government has vowed to take tough and decisive action to deal with the scourge of gender-based violence that it says has reached unprecedented levels. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Thursday that the government had agreed to hold a national gender summit on August 31 to forge consensus on ways to deal with the crisis. SA has one of the highest rates of women murdered by their partners in the world, according to the Cape Town-based Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health. Last week, thousands of women took part in the #TotalShutdown march to the Union Buildings to protest against gender-based violence in SA. Among their demands, the protesters called for the national gender summit, and a commitment that the president would not appoint anyone implicated in gender-based violence to the cabinet or state institutions. At the National Women’s Day event held in Mbekweni, Paarl, in the Western Cape, Ramaphosa said the government and society had to acknowledge that since ...
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