What will be the costs of Ramaphosa’s anti-GBV campaign?

Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a series of measures the state will implement involving the criminal justice system and social and educational interventions to stop violence against women.

“Are there going to be sufficient financial resources to make sure we protect the women of our country? My answer is yes, we are going to find the money,” Ramaphosa said, addressing protesters.

Speaking on television later, he said Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni should “allocate additional funding to the national machinery to coordinate a campaign against gender-based violence”.

These remarks follow requests from National Treasury for departments to cut their budgets by between 5% and 7% over the next three years to contain the government’s budget deficit.

Adjunct Professor at Wits University’s Southern Centre for Inequality Studies Michael Sachs said the difficulty in finding the funds for the gender-based violence campaign would be clearer once government determined exactly how much was needed.

Sachs, a former deputy director-general in National Treasury’s budget office, added that the measures announced did not appear to require a huge amount of money.

“For example, at police stations, is the issue the technology you have for rape or is it training officers to be gender-sensitive? I imagine the second is a much bigger issue.”

With the exception of a few items, Total Shutdown movement spokesperson Lesley Ncube said the promises Ramaphosa made were not new and came from the declaration signed after the gender summit last year.

However, Ncube said government had to show commitment by allocating resources.

Despite Ramaphosa promising in his State of the Nation Address to address the issue of funds for Thuthuzela and Khuseleka Care Centres for victims of sexual and domestic violence, or strengthen relevant specialised units, no new allocations were made in the budget.

Ncube said what could be expedited in the short-term was funding shelters, setting up rapid response teams and denying bail to those arrested for gender violence.

– tebogot@citizen.co.za

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