More than 200 individuals attended the event, themed “Accelerating Actions to end Gender Based Violence and femicide, leaving no one behind.
Notable attendees included traditional leaders and members of several government ministries. Participants engaged in discussions focused on gender-based violence and discussed strategies for combating femicide, GBV, and child abuse in Newcastle.
According to latest crime statistics, Newcastle police station comes in at number 12 in police stations with the highest number of reported sexual offenses in South Africa.
Mayor Dube declared in his speech that the goal of this campaign is to mobilise everyone to participate in the acceleration of efforts to stop femicide and gender-based violence.
“t also makes our citizens more aware of the need to always act responsibly and within the law,” he remarked.
Newcastle’s campaign follows the official 16-day commencement of activity against women and children in Mbombela on 25 November by Deputy President Paul Mashatile.
This year is the 25th anniversary of the campaign’s launch in South Africa, which aims to increase public awareness of the destructive effects that violence has on our society’s social fabric.
During his address at a campaign in Durban, President Ramaphosa stated that boys must be taught to teach women with respect. Ramaphosa said the ANC has resolved to be more involved in the development of boys to ensure that they do not learn to behave violently towards women when they reach adult age.
At a Department of Health outreach event, representatives from charities that protect abused women spoke about the GBV epidemic in Newcastle.
Newcastle Crisis Center’s Mary Dobbie emphasised in her impassioned statement the need of fighting GBV. “We are living in hard times, we are women and we have got to stick together,” she stated.
She went on to exhort every woman who hears another woman in need to step in and offer assistance. “A solitary knock on your neighbor’s door if you hear sounds of crying could be the opportunity an abused woman on the other side of the door takes to escape her abuser,” she said.
16 days of activism of no violence towards women and children will run from November 25 to December 10.
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