With R128-million pledged by companies and businesses to fight the scourge of GBVF, the government has committed three more billboards at three police stations in Tshwane.
The gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) billboards are means by the government to respond to the war against women and children.
“The billboards are placed in areas most afflicted by crime to ensure that we put these messages in the faces of those who hurt and kill our women and children,” said Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Patricia de Lille, during her visit to three police stations, in Mamelodi and Eersterust.
The anti-GBVF messaging campaign started with the first billboard which was placed along Kgosi Mampuru Street in Tshwane, and a mural at Manenberg police station in Cape Town.
De Lille said the billboards publicised the number of the GBV command centre where communities and victims could get help to ensure that the government saved more lives.
“My appeal to families and community members is to work with us and help victims by supporting them and helping them to report abuse as this can save a victim’s life.
“Fighting must remain a priority for all of society in our mission to protect our women and girls.
“Too often people are afraid to speak out for fear of tarnishing the family’s name, but the lives of our women and children are worth more and we must do all we can to protect them and bring those who hurt women to book.
“We must break the silence and stop protecting perpetrators.”
She said the R128-million GBVF response fund was established to allocate financial support to various programmes under the national strategic plan to address GBVF such as prevention and rebuilding social cohesion, justice, and protection and safety measures.
De Lille said in 2019, her department committed that it would use state-owned properties to install anti-GBVF messaging as a campaign to show the government’s solidarity with communities and families who have been affected by this scourge.
She said the department was working to expand the GBVF advocacy communication campaign to all provinces.
“There must be a firm hand in how we deal with these cases so that we stamp out GBVF and show women that as a whole society, we stand with them and we are all here to protect them.”
She said 12 properties were available as shelters for GBV victims. Six of these were in Gauteng, and the rest in the Western Cape. The process was to identify and allocate more properties for shelters in all provinces.
“Domestic violence, rape, abuse of women remain disgraceful blots on the reputation of a country that is called a miracle nation.”
CEO of the GBVF response fund Lindi Dlamini said: “We cannot be the generation that won freedom, standing on the shoulders of our forebears, and did not use that as a springboard to create an even better future for the next generation.”
Dlamini said the fund would be used tirelessly to support the implementation of initiatives and programmes aimed at the effective elimination of GBVF.
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