JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- President Cyril Ramaphosa's commitment to fight the scourge of gender-based violence shows that there is a political will to deal with the problem in South Africa, a Wits university gender based expert said on Friday.
As South Africa continues to experience violence against women, a two-day Presidential Gender-Based Violence (GBV) summit was held from Thursday to Friday in Pretoria to deal with the problem.
Lisa Vetten said that Ramaphosa's commitment to eradicate violence against women was promising.
"I think the president made a commitment that we never heard under president Zuma, so this might signal an indication of a political will to fight gender based violence," Vetten said.
Over the past two years, the country has seen an increase of 11 percent in femicide cases according to SAPS crime Statistics 2018 report.
It is estimated that more than 70,000 women experienced sexual offences in 2016/2017 period as compared to 31,665 in 2015/2016.
Vetten said that several steps and measures should be taken in an effort to address the scourge of violence.
"We need to look at the current state of our economy, what does it mean for women's economic empowerment,"she added.
"The justice system is not functioning as it should. There's a need for better funding towards programmes that address the problem."
Ramaphosa convened the two-day summit after thousands of women across the country marched to the Union Building calling on government to take appropriate measures in tackling violence perpetrated against women.
On the first day of the summit, Ramaphosa described violence directed at women as a crisis.
The Summit adopted a number of declarations which will be implemented to curb violence against women.
Some of the resolutions include a plan to establish a functional council within six months which will be led by Ramaphosa.
Social development minister Susan Shabangu said that government will work with civil society organizations to ensure that all adopted declarations are implemented timeously.
