S. African parliament calls for bold action to curb rising gender-based violence

Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-14 23:34:21|Editor: huaxia

CAPE TOWN, June 14 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's Parliament on Sunday called for bold and resolute action to curb rising gender-based violence in the country.

The wheels of justice must turn and be seen to turn swiftly in bringing alleged perpetrators to book and meting out harsher punishment to discourage the occurrence of similar offences, said a statement issued by the Presiding Officers of Parliament, led by National Assembly (Lower House) Speaker Thandi Modise and National Council of Provinces (Upper House) Chairperson Amos Masondo.

"But even more important is ensuring an environment where these heinous crimes against a significant population of our society do not even take place in the first place," the statement said.

The nation has been shocked by a new spate of gender-based violence during the COVID-19 lockdown. The victims included a 28-year-old pregnant woman whose body was found hanging from a tree with multiple stab wounds in Johannesburg, and a 26-year-old lady stabbed to death in Mossel Bay, the Western Cape.

The brutal and senseless killings "underscores the urgency in which perpetrators must receive a fitting sentence that will demonstrate that such heinous crimes have no place in society," the parliamentary statement said.

"Bold and resolute action, rather than outrage, however, is what our nation needs to change this shocking state of affairs in our country," said the statement emailed to Xinhua.

According to the South African Police Service (SAPS), there has been an increase in violent crimes, especially murders, since the country entered level-three lockdown on June 1, which allowed most businesses to reopen and eight million people to return to work.

Gender-based violence has festered for too long, shielded by the veils of silence and fuelled by patriarchy and sexism, the statement said.

"We know that ending it needs effort from sections of society, particularly men as perpetrators - in the areas where we live, the places where we work and from all private and state institutions, including our justice and criminal justice systems," the statement said.

It said the parliament will try to ensure the modernization of the national register of gender-based violence offenders, resolution of the case backlog and delays in DNA testing, as well the availability of rape test kits in police stations.

"As with our global cooperation to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, so, too, let us work together, as humanity, to fight the femicide and gender-based violence still stalking our nation," said the statement.

South Africa has the highest level of intimate partner violence among countries in the world, and about 51 percent of South African women have experienced violence at the hands of someone with whom they are in a relationship, according to official figures. Enditem

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