March against gender-based violence on the cards
Image: Gallo Images / Beeld / Jaco Marais
South Africans from all walks of life have been extended an open invitation to join #TheTotalShutdown march on Wednesday.
The shutdown is planned as a national march in protest against gender-based violence in the country.
Organisers of the march said it would take place in various parts of the country‚ including Gauteng‚ Limpopo‚ Mpumalanga‚ the North West‚ Free State‚ KwaZulu-Natal‚ Eastern Cape‚ Western Cape‚ Maseru in Lesotho and Windhoek in Namibia.
The City of Tshwane leg of the march will start at the old Putco depot and end at the Union Buildings.
A document containing a total of 24 demands will be given to government‚ calling for action “now” and an end to gender-based violence.
Image: Twitter/via @WomenProtestSA
“This document sets out our list of demands to the state. It’s an initial set of 24 demands that represent each year that the state has failed to ensure our right to be free from violence since the establishment of our constitutional democracy‚” the organisers said in a statement on Monday.
“We believe that an integrated approach to fight against the gender-based violence [GBV] scourge‚ where different arms of government work together‚ has the ability to ensure better protection for women.
“We understand that different arms of government have different powers and functions‚ it is not the intention of our memorandum to comprehensively set out which entity must do what. Our aim is to demand that the state must do everything within its powers‚ to enable us to realise our right to be free from violence‚ whether it emanates from public or private sources.”
Among the demands are: - For a strong message to come from the office of the President that gender-based violence is alarmingly high and cannot be tolerated. This would include a commitment not to appoint any individual implicated in such violence to cabinet or to lead a state institution. - That the Ministry of Women in the Presidency convene a national process to review past action plans to end gender-based violence in order to understand why they failed.