House Chair, the ACDP wants to support this council but, to a large degree, we as Parliament have failed in our oversight duties which has given rise to the establishment of the National Council on Gender-based violence and Femicide..
- Will this council be given proper resources?
- Why is it that we have secondary trauma of rape victims whilst we have a limited number of Specialised Sexual Offences Courts?
- Will this council be able to answer that question?
- Will this council be able to answer the question that we should be answering as public representatives?
- Why is there a culture of silence in our communities?
- Why are rape victims encouraged to withdraw their cases due to secondary trauma, and due to being bribed to be quiet?
- Why are parents offered finances to withdraw cases where their children have been sexually violated?
These are questions that we need to face as public representatives.
But again, I want to emphasise that we as the ACDP, want to support this board. We want to support the work that they do because, hopefully, they will be able to introduce an integrated manner of approaching these issues.
I want to also flag an issue: that this Parliament allowed the pervasiveness of pornography in society. Pornography is the theory; rape is the practice. And surely we should relook at those laws which commodify a woman’s body. How can we allow that—online pornography, that is so freely available to children in society and surely, that contributes significantly to the high levels of gender-based violence in society. The ACDP believes that we must relook at that, just as we’re looking at the issue of online gambling.
This is a critical issue.
I thank you.
