House Chair
The ACDP supports this report and we wish the candidates who will be appointed by the President well with their constitutional mandate of promoting gender equality and the protection, development and attainment of gender equality.
And, it is against this background that the high levels of gender-based violence in our country and across the world must be considered. Far more needs to be done to protect women and children, and we see conflict across the world: in Yemen, hundreds of thousands of people dying; we see in Sudan, hundreds of thousands of people dying there; we see Syria, where many, many people are dying there as well, and women and children need to be protected.
And before Hon. Shaik Emam refers to Israel/Gaza, let us be reminded of what the United Nations has said about the plight of women and children there: “All women — Israeli women, Palestinian women, as all others, are entitled to a life lived in safety and free from violence.”
The ACDP agrees with that. But it went further. The UN Women’s Movement unequivocally condemned the brutal attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023. The UN said it was alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based and sexual violence during those attacks. The UN has called for all accounts of gender-based violence to be duly investigated (the rapes, murders, and beheadings that took place, even of babies), and prosecuted with the rights of victims at the core.
The ACDP agrees with this. Let us treat all issues (as with what has happened in Gaza as well as in Israel) with the same condemnation and not only condemn one side.
The ACDP will support this report.
I thank you.
