By: Zethu Gweva
The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) hosted the Annual Eastern Cape SALGA Women’s Commission Lekgotla/Gender Dialogue at the East London Golf Club yesterday.
The event was set out to enhance partnerships and collaboration efforts with stakeholders for the implementation of gender and women empowerment programmes.
According to the SALGA Provincial Chairperson Mxolisi Koyo, under SALGA Women’s Commission, they were discussing the issue of gender-based violence which is mainly affecting women and children.
Koyo said SALGA’s responsibility is to create structures that will fight against GBV in societies. He added that the creation of women’s caucuses is one of the structures created for women to discuss issues that affect them, to empower each other and benefit from South Africa’s Freedom.
“SALGA wants to capacitate women and equip them in all the municipalities and districts in order for them to not be dependent on men,’’ he said.
Masimanyane Programmes Manager Farida Myburgh expressed that they are skeptical as they are hearing the same rhetoric, she said they need to see proper action and the municipalities plan that they developed in their IDP, as the councillors are not visible after the elections.
‘’We need all the councillors to be properly trained on what to do and to be visible within the communities because as an organization that works extensively within all wards in the BCM, one of the critical challenges we have is fire fighting for the local municipality,’’ said Myburgh.
In-addition Myburgh expressed that when it comes to the issue of GBV, the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) sector implements fully from the ground but they only rely on funding.
“Officials who are appointed to do this work, are unfortunately not doing the actual implementation nor are they monitoring what is going on,” she said.
Talking about the challenges faced in the community, Myburgh expounded that people are so used to violence that it has become a normal thing.
“When we as an organization go to these communities and educate them about their basic human rights, they realize that it’s not okay to be beaten or abused. Abuse comes in different forms and when they realize what they had normalized is not normal, there’s a sudden change,’’ said Mybugh.