Elangeni Hotel, 25th May 2017. Written by Daniela Gennrich, WWSOSA Interim Coordinator

The purpose of the meeting was to bring together multiple government and civil society stakeholders, to talk about SGBV in KZN, what work is being done, what gaps there are, and plan a strategy for the next few years.

The programme was divided into two parts: Prevention and Post-violence care – PVC’.

Apart from messages of support from the Men’s Sector, Traditional leaders sector and Pepfar, Minister of Social Development Ntuli, expressed her expectation of 2 outcomes of the meeting:

  1. A planning team to put together a massive KZN and SGBV march, and 
  2. A planning process for a 365-days strategy. 

Neither was achieved, but many people voiced their concerns, and/or profiled their work.

Some key concerns included:

  1. Although there is an existing Strategic Framework 2015-2019, this was never mentioned, unfortunately. WWSOSA requested that it be reviewed and revised, to account for the needs in 2017ff and to build on the good work already achieved. This was perhaps a reason why the 2ndobjective of the meeting could never have been achieved.
  2. Most frequent, and most vehement, were concerns about lack of collaboration between sectors, and the work in silos. I proposed a strong focus on process, communication, and collaboration in establishing the proposed Provincial work plan.
  3. A strong criticism links to the lack of respect for the many community based initiatives that already exist – which should be learnt from and where possible, scaled up.
  4. My sense is that the Provincial HIV work is much more well developed and effective, and that there are attempts now to bring the two together. This is not a bad thing, but the GBV unit in the Premier’s office may need to be beefed up for success, as they currently have only 3 staff.
  5. Several gaps in the system were critiqued – eg. Between SAPS and the Justice system, when perpetrators are arrested and never brought to book; referrals from clinics and hospitals to Thuthuzela Care Centres far away mean many women cannot get there, psycho-social support for survivors is totally inadequate and stigma is still rife.
  6. Interestingly, researchers from Wits and MATCH reported on reviews of the Thuthuzela Care Centres and survivor support at other health care facilities – but the research did not involve survivor perspectives. I wonder if we should send in some of the WWSOSA research done thus far – even though it did not focus exclusively on their experiences at these facilities? **
  7. Many initiatives are directed at girls and women – not enough on boys and men.
  8. There are no widespread initiatives with faith communities.
  9. Spending huge funding on a provincial march has never been shown to bring real change. WWSOSA suggested an alternative process – perhaps having parallel marches/ consultative meetings in different regions – to really hear what people’s concerns are, what they are already doing – and their ideas for a provincial strategic work plan. Although the Premier’s Office restated their commitment to a march, this alternative idea may also be rolled out.

The MAIN BENEFIT of attending this consultative forum was NETWORKING, with useful contact made with many people from diverse backgrounds and doing really good work. This is likely to help the faith sector’s ability to make a meaningful impact.