MIDRAND, SOUTH AFRICA – Kwanele Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in South Africa is partnering with the Pan African Parliament (PAP) in working to address gender-based violence (GBV) on the continent.
In an interview with Spiked Online Media on the sidelines of the Pan-African Parliament’s official opening of the Committee Sitting in Midrand today, Sihle Sibisi, the Founder of Kwanele Foundation, said her institution is privileged to work within the structures of the Pan-African Parliament as a civil society organisation (CSO) in addressing GBV.
“We work with the gender equality group and the Women’s Caucus in PAP. Our role within PAP is to make sure that we continue to educate, amplify, and strive for gender-based violence-free Africa for all. The fact that PAP has its sittings and we have leaders from all over Africa that come together to put their minds together for African solutions makes it pertinent for us to participate. We need African solutions for African problems.
“As Kwanele Foundation, our mandate is to always remind them to say that within our problems, within the issues that we are facing, let’s also make sure that there’s a budget that is trickling down, resources that are being put aside to fight the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide,” Sibisi said.
The human rights defender said it is important to take a leaf from COVID-19 when Africa showed that it is capable of making sure that education reaches the grassroots levels. During that time, people who stayed in the rural areas knew that they had to wear masks and sanitize.
“So now the mandate to our leaders is let’s make sure that resources must go to the ground to educate people about gender-based violence and femicide. Remember, femicide speaks to the killing of women and children. But now we are living in a time where men also become victims of gender-based violence. The only difference is that men don’t talk. Men keep it within themselves. You find that there are women who are enablers or women who are perpetrators. But when it’s happened to a man, you’ll find that our community doesn’t make much noise.
“We tend to keep quiet about it. So we need to put that education on the ground, that even as a boy child, it’s okay to cry. Even as a man, it’s okay to not feel okay about something. We need to educate our police officers, and our police stations themselves, that even men can be victims of gender-based violence and femicide. So our role at PAP is just to always implement, and remind them that in African problems for Africans, we need African solutions for African problems.”
Kwanele Foundation has engaged ECOSOC in Zambia and different countries, where they meet the youth and educate them about the importance of living in a GBV-free society.
Sibisi said Kwanele Foundation uses the PAP as a vehicle that allows it to reach the larger continent.
“On our own as South Africa, we can’t do it effectively but PAP is the vehicle that allows us to reach the nation and the continent as a whole. PAP opens doors for us to be able to reach Africa as a whole, to be able to share the message with Africa as a whole. So they’ve just been the vehicle that allows us to do that,” she added.
