Social Development Deputy Minister, Hendrieta Bogopane-Zulu, says her department has appointed nine Non- Governmental Organisations (NGO’S) to help mobilise men who are perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the villages. She says this forms part of the launch of the Perpetrators Support Programme, hoping to reach half a million men by March next year.
The Deputy Minister says the programme is aimed at rooting out GBV and to help perpetrators not to re-offend. She says some of the perpetrators are also parents and have to undergo anti-violence educational programmes and unite them with communities.
Bogopane-Zulu was speaking at a media briefing in Parliament ahead of the official launch of the first National Men’s Parliament.
“In March we must have reached more than 500 000 men through in our village-to-village programme. We have appointed nine governmental organisations at the cost of R60 million to mobilise men, right from the village and to begin to put them in different categories, so that we as the department can have an entry level that these once are the rapist,- how do we stop them to rape again. These once are the women killers, how do we make sure that they are not gonna kill more. All of that is what we are putting in place when we say we are launching our perpetrators support programme.”
