Speaking Notes for the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Lechesa Tsenoli on the Occasion of the Launch of the Programme of Action for Men’s Parliament

01 APRIL 2021

We welcome all our special guests today - all the men in their personal and representative capacity.

For this moment, we have requested you to step aside briefly, from the usual systems you live in daily, so that collectively as men accompanied by some of our partners, we continue our reflection on patriarchy, it's roots, it's impact, and what to do effectively to destroy it.

All this we do too in search of the reasons for unacceptable levels of gender based violence and femicide. The intention not just to understand, but, as result to take effective action to build a responsive men's movement to drive an inter-generational effort for a society free of violence.

In parliament, we agreed with you to convene bi annually to measure progress, identify challenges and map out our next steps.

We took a decision before hand in parliament, learning from our past practice, to stop events driven programs but to urgently address the problems recognising their relatedness, pooling our resources as institutions, organisations and as individuals.

We did that so that we do not mark time, stamping on the same spot, not knitting together the valuable strands that unite us, ensuring that we communicate and act effectively across our boundaries.

For example, this work cuts across, youth matters, women's matters, workers matter, civil society, which includes business and churches, and political parties.

Parliament as a platform for debating public issues needs to integrate issues arising from here into its many different portfolio and select committee programs.

Also integrate into its relationship with other parliaments such as in commonwealth parliamentary association, inter parliamentary Union - as we do in the rest of the world, working together with the executive arm of government in the international relationships.

Reversing patriarchal behaviour and its often-tragic consequences cannot be isolated into or pigeon holed into any single department or area.

We must consciously seek out and expose factors that support and or are based on inferior, superior assumptions of race, class or gender.

These factors are to be found in our homes, sports fields, business practices, trade unions, religious organisations, early child hood facilities, schools, universities, essentially also largely in the socioeconomic system that dominates our country, continent and the world.

When we are done, our dreams, vision of non-racial, non-sexist, democratic prosperous (hopefully egalitarian) society will be realised.

We have just finished, almost, the Women's Charter Review process partnered by Statistics South Africa to express the problems in numbers, the Commission on Gender Equality and the Finance and Fiscal Commission which leads in building a gender sensitive, responsive budgeting.

We invited in the past the United Nation Women to help us with international experience of how others elsewhere do it. These partners help us also to properly think long term and not short term only.

Today we begin our long- term journey of working together to heal the world making it a better place

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