South African Campaign Platform

Summary

The World AIDS Campaign has been involved in South Africa since 2009, focusing on the Eastern Cape.

Our current work in the Eastern Cape brings together various government departments, notably Education, Health and the South African Police Service, with a range of NGO’s representing, among others, women, youth, PLHIV and traditional leaders. All these people and institutions have committed to working together in the fight against gender-based violence and its contribution to the spread of HIV in the province. They operate in an environment where the laws are high quality and yet the reality of implementation is not; for example, there is inadequate allocation of resources to effectively implement the legislation.

Using the principles of “treatment literacy”, the project is developing a community monitoring and report-back model, which will feed through to officials and politicians.

The first campaigners meeting took place from 7-9 August 2009 in Chintsa near East London, one of the two largest cities in the Province. The aim was to produce an Eastern Cape HIV prevention campaigners Road-map, and set firm plans for the next few months. Top of their agenda was the formation of a grouping of civil society interests to monitor Government agency responses to gender based violence and pressure for better performance when it is not up to the mark.

Programme Partners

National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS (NAPWA)

Eastern Cape Council of Churches

Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU)

Women in Partnership Against AIDS (WIPA)

Men in Partnership Against AIDS (MIPA)

Treatment Action campaign (TAC)

Community Health Media Trust (CHMT)

Mission and Vision

• An inclusive and diverse PLHIV movement-centered, civil society-led structure that is sustainable;
• A structure which thinks and acts strategically to achieve Universal Access through campaigning, advocacy and lobbying; and
• A structure, which is realistic about the need to act with others regionally and globally in addressing the barriers to achieving Universal Access.

Current Campaigns

WAC’s work in each country/province is organised around a generative theme that emerges during the mapping and initial interaction phases. The major generative theme in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa is the intersection of HIV and gender-based violence. Reference has shown that gender-based violence fans the fires of the HIV pandemic by intensifying the vulnerability of those who are already exposed to HIV by their lower status in society, sustained by patriarchal practices and socio-economic inequalities. There is evidence that men living with HIV are more likely to commit sexual violence. The campaign will also focus on HIV financing.

Other

The Programme aims:

To build on existing high quality national-level laws designed to combat domestic and sexual violence by identifying how they can best be implemented by Government delivery agencies at community level, then comparing that to the reality of current implementation;

To empower women through training, through subsequent work as community-level monitors and support workers, and through engagement in advocacy around the lessons gained, to understand their rights and the laws in place to protect them, and their ability to effect change of real benefit to local women; and

To advocate for a higher priority within key Government delivery agencies - police, courts, health and education - for gender-based crime; in the case of the police, to give it equal priority to “violent crime”.

Through this work, WAC supports the endeavours of Civil Society Organisations in campaigning, advocating and monitoring the implementation of the relevant laws, particularly the Sexual Offenses Act and the Domestic Violence Act; and to create a model approach which can be implemented elsewhere in the province and the wider country. We have a full time in country focal point that liaises with partners and regular e-advice are provided from the WAC office.

Monitoring and evaluation-focused training took place in March 2010, where a steering committee was selected and a plan developed. The Steering Committee meets every three months and holds a teleconference once a month. Two task teams have been established, one for Lusikisiki (OR Tambo district) and one for East London (Amathole district) to implement the plan