{"id":200251,"date":"2021-08-31T13:03:25","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T11:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/gauteng-committed-to-lgbtqia-community-safety\/"},"modified":"2021-08-31T13:03:25","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T11:03:25","slug":"gauteng-committed-to-lgbtqia-community-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/gauteng-committed-to-lgbtqia-community-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauteng committed to LGBTQIA+ community safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gauteng Community Safety MEC Faith Mazibuko says her department is committed to the safety of all members of the LGBTQIA+ community living in the province.<\/p>\n

She was speaking during a dialogue on the safety of intersex people.<\/p>\n

According to the United Nations Free and Equal campaign, intersex people \u201care born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural bodily variations\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mazibuko said the safety of all citizens is important regardless of their gender, sex, or sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Gauteng, we have a community safety plan that guarantees that each and every citizen in Gauteng must be safe and protected. So it becomes our responsibility as the department that each and every one [of the LGBTQIA+ community] is protected. We blow the whistle on any person who violates the rights of others,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The MEC also committed to the establishment of \u201cdesks\u201d within community policing forums specifically focussed on the LGBTQIA+ community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the CPFs we have agreed that we need to establish desks. We already have the youth desk, we already have the elderly desk so it means we must have an LGBTQIA+ desk so that [the LGBTQIA+ community] is also able to mobilise and work very closely with the police,\u201d Mazibuko said.<\/p>\n

Executive director of LGBTQIA+ organisation Access Chapter 2, Steve Letsike, told the dialogue that although much had been done in government policies to guarantee the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community, implementation and execution had lagged behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a legal framework that sought to protect everybody, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and so forth. The South African Police Service developed a standard operating procedure about two years ago. This SOP\u2026has to be reviewed even though it is a good attempt\u2026because if an intersex person gets arrested or admitted or want to be assisted [at a police station] what are the standard procedures in order to make sure that those services are adequate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Letsike also bemoaned the service rendered to intersex people and members of the LGBTQIA+ community at government service points \u2013 specifically the police service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the issue of violence against LGBTI people in South Africa, just in the last 20 weeks or so, we have lost about 18 LGBTI people. Even the very same gender based violence and femicide that we speak about as a country, one would also realise that many of the violence against Intersex people goes unrecognised. One of the studies that we made in 2016\u2026revealed that 80% of LGBTI people do not report hate crimes or violations against them. So one would realise how much intersex people are not reporting these violations first because of fear of secondary victimisation and second because of being outed and not being taken seriously,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

MEC Mazibuko acknowledged that more needs to be done to enlighten the police service about how to treat those in the LGBTQIA+ community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that we need to educate society. Not only should we have gay pride\u2026but we should have outreach programmes. These should include parents because I think\u2026parents must be educated and empowered to say a child that you give birth to is a gift from God and you must accept [them]. Education of the police is also needed because if we don\u2019t educate our police men and women, we will have a long road ahead. The education that they get at the colleges [must] start orientating them to the nature of the communities that they will also come upon,\u201d Mazibuko said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gauteng Community Safety MEC Faith Mazibuko says her department is committed to the safety of all members of the LGBTQIA+ community living in the province. She was speaking during a dialogue on the safety of intersex people. According to the United Nations Free and Equal campaign, intersex people \u201care born with sex characteristics (including genitals, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-200251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/gauteng-committed-to-lgbtqia-community-safety.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}