Gender Equality, Safety and Social Development

g) EFF Municipalities on Gender Equality, Safety and Social Development

EFF municipalities will:

1. Enforce a minimum 50% representation of women in municipal leadership, management, employment, procurement opportunities, and economic development programmes.

2. Establish Gender Equality Units and monitoring mechanisms to ensure compliance with gender equality targets and coordinate programmes aimed at the empowerment of women and girls.

3. Introduce gender-responsive budgeting to ensure that municipal resources directly contribute to the advancement of women.

4. Implement programmes that combat patriarchy, gender discrimination, and violence against women through education, awareness, community mobilisation, and active involvement of men in the fight against gender-based violence and femicide.

5. Work with traditional leaders, faith-based organisations, community organisations, civil society, and law enforcement agencies to promote gender equality and eliminate harmful practices that undermine the rights of women and girls.

6. Prioritise women, particularly female-headed households, in municipal economic empowerment, indigent support, housing, and social development programmes.

7. Create employment, skills development, entrepreneurship, and procurement opportunities targeted at women across all sectors of the local economy.

8. Establish safe and accessible reporting mechanisms for gender-based violence, sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse, supported by properly trained municipal law enforcement and community safety structures.

9. Support survivors of gender-based violence through shelters, places of safety, counselling services, and ward-based support programmes.

10. Work with the South African Police Service and community safety structures to combat extortion, violence, and criminal networks targeting informal traders, township businesses, construction sites, transport routes, and vulnerable communities.

11. Prohibit individuals and businesses linked to gender-based violence, rape, child abuse, exploitation, extortion, or organised criminal activity from benefiting from municipal procurement opportunities.

12. Strengthen maternal, reproductive, and primary healthcare services through better-resourced municipal clinics, additional healthcare workers, and community-based support programmes.

13. Ensure that municipal infrastructure, including water, sanitation, public lighting, roads, and public spaces, is designed and maintained in a manner that improves the safety, dignity, and mobility of women.

14. Protect the rights and dignity of vulnerable groups, including children, senior citizens, LGBTQIA+ persons, and sex workers, through inclusive municipal services and programmes.

15. Support women-led cooperatives, agricultural projects, township enterprises, and other community-based economic initiatives through targeted municipal assistance.

16. Establish programmes and campaigns to combat drugs, teenage pregnancy, gender-based violence, and social decay, while promoting family support, social cohesion, and moral regeneration.

17. Introduce unisex and gender-neutral toilets in all municipal offices, libraries, transport hubs, and community halls.

18. Implement education and awareness campaigns in schools and communities on rape prevention, gender-based violence, and reporting mechanisms available to survivors.