CGE ANNUAL REPORT

2022/23 ANNUAL REPORT

Gender and Development workshops were implemented for the Performing Arts Centre of the Free State, Senekal Stakeholder Forum, and some Mangaung Metro Ward Committees. Popular topics that stakeholders requested to be capacitated on were sexual harassment, LGBTQIA+ and Gender Mainstreaming in addition to understanding the mandate of the CGE and various international, regional, and national gender and human rights frameworks. The Free State office continues to capacitate the local government sector on gender mainstreaming and gender transformation. Setsoto Local Municipality, and Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality have benefited from capacity building workshop conducted collaboratively between the CGE, COGTA and SALGA. The Free State Office, despite various challenges faced, all APP targets were met for the financial year supported by strategic stakeholder relations that have been forged and maintained. The Free State Office has been able to make footprints throughout the five district municipalities. The Free State Office was identified as one of the key stakeholders to participate in the 100-day challenge on implementation of the NSP-GBVF seeking to achieve ambitious results on Pillar 3 within 100 days. The Free State team focused on maintenance at the Bloemfontein Regional Court. The Education Officer (FS- CGE) was nominated as the team leader for the 100 days challenge team and had a coordinating and monitoring role on progress made by the team. The Free State Office was involved in the planning for the 2022 Provincial GBVF Summit. These summits are conducted to deepen the understanding of GBVF in the province; to reflect on the implementation of the NSP-GBVF with a specific focus on progress, challenges, and opportunities; to make recommendations on what needs to be accelerated, what needs to be amplified/ scaled up, how can accountability be strengthened and what needs to be done differently. The Free State Office continued to convene the stakeholder management and accountability forum (est. 2019) meetings whose objectives are to ensure that the CGE discharges its mandate on monitoring and holding various stakeholders accountable in terms of their mandates and towards eradicating GBVF and towards realization of gender inequality. The forum is a platform for the provincial manager to strengthen stakeholder relations, for the education officer to report on public education programmes and gender emerging issues in the communities and for the legal officer to report on legal complaints handled in the CGE and challenges experienced in complaints management. The Free State Office participated in the back-to-school project led by the Office of the Chairperson and discharged by Commissioners in the provinces. A total of four schools were visited in the Free State Province: Kagisano Combined School, Barend Van Rensburg Intermediary School, Seithati Primary School, and Beang tse Molemo Senior Secondary. The back-to-school project exposes to the greatest extent the state of inequality within the education sector. Schools in previously and currently disadvantaged communities are completely left behind in terms of development. Visits to police stations were conducted by the Free State Office on a project led by the CGE Free State Provincial Commissioner. Police stations were visited in Ficksburg, Bainsvlei and Bloemfontein. The visits aimed at assessing the status of readiness by the SAPS to receive and give service to survivors of GBVF.

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