Geldenhuys has sexually abuse about a dozen under-aged boys in at least four towns—Balfour, Mafikeng, Randfontein and Pretoria—since he registered with the HPCSA on 12 June 1980. These are only the victims we know of who have reached out to us. Many more have not come forward due to fear, stigma, and the complete failure of the justice system and accountable institutions such as the HPCSA. For example, in 1998, a year early, the HPCSA lifted the tardy three-year suspension it handed down in 1996 of Geldenhuys's membership after he had been convicted in 1991 in Balfour of an "indecent act" against a minor. Geldenhuys was convicted of the same crime again in 2002 in Randfontein, but it is unclear what, if anything, the HPCSA did about this. And after Geldenhuys was again found guilty in 2005 in Pretoria of multiple counts of "indecent assault" on a minor and received a prison sentence of 7 years (later reduced), the HPCSA reinstated his membership – providing him further direct access to minor children, some of whom may be among his silenced victims. The HPCSA lists "upholding and maintaining ethical and professional standards within the health professions" among its missions, but appears to have failed in this instance. Our desire is not to assign blame but to find out what happened and to work with the HPCSA to strengthen the mechanisms by which it works towards this mission – so that no child will again suffer sexual abuse due to the institutional's failures.

Right now right-wing groups like Afriforum and some people with medical aids, are mobilising in large numbers to try to stop the NHI. We can’t afford to let the rich try to stop the NHI which could improve the lives of the majority. We also can’t afford an NHI that fails our people. The NHI is not perfect, as seen in the pilot sites. This is why it is more important than ever to make our voices heard and with enough public submissions, shape the NHI to serve the health needs of the majority of people in South Africa. If enough of us come together, our public submissions could help ensure that the NHI is not captured by medical aids or greedy capital. While also demanding the NHI is accountable and provides quality health services free from corruption, patronage and mismanagement. The amandla.mobi team are not health experts. But what we have done is read expert submissions and identified key recommendations that reflect the values of the amandla.mobi community. That’s why we have created this progressive submission you can use when sending in your own submission. https://youtu.be/ccfj30DK0wc

Those arrested for allegedly perpetrating such violent crimes pose a severe threat to community safety and the mental and emotional well-being of ordinary citizens. Those on trial for violating human rights should not enjoy the freedom afforded by such rights until such time as they are proven innocent.

Those arrested for allegedly perpetrating such violent crimes pose a severe threat to community safety and the mental and emotional well-being of ordinary citizens. Those on trial for violating human rights should not enjoy the freedom afforded by such rights until such time as they are proven innocent. In addition, President Cyril Ramaphosa called on Parliament to pass a law that will prevent the granting of bail to suspects charged with rape and murder earlier this month. Let this serve to remind the President of what he has promised, and that we expect him to keep his word.

South Africa has the highest rates of rape and gender based violence. Women and children are not safe in homes, schools, university campuses, churches, at work - basically everywhere. We need to know who amongst us are convicted sex offenders so that we can protect ourselves There are raging protests all over the country, hashtags. We are tired of talking, this is one action that can help us deal with this scourge head on. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has, in terms of Chapter 6 of the Act, implemented the National Register for Sex Offenders on 30th June 2009. The Register contains information of people who have been convicted of sexual offences against children and mentally disabled people. Currently, the Register is not available to the public, only employers can access it. If the Registry's intention is to protect children and mentally disabled people against sex offenders why is it not accessible to the public?

South Sudan is Africa’s youngest country having gained independence 8 years ago from Sudan. A civil conflict broke out in 2013 and it is estimated that 400,000 people have been killed during this war. Rape is being used as a weapon of war in South Sudan by soldiers from all sides of the conflict. This means thousands of women and children in South Sudan are not safe. Time and again we have heard horrific stories of rape including of children as young as 10 years and grandmothers over the age of 65 years. Even more horrifying is UNICEF’s estimates that as many as 25% of the victims of conflict related rape and other forms of sexual violence in South Sudan are children. As South Africans, we are deeply concerned about the conflict related sexual violence in South Sudan which has spiked dramatically after the signing of the September 2018 peace agreement. We are shocked by the outright dismissal and denial of conflict related sexual violence cases by South Sudanese authorities which encourages perpetrators and further traumatises the survivors of such violence. We believe in Ubuntu, sisterhood and the Pan-African spirit that binds us with South Sudan under the African Union and choose today to stand in solidarity with the women and children of South Sudan. We call on President Ramaphosa and International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor to work on our behalf towards ending conflict related sexual and gender-based violence in South Sudan. Sign this petition and stand in solidarity with the women of South Sudan fighting sexual and gender-based violence. Your voice will join thousands more who are calling on President Ramaphosa and International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor to use South Africa’s leadership position in the African Union and the UN Security Council to help bring about real and lasting peace in Africa’s youngest nation.

In 2017 thousands of us came together to stop the likes of Coca-Cola trying to stop the sugary drinks tax. While the beverage industry watered down the sugary drinks tax, we won our campaign to get the tax implemented. With a new Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, we have an opportunity to get his attention and call on him to take strong action against Non-Communicable Diseases through supporting our call to increase the sugary drinks tax to 20%. Let’s get Minister Mkhize’s attention. If enough of us come together and send him welcome messages, it could get the new Minister to make protecting the sugary drinks tax from industry a priority and increase it to 20%. It only takes a minute to send the pre-written message to Minister Mkhize, but if you could add a personal message, our welcome will be even more powerful. Excessive sugar intake causes increased risk of diabetes, liver and kidney damage, heart disease, and some cancers. Tackling Non-Communicable Diseases needs to be a national priority, and increasing the tax on sugary drinks is a first step in addressing this national epidemic. The new Minister of Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has a history of doing important life-saving work on HIV in KZN. He could be an important ally if he pledges his support to increase he sugary drinks tax and could help protect it from industry. Send a direct welcome message to Minister Mkhize and make sure he joins us in our fight to make the food we eat healthy. If we flood his mailbox with welcome messages, he’ll have no choice but to prioritise protecting the sugary drinks tax from industry and increase it to 20%. When Coca-Cola tried to stop the Sugary Drinks Tax from happening with dodgy research on job losses and pressuring our elected leaders - we came together and stood against their bullying. From fighting greedy corporations to lobbying MPs to protect the tax- we’ve shown that our people power works. Let’s come together again and make sure the Sugary Drinks Tax is here to stay. [1] Junk food, junk status cause skyrocketing medical costs, Health-e News for The Daily Maverick April 24 2017

Last year thousands of amandla .mobi members came together and sent the Department of Health submissions in support of the Draft Tobacco Control Bill to ban public smoking, regulate e-cigarettes and other tobacco control regulations. The Department of Health is finished reading our submissions and the process has slowed down once again. But, with the appointment of a new Minister of Health, we have an opportunity now to put pressure on the department. We can make sure one of the first decisions the new Health Minister makes is prioritising the bill. Let’s get Minister Mkhize’s attention. If enough of us come together and send him welcome messages, it could get the new Minister to help make these overdue anti-smoking laws a reality. Sign the petition to send Minister Mkhize a message. It only takes a minute to send the pre-written message but if you could add a personal message, our welcome will be even more powerful. Each year South Africa spends more than R59 billion to address tobacco related illnesses like lung cancer, emphysema, asthma and bronchitis [1]. At the same time the country only collects between R11 billion and R13 billion from tobacco taxes [2]. This means the South African taxpayer is paying for the healthcare bill of tobacco-related harm while the tobacco industry collects the profits. Our queues at clinics and hospitals keep getting longer and government keeps cutting the healthcare budget while cigarette companies make billions. But, the new Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, has a history of doing important life-saving work on HIV in KZN. He could be an important ally in our fight against big cigarette companies. Sign the petition to send Minister Mkhize a welcome message and make sure he joins us in our fight to keep South Africans safe from second-hand smoke. If we flood his mailbox with welcome messages, he’ll have no choice but to support and prioritise the new anti-smoking laws. We’ve taken the Draft Tobacco Control Bill from sitting on a shelf collecting dust, to nearly being implemented by the Department of Health. The people power we’ve built has brought us this far but it’s important we keep up the pressure until the bill is signed. [1] The Tobacco Atlas - South Africa [2] BAT revenue rises but profit and market share fall, Robert Laing for Bizcommunity July 2017

Koffi Olomide has a documented history of committing violence directed at women. In March 2019 he was convicted of statutory rape in France and between 2002 and 2006, sexually assaulted his dancers [1]. In 2016, he was deported from Kenya for assaulting one of his dancers. Allowing him to perform in South Africa would undermine the victims of his actions, which cannot be tolerated or allowed. South Africa already has a Gender Based Violence crisis and should not be rewarding perpetrators with platforms such as this. [1] https://www.africanews.com/2019/03/19/drc-s-koffi-olomide-found-guilty-of-sexual-assault-in-france/

These workers pay the same price for bread - and they deserve the same minimum wage! Domestic and farmworkers are some of SA's most vulnerable workers. 95% of domestic workers and 90% of farmworkers are living under the poverty line. Numbering almost 2 million, they are the largest part of South Africa’s working poor. Yet many of them are primary breadwinners for their households. The recent National Minimum Wage Law only reinforces this poverty by giving domestic workers R15/hr, farmworkers R18/hr, and EPWP workers only R11/hr -- while all other workers receive R20/hr. Sign this petition and join the campaign calling on the National Minimum Wage Research Commission and the Minister of Labor and Economic Development, to increase minimum wage for farm, domestic and EPWP workers to the R20/hr. It is time for the National Minimum Wage Law to recognise domestic, farm and EPWP workers as equal to other workers. The domestic and farming industries still treat workers as disposable, casual labor because of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. Many of these workers have seen little change in their working conditions since 1994. They work behind closed front doors and locked farm gates, hidden from labour inspectors. They often face terrible living conditions, illegal terms of employment, poverty wages and outright physical and sexual abuse. By granting them only a portion of the minimum wage, we further reinforce their status as second-class citizens and informal workers. This allows employers to continue to exploit them, and reinforces the cycle of generational poverty.

Karabo Mafolo of the Daily Maverick reports that “In a 2016 report, the LGBTI organisation OUT LGBT Well-being, reported that 51% of transgender people had experienced discrimination in their education life.” This year, there was an mass hysteria about the new curriculum introducing “masturbation” as part of the new Life Orientation curriculum for grade 4 according to a misleading article by Prega Govender in The Sunday Times, 12 May 2019. This sparked the conversation on social media platforms where the concern wasn’t necessarily the introduction of sex and gender education but the level of engagement. More concerning however, is that there is currently no steps being taken to ensure that the very educators of the current and new Life Orientation curriculum are being trained to formally and professionally Gender and Sexuality Studies. The Department has previously displayed a strong capacity to retrain teachers when the CAPS curriculum was introduced in 2011. Met with great reluctance from teachers, Bongani Nkosi of The Star reported that the CAPS curriculum was implemented, reviewed and monitored - meaning the Department of Education is able to introduce gender and sexuality as part of current and future training for firstly Life Orientation teachers, and gradually, a compulsory training program for any teaching qaulification. It is the responsibility of the Department of Education to prioritize Gender and Sexuality to create inclusive, intersectional and informative learning environments starting with the teachers and filtering it down to scholars and the wider community Sources 1. Department of Education (www.education.gov.za) - Director General of Basic Education 2. Bongani Nkosi, The Star, 7 September 2018 3. Prega Govender, The Sunday Times, 12 May 2019 4. Karabo Mafolo, The Daily Maverick, 4 June 2019

I have had the opportunity of working with an Early Childhood Development (EDC) centre situated in Freedom Park. The owner was a dedicated strong woman who exhausted all her resources to ensure a safe haven for the children regardless of how poor her facility was. Her distress was that she had been operating an unregistered crèche for three years and her one need was to find someone to meet her half way in order for her to fix the infrastructure to qualify for certification. As this was an urgent matter and the children were at risk; we worked tirelessly to secure sponsorship by approaching different corporates. At the end of six months, we had succeeded and the ECD facility was child friendly, complied with the requirements and they were successful in registering. This ECD centre , was like the many others which are currently operating without proper infrastructure. Fortunately for this one funding was awarded; other ECD centres take years to receive funds or to even raise enough finances for important resources. In fact; within the Gauteng province alone, the Department of Social Development has identified 1100 ECD centres that are unregistered [1]. It has almost become a way of life that individuals within the community will establish a business of an unviable ECD facility with good intentions of servicing the community. This however doesn’t move away the fact that the facility still endangers the lives of children and that there's high risks. It is unfortunate that; even with the President’s promise of quality early childhood education during the 2019 State of Nation Address [2]. These promises will never be realised if there’s infrastructural problems hindering the realisation of quality education services. At the forefront of the Department of Social development’s plan to register ECD centres lies the requirement that an ECD centre, in order to be eligible for educator training, funding and benefits; must meet infrastructural requirements on the time of its registration. Yes, the government does provide an operational subsidy of R15 a day per pupil but the subsidy is restricted to facilities that comply with the norms and standards on its infrastructure [3]. Which means that those children in the most disadvantaged communities do not even benefit from this. Barbara Stemment head of Early childhood development at Ikamva Labantu states that “it is not that people don’t want to register but they don’t because they cannot afford to meet the infrastructural requirements set by the department [4].” She further explains that if the ECD centre shuts down; then where will those children go? Therefore, it is unfair to expect informal ECD facilities to meet infrastructure requirements when there is no identifiable government programme/subsidies for financing the construction or upgrading of facilities. It is key to note that the government has abdicated itself from financing the infrastructure that serves as a basis for accessing the operational subsidy and this proposes a problem. With the new changes on early childhood development education having had migrated to the Department of Basis Education; the question is: how will quality education be realised if there are infrastructure challenges already crippling the basic education system? And how will unregistered ECD centres due to infrastructure challenges be incorporated into the government’s current infrastructure improvement plans? This year marks the 20th celebration of National Child Protection week in South Africa. An annual campaign of the South African government to promote a culture of respect for children’s rights and an awareness of child safety [5]. However, if early childhood development programmes are performed in poor facilities then the safety, stimulative and quality learning is not achieved. Can we then say that as citizens we’ve made it our duty to protect and create a safe and secure environment for children in informal crèches? While the commitments of the government to introduce a two years compulsory ECD programme were welcomed as great improvements at the 2019 State of Nation Address; seriousness will only be realised if at the heart of the Department of Basic Education ‘s budget allocation is a share dedicated to a body that will specifically be targeted at early childhood development and tackling the infrastructure dilemma costing the success of the quality of education. Therefore, the department’s interventions should include Infrastructure challenges of unregistered ECD centres and helping these facilities be compliant. The first six years of a child's life are of paramount importance and in order to realise quality education for any child requires quality facilities and we ought to always remember this. Words to remember : "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."- Nelson Mandela. • ECD Centres – Early Childhood Development Centres. • DSD- Department of Social Development • DBE- Department of Basic Education • MEC – Member of Executive Council • Joburg Metro- City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality References: [1] “Over 1,000 unregistered crèches in Gauteng,eNCA, 5 April 2019 https://www.enca.com/news/over-1000-unregistered-creches-gauteng [2] SONA gives hope for early childhood development, David Harrison, 11 February 2019, https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/sona-gives-hope-for-early-childhood-development-19237438 [3] Obstacles for ECDs , Jess Drewett, 30 April 2018, http://livelihoods.org.za/2018/04/30/obstacles-for-ecds/ [5] Barbara Stemment , ikamva labantu, 18 December 2019, https://ikamva.org.za/ [4] Child Protection Week 2019, South African Government, https://www.gov.za/ChildProtectionWeek2019 Picture: https://www.groundup.org.za/article/raising-south-africa-informal-creches-are-desperate-aid/