Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

The Department of Basic Education has called for greater efforts to build girls’ confidence and leadership, while addressing barriers such as gender-based violence, teenage pregnancy and unequal opportunities in education.

Basic Education Deputy Minister Dr Reginah Mhaule made the call during the commemoration of the International Day of the Girl Child at Die Wilge Special School in Baillie Park, Potchefstroom, in the North West on Monday. 

Speaking under the theme “Building Confident Leadership for Girls”, Mhaule said confidence was essential for girls’ participation in education and leadership, warning that social pressures could undermine their self-belief and ambitions.

“Confidence is not a luxury. It is a foundation for learning, participation and leadership,” she said.

The event brought together approximately 240 learners, educators, government representatives, development partners and community stakeholders. It followed learner dialogues and Dove Self-Esteem Project workshops held at schools across Potchefstroom the previous week.

Mhaule said the decision to host the commemoration at a special school highlighted the importance of including girls with special education needs in efforts to promote equality and leadership.

“That we gather at a special school today is not incidental. It reminds us that when we speak of the girl child, we must mean every girl, including girls with special education needs, whose voices are too often the last to be heard and whose leadership is too often the last to be imagined,” she said.

The International Day of the Girl Child is commemorated annually on 11 October to recognise girls’ rights and highlight the challenges they face.

Mhaule said girls continued to experience various barriers, including violence and harassment at home, in communities and at school, early and unintended pregnancy, poverty, inadequate access to menstrual health support and gender stereotypes that undermine the value of their education.

She also highlighted the impact of social media and online messaging on girls’ self-esteem.

“These pressures do something very particular to girls. They chip away at confidence. A girl who once put up her hand in the Foundation Phase stops raising it in high school. A girl who once dreamed out loud of being an engineer, a judge or a President learns to keep that dream to herself,” the Deputy Minister said.

Mhaule said when girls lost confidence, their participation declined, limiting opportunities for their leadership potential to develop.

Removing barriers to girls’ education

The Deputy Minister said the department was working to create safe, caring and inclusive learning environments through its Care and Support for Teaching and Learning approach.

She said gender-transformative education was also helping the sector examine whether girls were treated equally in classrooms, on sports fields, in the curriculum and in the expectations placed on them.

The department’s interventions include the Sanitary Dignity Programme, the policy on the prevention and management of learner pregnancy, and initiatives aimed at preventing school-related gender-based violence.

These measures seek to ensure that girls can remain in school, access the support they need and learn in environments where their safety and dignity are protected.

However, Mhaule stressed that government policies alone could not build girls’ confidence, emphasising the importance of supportive relationships with educators, parents and community members.

“Confidence is built in relationships. It is built when an educator believes in a learner before she believes in herself. It is built when a parent listens. It is built when a girl sees a woman who looks like her, who comes from where she comes from, standing in a position of leadership,” she said.

She encouraged girls to recognise their leadership potential in everyday actions, including standing up against bullying, participating in learner representative councils, asking questions in class and persevering with their education.

“Leadership is not something you must wait to be given. You already lead when you speak up for a friend who is being bullied,” Mhaule told the learners.

She called on boys to support gender equality, saying harmful gender norms also affected them by discouraging emotional openness and help-seeking behaviour.

“If we want girls to be safe and confident, we must raise boys who are secure, caring and respectful,” she said.

The department commemorates both the International Day of the Girl Child and the International Day of the Boy Child as part of its efforts to promote gender equality and social cohesion.

Partnerships to strengthen self-esteem

Mhaule acknowledged the contribution of UNICEF South Africa, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and Unilever, through its Dove brand, in supporting the department’s initiatives.

She said the partnership with UNICEF, including the Gender Transformative Education Summit held last year during South Africa’s G20 year, had helped shift the basic education sector’s approach to gender empowerment in schools.

The DBSA has partnered with the department for three years on social initiatives, including the commemorations of the International Days of the Girl Child and the Boy Child.

Mhaule said the partnership also supported work in sanitation and early childhood development, including infrastructure interventions that improve the environments in which children learn and grow.

She thanked the DBSA for its contribution to the department’s social cohesion and nation-building agenda, highlighting the importance of collaboration in achieving sustainable social change.

The Deputy Minister also acknowledged the decade-long partnership between the department and Unilever through the Dove Self-Esteem Project, which aims to help young people develop confidence and positive self-belief.

This year, the partners are launching the Dove Self-Esteem Virtual Classroom to expand access to self-esteem support and reach learners beyond geographical limitations.

Mhaule said the initiative could help ensure that girls in rural schools had access to support similar to that available to learners in major cities.

Call to educators, parents and communities

In closing, Mhaule called on educators to identify girls who had become withdrawn and create opportunities for them to participate and lead.

She urged parents and caregivers to invest equally in the education of their daughters and sons, while calling on community, traditional and faith leaders, as well as local government, to help make schools and the routes leading to them safer.

“Our schools cannot be safe if the roads to them are not safe. Girls cannot be confident in communities that tolerate violence against women and children. We need you with us,” she said.

She also thanked artists and public figures who had volunteered their time to support the department’s social initiatives, including Miss South Africa Qhawekazi Mazaleni, who had pledged to prioritise education during her reign.

Mhaule said building girls’ confidence required sustained commitment from educators, families, communities, government and its partners.

“Every educator, parent and community leader has a role to play in building a generation of girls who know their worth, who believe in their potential and have the courage to lead.

“Because when a girl believes in herself, she doesn’t only change her own future. She helps shape the future of our nation,” she said. – SAnews.gov.za

By Josias Pila

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing cybercrime. The tools that can help us work smarter, communicate faster, and solve complex problems can also be exploited to deceive, manipulate, and defraud us on an unprecedented scale.

This raises an important question for South Africa: are we ready for a new era of digital deception?

The answer cannot be left to cybersecurity specialists alone. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in our daily lives, our ability to protect ourselves must evolve alongside it. Government, business and citizens must understand how AI is changing the threat landscape and, importantly, develop the knowledge and habits needed to recognise when technology is being used against us.

Our first line of defence may, therefore, be more than firewalls, passwords and security systems. It may be an AI-literate society – one that knows that what it sees, hears or reads online cannot always be taken at face value. 

AI is giving criminals new tools to make scams more convincing, attacks more sophisticated and deception harder to detect. Voice cloning, deepfake videos, AI-generated phishing messages and fabricated identities are enabling criminals to impersonate people and institutions with a level of realism that can be difficult to distinguish from the genuine article. What was once a suspicious email or poorly written scam can now look, sound, and feel remarkably authentic.

Interpol’s Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report of 2025 indicates that local organisations faced a sharp rise in cyberattacks during 2025, imposing high financial and operational costs on businesses, government institutions and consumers. 

According to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre, cyber breaches and attacks in South Africa increased by 22% in 2023. Phishing, ransomware and unlawful access to information all rose markedly, while the number of victims making ransomware payments increased by 20%. Rapid advances in AI have added a new dimension to these risks.

These rising threats demand more than stronger technology; they demand a generation equipped to use it wisely. South Africans must move beyond simply operating AI tools. They must be able to question how these systems are designed, whose interests they serve, and what consequences they may carry.

Government has a critical role to play in building this capacity. South Africa’s response cannot be limited to securing networks after they have been attacked; it must also equip people to navigate a digital environment in which deception is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Government is already taking steps in this direction, including strengthening cybersecurity awareness, expanding digital skills and developing a national approach to the responsible adoption and governance of AI. 

This commitment to responsible AI governance also extends to South Africa’s role on the international stage. At the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, President Cyril Ramaphosa called for human governance to advance as rapidly as artificial intelligence itself, warning of the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems, including advanced cyber operations and manipulation. South Africa subsequently proposed the establishment of an international mechanism within BRICS for the independent scientific evaluation of AI, supported by meaningful human control, the reporting of serious incidents and stronger safeguards as AI capabilities increase.

This position reflects an important principle: technological progress cannot be allowed to outpace society’s ability to understand, govern and secure it. For South Africa, this means building not only the infrastructure and skills to use AI, but also the institutions, safeguards and public awareness needed to ensure that this powerful technology strengthens society rather than deepening its vulnerabilities.

Every citizen also has a role to play in strengthening our collective cyber resilience. Before responding to an urgent request for money, sharing personal information or acting on a message that appears to come from someone we trust, we must ask a simple question: Can I independently verify that this is real? That moment of hesitation may be the difference between being protected and becoming a victim.

But we should not place the entire burden on individuals. Citizens need access to reliable information and clear guidance to navigate an increasingly complex digital environment. 

Through the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), government is strengthening efforts to counter misinformation and disinformation, including fact-checking and public education to help citizens identify manipulated content, deepfakes and other forms of digital deception. 

This is more than a communication intervention; it is an investment in an informed and resilient citizenry. Building an AI-literate nation is therefore not about creating a population that fears technology. It is about equipping citizens to use it confidently, question it critically and recognise when it is being weaponised against them. 

In an age where false information can spread rapidly, the AI era will test not only our technological capabilities, but our ability to preserve trust in an increasingly digital society. While we cannot prevent every misuse of AI, we can ensure that criminals do not outpace our preparedness. 

This requires government to strengthen frameworks, institutions and public awareness; businesses to embed cybersecurity and responsible AI practices; and citizens to question and verify what they encounter online.

South Africa’s response must therefore go beyond protecting systems to protecting people, institutions and public trust. By building an AI-literate society, strengthening resilient institutions, and placing human judgement at the centre of technological progress, we can ensure AI remains a force for empowerment rather than exploitation.

The choices we make today will shape the future of AI. Our task is to ensure that we are not only ready for that future but prepared to secure it.

*Pila is Director: Cluster Support at the GCIS

The Department of Home Affairs has welcomed the arrest of two former officials linked to a syndicate that fraudulently issued South African passports to foreign nationals for up to R100 000 each.

The officials allegedly exploited weaknesses in an outdated manual process to issue passports through a loophole known as “photo swapping”. 

This involved using the identity details of legitimate South African citizens to obtain passports bearing photographs of foreign nationals.

The arrests follow a joint investigation by the department’s Counter Corruption Unit and the Hawks, which uncovered the syndicate in 2022.

“This case is a powerful example of why we are digitally transforming Home Affairs. Under the department’s ongoing digital reforms, biometric verification now links applicants to their identities throughout the application process, including when photographs are captured. This closes the loophole that previously enabled criminals to substitute a foreign national’s photograph for that of a South African citizen.

“The same approach underpins the department’s Digital Partnership with banks, which is expanding access to Smart ID Cards through secure, digitally integrated processes,” Home Affairs said.

Home Affairs said that, by automating identity verification and reducing human discretion, it is systematically removing opportunities for corruption across its systems.

Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber said that, for years, outdated manual processes had created loopholes that criminal syndicates could exploit to fraudulently obtain South African passports.

“Through our digital transformation, we are closing these loopholes by introducing secure biometric verification and automated systems that remove opportunities for human manipulation.

“Our reforms are not simply about making Home Affairs faster and more convenient. They are about fundamentally changing how the department operates so that fraud and corruption are prevented by design, rather than detected only after the damage has been done,” the Minister said.

Since the start of the seventh administration, 98 Home Affairs officials have been dismissed and 42 have been arrested as part of the department’s sustained crackdown on corruption.

Schreiber commended the department’s Counter Corruption Unit and the Hawks for their continued efforts to root out corruption. – SAnews.gov.za

The South African Police Service (SAPS) has confirmed that Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya is no longer an employee of the Service with effect from Monday, 12 October 2026.

The disciplinary hearing against Lieutenant General Sibiya sat this morning, during which his legal representative tendered his resignation immediately after the disciplinary proceedings had commenced.

“As the former senior officer had an ongoing disciplinary case against him at the time of his resignation, his departure from the Service is therefore regarded as a dishonourable discharge.

“The SAPS confirms that Lieutenant General Sibiya’s employment with the Service has been terminated with immediate effect,” the SAPS said in a statement. –SAnews.gov.za