1. Hon.MEC , Speaker and members, in 2017, together with the Nelson Mandela Medical School students, I embarked on a Pink City Transport march to the Ethekwini Council and the students handed the then Deputy Mayor, Fawzia Peer, a memorandum for the City to acknowledge and use in its IDP to improve the inter-city taxi transport system; both in design and operation.
2. Medical students stated that many female patients suffered emotional scarring due to molestation, rape and other forms of abuse and violence using our public transport systems.
3. The Minority Front recommends that the Department of Transport look at various models in Brazil and India and adopt what would work in South Africa. This would attract more women drivers to the industry.
4. Furthermore, to reduce GBV in India there are regular stakeholder training for male taxi drivers, where a facilitator, sensitises them to the fears and anxieties of female commuters and the absolute need for trust to be built in the taxi-industry.
5. These changes bodes for far reaching regulatory mechanisms to change behaviour in the public and private taxi-industry of operators and drivers. The outcomes would reduce not only GBV but also tragic accidents.
6. Other basic needs entail clean services, as in, clean taxi-ranks, public toilets and taxis. Shelters and seats at taxi-stops must be part of the IDP, Hon.MEC. Please engage with local government. With these words the MF welcomes these profound, positive safety changes to transform the taxi-industry, Hon.MEC whilst the MF expresses our deepest condolences to families who have lost loved ones on our roads.
7. Thank you.

Hon. S. Thakur- Rajbansi

Word count: 266