N Mapisa-Nqakula: Debate on International Women's Day, NA

8 March 2006

Madam speaker,
Honourable cabinet colleagues,
Honourable members,
Veterans of the women struggle
Women of the world
Friends!

Today the world marks International Women's Day and here at home, we should
thank parliament and the Ministry of Arts and Culture for allowing us an
opportunity to have this debate as part of our national celebrations.

On this day, the South African nation should express solidarity with women
all over the world where women and children continue to be affected by poverty,
conflict and disease. We call on the world as a whole to give a thought to
women and children in Sudan and Palestine, two nations where as peoples of the
world, we cannot justify our continued inaction in the face of human suffering
resulting from conflict. We hope that the stalemate in Palestine can be
resolved, also in the interest of woman in that country.

Having appreciated the power and impact of solidarity for our struggle here
at home, the women of our country also express support for the role our
government has been playing in brokering peace in major hotspots of conflict
both in our continent and elsewhere in the world. We applaud these initiatives
because of our understanding that women all over the world yearn for conditions
of peace and stability.

The people of our country, therefore, will continue to stand behind our
President as he leads this crusade for world peace, including recent
initiatives both in the Congo and lately, in accepting the invitation to share
our experiences for peace and stability with the people of Iraq.

Madam Speaker,

As democracy and freedom dawned on our country in the previous decade,
significant strides were also being made all over the globe to place issues of
women's emancipation firmly on the world agenda.

National struggles of women in different countries have culminated into a
global united effort to oppose and eradicate the subjugation of women in all
spheres of our society. These global efforts have mainly been responsible for
the progress made by humanity in the fight against the oppression of women.

The sitting of the United Nations (UN) Conference on women in Beijing in
1995 was an important step in this regard. While it cannot be viewed in
isolation from similar engagements previously, the conference done more to
heighten the world's attention to the plight of women all over the world, and
to develop a tangible programme of action on which the world can measure itself
on progress made.

Recently, we have taken note of a further statement by the Security Council
bemoaning the lack of commitment by the UN Secretary-General to ensure the
representation of women in senior positions within the UN system. This
development in the UN system demonstrates an anti-thesis to the UN's commitment
to the Beijing Platform of Action, and compels us to join the Security Council
in condemning this state of affairs.

It will be important therefore, Honourable Members, that this debate should
also serve to conduct a critical assessment of the world that women are living
in today, 11 years since that historic conference of the women held in
Beijing.

I am sure that as we conduct this assessment, we will frankly acknowledge
that the world that we live in, despite the progress we have made, is still one
that is not safe for majority of women. It is a world where war resulting from
greed and graft has had the direst impact on the lives of women. A world where
more and more continue to die of hunger and curable diseases. A world where
many women live under the yoke of oppression in the name of religious bigotry
and at times, veiled under the oligarchy of traditional values and
ordinances.

During the year 2003, the African National Congress (ANC) Women's League and
many other women organisations around the world sought to engage directly with
this systematic oppression of women, by taking up a campaign to oppose the
harsh sentence where a woman was to be stoned to death for breaching these
religious ordinances in Nigeria. This cruel and inhuman action has been as a
result of those who sought to interpret religion in such a way that they can
hide behind it in undermining the rights of women.

Two things that the campaign to save Amina Lawal showed to us, was that
firstly, the struggle for women emancipation is still going to be a long and
tedious one, but also that where humanity stand united, without consideration
of race, colour, national borders and creed, freedom can triumph over
repression.

The rest of the world, therefore, will have to take up the struggle against
women oppression as a struggle that goes right into the heart of saving
humanity. Comrade Thabo Mbeki, as one of the ardent activist for this cause,
uses the words of another distinguished activist, Olive Schreiner, to remind us
of this fact. And I repeat the quote here:

"Many women have now the vote, and are parts of the governing power of their
nations all will have it soon. If we need to use our power to its noblest end,
we shall have to learn that the freedom of all human creatures is essential to
the full development of human life on earth. We shall have to labour not merely
for a larger freedom for ourselves, but for every subject race and class, and
for all suppressed individuals."

Of course, Madame Speaker, in the case of South Africa and many other
societies, we should also be cautious of dealing with the issue of women
emancipation in a manner that suggests that women are just a homogeneous entity
that is not affected by other social constructs such as class and race.

The struggle for women's emancipation therefore, should be seen as a micro
entity in the struggle to transform society as a whole.

The Women's Charter called for equality. It expressed this equality as the
single principle that underlines all the other claims in the Charter. In the
context of the broad social movement for the transformation of our society,
equality could never be fully achieved in narrow procedural terms. Not when
there are others who still can not have access to basic conditions conducive
for a decent quality of life. The emancipation of women, therefore, should also
entail the eradication of inequality within society and indeed inequality
amongst women. The two should never be separated.

Honourable Members and Friends,

Fifty years since the great women's march of 1956 and 12 years into our
democracy, we need to enquire as to how well we are doing as a nation in this
regard. Plainly put, are we still on track?

The past decade has seen great strides by South African society to address
this issue of equality both with specific reference to women and within the
broader context of our society. The extent, to which we have made progress in
this regard, has made it possible for us to boldly declare that, as our country
enters the Age of Hope, so are women marching along with the rest of our
nation. This age of hope, premised on the firm acknowledgement that ‘today is
better than yesterday’, has a meaning for women too.

Despite the strong institutional mechanisms that we have put in place, women
have also experienced first hand the benefit of social delivery programmes.

Under the democratic government led by the ANC, women have been direct
beneficiaries of our policy regime, which has also ensured greater protection
for women. Chief amongst these has been the direct intervention in fighting the
scourge of domestic abuse.

Within this context, Madam Speaker, we need to add our voices in condemning
the actions of some of the protesters who demonstrating in front of the High
Court in Johannesburg at the rape trial of our former Deputy President.

It is despicable in the very least that some of these demonstrators have
sought to abuse a complainant who has come out to seek society's protection as
an alleged victim of abuse. Without going into the merits of this case, society
should be able to give her this support. It is unacceptable that after spending
years fighting for the right of all individuals to express themselves freely,
we should again be the ones who vilify someone who seeks to exercise this
right.

I must reiterate our position that the right of our Deputy President to be
regarded innocent until proven guilty should be respected, while at the same we
give our support to the woman at the centre of this trial during this difficult
time.

We should continue to defend the gains that we made in both the emancipation
and the protection of women and as a nation; we have the duty to ensure that
such gains are never reversed.

These gains have been as a result of a conscious and deliberate plan
informed by the significant importance the democratic government attaches to
this matter.

Madam Speaker,

For us in the ANC, there has always been an established link that places the
struggle for women's emancipation as an integral part of our objective of
building a South African society that is free, democratic, non sexist, and non
racial. It is for this reason that together with the rest of the South African
society, we join the rest of the women of the world in marking this day.

As we mark this day, we are also launching our programme for the celebration
of the 50 years anniversary of the women's march in 1956. We honour the many
women heroes who have made a selfless contribution to the attainment of freedom
and democracy in our country.

This is also the day when women register an important achievement through
the launch of the national Steering Committee for establishment of the national
women's movement. The establishment of a national movement will be a
culmination of years of consultation by women from all walks of life who have
united beyond sectoral differences to put in place a viable vehicle to enhance
the struggle for women's emancipation. We should congratulate women on this
epoch making achievement.

Honourable members will remember that a few weeks ago, we reemphasised the
ANC's commitment to ensure 50 percent women representation of all local
government councillors after the March 1 elections. Although the ANC had pushed
for this trajectory, it is now said based on the list of all parties, the
election results show that just over 39 percent of women shall become
councillors in local government.

Maybe it is high time that this House considers taking a bold move to ensure
that all of us do not pay lip service to the issue of increasing the role of
women in decision making.

As we characterised the world that we live in beyond 1956 and beyond 1995,
it is clear that we have a real challenge to further advance the gains that we
have made. Most importantly, we need to do this so that those who are still not
covered by some of these gains are able to equally enjoy the benefits of the
progress we have made together in emancipation of women and the transformation
of our country.

Our Programme of Action for the second decade of freedom in the emancipation
of women is fully integrated in all eight priority areas of focus for
Government. It highlights all our programmes that are integral in all these
objectives. These objectives include a commitment to use the second decade of
our freedom to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment, as well as to secure the
safety and security of our people. Given the progress we have registered so
far, we are sure that we shall succeed, and in this way we shall ensure that
indeed, "tomorrow shall be better than today."

I thank you.

Issued by: Department Home Affairs
8 March 2006