Programme Director and Deputy Regional Commissioner for the Free State/ Northern Cape: Ms TG Molatedi
Mayor of Moqhaka Local Municipality: Your Worship, Cllr. Jihad Mohapi
National Commissioner: Mr Thomas Moyane
Chief Operating Officer: Ms Nontsikelelo Jolingana
Regional Commissioner for Free State/ Northern Cape: Ms Subashini Moodley
Chief Deputy Commissioners, Regional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners
Other Members of the Correctional Services Family
Rev. Galela-Tema
The Management of Old Mutual
The Management of Celtic Football Club
Offenders and participants
Members of the media
Distinguished guests
Malibongwe igama lamakhosikazi!
As you are aware, during August, South Africa commemorates Women’s Month. The 2013 theme is: “A Centenary of Working Together towards Sustainable Women Empowerment and Gender Equality”.
Today, as we celebrate Women’s Day, without the total and unconditional emancipation of all women, the liberation of our country, and the African continent, remains incomplete. The Chairperson of the African Union, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, reminds us that the Assembly of Heads of State and Government declared 2010-2020 as the Decade of Women, asking us to join hands in the fight against wars on the continent because women suffer the most. Dr Dlamini-Zuma urges us that, “working together with all member states and other sectors of society, we must ensure this decade lays a firm basis for the emancipation of women. Africa, nor any other continent, cannot achieve its full potential if 50% of its people remain in under-development and marginalised.”
Gender inequality and the oppression of women, undermine efforts towards the development, and growth, of our economy and, thus, hinder national prosperity. Like we fought colonialism and apartheid, we should continue in our struggle to obliterate racism’s twin sister, sexism. We must resolve to accelerate progress towards gender equality, both in the public, and private, sector as well as society as a whole.
We should continuously ask ourselves, what more should we do to ensure that the empowerment, and emancipation, of women becomes a daily reality? In the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), we still have a long way to go towards employing more women from all groups (Black, White, Coloured and Indian), at entry and management levels. This is non-negotiable, and the 50% male and female representivity will be achieved. In fact, women are able to play a more meaningful role in ensuring the success of corrections and rehabilitation.
The late President of Mozambique, Samora Machel, knew that, "the emancipation of women is not an act of charity, or the result of a humanitarian or compassionate attitude. The liberation of women is a fundamental necessity for the revolution, the guarantee of its continuity and the precondition of its victory."
Many of the heroines of our freedom either had a stint in prison, or served many years for our just cause which was about human freedom, dignity, non-racialism and equality for all. In honour of the many women who were stripped of their dignity by past authorities and apartheid jails, DCS has a special role to play in the rehabilitation of offenders, in particular young offenders, so that they can realise the opportunities that have come with the new dispensation and how they may take advantage of such prospects.
It is for this reason that we will not cease in encouraging, and compelling, offenders to be trained, and educated, whilst in our care. It is said that, “educate a man and you educate one person; educate a woman and you educate a whole nation.”
Indeed, as Muhammad Ali Jinah reminds us: “No nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.”
Pass Laws were a cornerstone of the dehumanising, racist and segregationist policies of our collective past. They also underpinned racial capitalism in South Africa. There is no way in which you can explain colonial segregation, and apartheid, without reference to these hated pass laws which destroyed the lives of African people and their families. To a large extent, the anti-segregation, and anti-apartheid, struggle was precisely articulated, and fought, against the much despicable so-called dompass. Women, although they were recruited much later into the liberation movements, were always at the forefront of the battle against pass laws.
It was in 1913 when unjust laws were enacted, to reserve 87% of the land in the hands of the White settler minority. This was also the year when the illegitimate Union Government first attempted to make South African women carry passes, when the Orange Free State introduced a new requirement that women, in addition to existing regulations for Black men, must carry reference documents. Led by Charlotte Maxeke in Bloemfontein in this province, hundreds of women rejected, and protested against, the pass laws and their attendant indignity.
Sol Plaatjie in his book, Native Life in South Africa, records that women in their 1913 anti-pass law campaign said: “We have done with pleading.” Unlike the men in the ANC leadership, who were serial petitioners, the women decided to take the law into their own hands. A number of the Black, and Coloured, women who participated in the anti-pass protests, and demonstrations, in Bloemfontein were imprisoned for their courageous acts of resistance against the intended extension of pass laws.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in an attempt to curb the growth and prosperity of the Indian merchant class, government passed a series of restrictions, and laws, targeting the Indian community. The first, organised, open passive resistance against pass laws, in the Indian community, was led by Mahatma Ghandi in the Transvaal in 1906.
In the fifties, Women’s League leader, Lilian Ngoyi, characterised the pass laws as “a badge of slavery in terms whereof all sorts of insults and humiliation may be committed on Africans by members of the ruling class.”
In Langa township, in January 1953, in protest against the impending application of the Native Laws Amendment Act, Dora Tamana, a member of the ANC Women’s League, and the Federation of South African Women, declared: “We, women, will never carry these passes. This is something that touches my heart. I appeal to you young Africans to come forward and fight. These passes make the road even narrower for us. We have seen unemployment, lack of accommodation and families broken because of passes. We have seen it with our men. Who will look after our children when we go to jail for a small technical offence - not having a pass?”
On 9 August 1956, 20 000 women, from all walks of life and from all races, descended on the citadels of apartheid power, the Union Buildings, to defy pass laws and demand justice and equality.
The women were led by the ANC Women’s League and the Federation of South African women. Among this group of protesters were Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Sophie Williams-De Bruyn, Albertina Sisulu, Rahima Moosa and Dorothy Nyembe. During the march, the women sang a freedom song: Wathint' abafazi, Strijdom! wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo, uza kufa! (When) you strike the women, you strike a rock, you will be crushed (you will die)!
The authoritarian, inflexible Nats regime, which was hell-bent on extending passes to women, was again resisted by rural women in Zeerust in 1957. The women’s anti-pass revolt began in 1957 in Lehurutse, and spread to other villages such as Dinokana, Lekgopung, Motswedi and Gopane. Mobile trucks were being sent by the racist government to bring “dompasses” to women. Women defied even their traditional leaders, who were instructing them to cooperate and take the dompasses. May we once more say, “Igama Lamakhosikazi Malibongwe."
In 2013, as we commit to another century of women’s emancipation and gender equality, we celebrate that our government has remembered the 1913 Land Act, and the 1913 Women’s anti-pass campaign, by beginning to issue new, secure identity cards as a symbol to a new chapter in the lives of all citizens of this country.
The stories of the anti-pass campaigns tell the story of the struggle for human rights in South Africa. South African judges chose Old Fort (Number Four) Prison, to be the permanent home of the country’s constitutional court, where human rights cases are judged. The exhibitions at Old Fort, Number Four and the Women Gaol offer a national narrative on human rights in post-apartheid South Africa, and show a break with the authoritarian past. Central to defining who we are as South Africans, the Conhil heritage site is central to defining the new South Africa where elements from our violent past are appropriated to create the foundations of a post- authoritarian nationhood (Tony King & M. K. Flynn).
Programme Director, we are not proud that, for a long time, South Africa holds the record of the highest inmate population in Africa. In our facilities we have mothers, and daughters, who have killed male abusers in their families. We have women serving life sentences, as a result of killing their partners. What is even more disturbing is that some of these women are serving time together with their daughters, who assisted them in committing these murders after they themselves were direct, or indirect, victims of abuse by their fathers.
These women need help in dealing with the trauma of having experienced often long-term physical, and emotional, abuse. Another group is female offenders who have violently acted against other women, due to competition for affection from their male partners. Women, women, women, please find other ways for your self-validation than depending on these men who, never grow up and, continue to cheat even in the midst of diseases such as HIV and AIDS. We also have women offenders who are pregnant, as well as those incarcerated with babies under two years.
Across the country, we currently have 3,505 female inmates; 980 are remand detainees and 2,525 are sentenced. Between January and March, 282 mothers were incarcerated with their babies. In this region, the Free State/Northern Cape Region, we have female Correctional Centres at Kroonstad, Kimberley, De Aar and Upington. There are 327 female inmates, of which 281 are sentenced and 46 are remand detainees. There are ten mothers incarcerated with their babies. The majority of these women committed economic, and aggressive, crimes. Currently, 53 women are attending Adult Education and Training (AET) Programmes. These women also participate in skills development programmes including computer literacy, hair care, nail and beauty care and sewing. Others are studying towards degrees.
Ladies and gentlemen and fellow compatriots, Corrections is a Societal Responsibility. There are many men, and women, who are in partnership with DCS in the rehabilitation of offenders, as well as the healing of victims of crime. Sport, and recreation, is a key programme of DCS in the rehabilitation of offenders. On 2 August, Mr Jimmy Augosti, the Chairperson of Celtic Football Club (FC), celebrated his birthday with offenders from Grootvlei Medium A and B Correctional Centres. He played soccer together with 200 offenders, and donated a trophy, medals, a cake and food. He is an inspiration, and is motivating offenders, and officials, to impact the lives of others.
The Celtic FC, in partnership with Old Mutual, has also joined us here today. They are making various contributions including donating goodie bags to about 300 female offenders, and 20 babies, as well as a trophy for the winners of today’s soccer and netball matches. We invite others to become involved in our rehabilitation, and reintegration, efforts because everyone deserves a second chance in life. In February, male offenders’ from this region took first place, and the female offenders’ second place, in the DCS national offender soccer championships hosted in Gauteng.
Throughout the centuries, women have shown heroism and immense courage. We need to write, and preserve, these stories so that women do not remain history’s anonymous actors. Women deal with issues that the majority of us, men, won't be able to deal with.
In Sesotho we say, Mosadi o tshwara thipa ka bohaleng. In 2009, on Women’s Day, President Jacob Zuma reminded us that we must look beyond our leaders and appreciate the role of women who are never in the news, but who make South Africa succeed. We wish to single out the women in correctional services who work irregular hours. We think of the rural women including farm workers, as well as domestic workers, who toil so that their families can have something to eat, so that their children can go to school. They work under difficult conditions, and, in most cases, are abused. We salute the women who are home-based, whose contribution to the household is never recognised as work. In many households, many such women care for the sick and vulnerable. Women, you are indeed phenomenal.
Programme Director, as I conclude, allow me to call the COO, Ms Nontsikelelo Jolingana, to articulate a poem by Maya Angelo:
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say, It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say, It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much, But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say, It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say, It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.
Malibongwe Igama Lamakhosikazi.
Thank you.
