Women of Africa unite

Not long before our August Women's Month, the movement, South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID), hosted a delegation of about 100 women from Burundi. This delegation was representative of the women of Burundi, including refugees and people displaced by the decade-old conflict in that country.

It came to our country to meet the women of South Africa and share experiences with them, focused on further intensifying the struggle for women's emancipation, gender equality and a better life for the women and ordinary people of our two countries and our continent as a whole. It therefore interacted with a similarly representative delegation of 200 South African women.

I had the privilege to meet the women of Burundi and listen to a presentation of "The Esselen Park Declaration" adopted by these women. Among other things, the Declaration "urged that women's rights and the entrenchment of gender equality for women be observed in the interim and final constitutions (of Burundi), and that all future deliberations regarding the future of Burundi guarantee proportional representation of Barundi women."

During my interaction with the delegation, I had occasion to listen to its leader, Mrs Juliette Kavabuha Icoyitungiye, a woman Minister in the Burundi Transitional Government, who said she wanted "to introduce the President of South Africa to the Burundi woman."

She said: "Everyday the Burundi woman feeds 7 million Barundi. She is the first to get up, and the last to go to bed. And yet her husband does not hesitate verbally to abuse her, shouting - you lazy one!

"The Burundi woman does arduous unpaid domestic work. She is a worker who is viewed as a milk cow. She never receives thanks for what she does.

"She owns nothing. The land belongs to her husband. Even when he dies, she cannot inherit this land. Her son inherits the land because he is a man.

"The Burundi woman is determined to change all these things. If the Barundi women were decision makers, they would have changed their lives. But men write the laws. The women are never consulted.

"But the hand of providence has brought us to South Africa. The Burundi woman sowed a new plant in South Africa. And now the Burundi woman will need to water this new plant." She then proceeded to read "The Esselen Park Declaration". Fortuitously, the Barundi women had already presented the Declaration to a group of Burundi political leaders, including the President of the Republic, Domicien Ndayizeye.

As the Barundi women met at Esselen Park, this political leadership was meeting in Tshwane, under the leadership of the Facilitator of the Burundi Peace Process, our Deputy President Jacob Zuma, negotiating a power-sharing agreement that would be incorporated into the final Constitution of Burundi.

These important political leaders decided that this Constitution would guarantee that at least 30% of the members of all legislative bodies in Burundi would be women. The male political leaders meeting in Tshwane had heard the voice of the Burundi woman, expressed through the Esselen Park Declaration!

The Speaker of the Pan African Parliament, Gertrude Mongela, was one of the delegates at the dialogue between the women of Burundi and South Africa. When she spoke, she called for the strengthening and activation of the Pan African Women's Organisation. The clarion call made by this outstanding African woman leader was simply this - women of Africa unite!

Ten days after the inspiring encounter with the Burundi woman, we were again privileged to meet another delegation of African women in Accra, Ghana. This was a much smaller delegation representing the women of the Cote d'Ivoire.

They had crossed the border into Ghana and Accra seeking to address an important meeting aimed at ending the conflict in the Cote d'Ivoire. The meeting was convened by the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, and the Chairperson of ECOWAS, Ghana President John Kuffuor, and met under their chairpersonship.

In addition, all the major political leaders of the Cote d'Ivoire, and 17 African delegations attended it. 14 of these were led by Heads of State and Government, as well as the Chairpersons of the AU and the African Commission, President Obasanjo and Alpha Omar Konare respectively.

The Ivorian women told us that they had come to Accra to make their own contribution to the search for a lasting peace in their own country. They said that first and foremost the Ivorian conflict affected women and children.

Like the women of Burundi, they too said despite this, nobody consulted them about the solution to this conflict. And yet they had concrete suggestions they wanted to make. And their ideas came across to us as most useful and constructive.

The Ivorian women have also said they also want to interact with their South African counterparts, again to discuss issues of peace and democracy, women' s emancipation, the achievement of a better life for the women and peoples of Africa, and building a united movement of the women of Africa.

If they come to South Africa, they will be the third delegation of African women to come to our country pursuing these goals. The first came from the Democratic Republic of Congo during 2003, with the women of the DRC having constituted themselves into the Caucus of Congolese Women.

Speaking to their South African comrades as well as the women and people of their own country, the Caucus of Congolese Women said:

"The Congolese negotiations have given women the opportunity to redefine themselves and to define their role with regard to the State and civil society. Women's associations became strengthened and played a significant role in change and development, thus contributing to the emergence of women' s skills and constituting a true arena for apprenticeship to citizenship.

"The question of political participation by women is henceforth on the table, having long been marginalised while society was preoccupied with other important issues. The women of Congo realised that they have the potential to change society, provided they are organised and united. The activities that women undertook in the peace process revitalised and mobilised them to overcome obstacles and attain a common goal.

"Over and above any divergence on the role and place of women in society, there is now a unanimous acknowledgement of the need for their inclusion in the political arena.

"The establishment of the Caucus marks a new turning point in the struggle of women.The activities of the Caucus have made it possible for the women of Congo to awaken, and has awakened society as a whole to a new mind-set. The path of the women of Congo towards peace has made it possible to revitalise relations between the grass roots level and the leaders.

"The struggle of women for recognition of their rights has become a fight for social justice because there are many men who share their views. One may note in particular that men are now also speaking of the participation of women in decision making."

The views expressed by the Caucus of Congolese Women are relevant both to the women of Africa and the African progressive forces as a whole. They point to the importance of drawing women into active struggle for gender equality and the fundamental social transformation of our continent.

Over the last few years Africa has taken new bold steps to organise itself for its renaissance. This has given birth to the African Union and its development programme, NEPAD. Necessarily these processes have been led and involved governments. But repeatedly, other leaders of the masses of the African people have correctly demanded that these masses should also act as their own liberators from war, oppression, poverty and marginalisation.

Indeed, the veritable revolution implied by the shared African vision of an African renaissance means that the people themselves must be involved as conscious agents of change. As part of this, and as the Congolese women said, we are faced with the imperative "to revitalise relations between the grass roots level and the leaders."

The Congolese women also said, "The women of Congo realised that they have the potential to change society, provided they are organised and united." To this we should add that they have the potential to change Africa, provided they are organised and united.

All indications point to the emergence of the women of Africa as such a mass force for the renewal of our continent. They point to the growing recognition of the fundamental perspective that the emancipation of women must be an inherent part of that process of renewal.

They signal that for this to be achieved, the women themselves must be organised and activated. But they also signal that the struggle for the emancipation of women is not the responsibility of women alone, but is a strategic task that faces men as well, as well as the progressive forces that are engaged in struggle to transform our countries and continent.

The work that has engaged the women of South Africa, the DRC and Burundi has given directions as to what needs to be done and can be done to achieve all these objectives. These activities have both confirmed the correctness and urgency of the call made by the Speaker of the Pan African Parliament -women of Africa unite! - and provided a practical example of the concrete steps that can and should be undertaken to translate this into reality.

This year we will celebrate our National Women's Day in the company of three women from the Caribbean. These are Lucie Tondreau, Myrtha Desulme and Verene Shepherd. They have come to our country to speak to all of us about Haiti, and encourage us to join an international movement of solidarity with the people of Haiti. Their presence among us emphasises the point that the struggles of the women of Africa must be for the victory of an African Renaissance that encompasses the African Diaspora.

In one of her lectures "The Black Odyssey", Myrta Desulme quotes the Caribbean poet H.D. Carberry, thus:

"There shall come a time
When these children in rags
Who litter the streets?
Who know the crushing mastery of poverty?
And the curses of dirt and slovenliness
Shall walk with heads erect
Proud owners of a new world
Masters of themselves
Admitting no inequality
Feeling no inferiority
Only a great humility and wonder
For the destiny that shall be theirs.

Together, we can make it happen."

This vision, shared by the women who marched on the Union Buildings on August 9, 1956 is coming to its fruition. In Haiti and the Cote d'Ivoire, in the DRC and Burundi and South Africa, and elsewhere on our common globe, the women of the world are rising to claim their place as the makers of history.

By their actions, they are helping to create the conditions for the ordinary people of Africa, the Caribbean and the rest of the world to become "proud owners of a new world".

The task we must set ourselves as we celebrate Woman's Day and Woman's Month must be for all of us to say - acting together with them, we can make it happen. A happy Woman's Day to the women of our country, Africa, the African Diaspora and the world!

Women's Day

Ten years of women's development

As South Africa marks National Women's Day as a public holiday for the tenth time, on Monday 9 August, it celebrates ten years of achievements in achieving gender equity and improving the lives of women. It also draws attention to the many challenges that still remain.

As part of the organisation's review of the first ten years of democracy, the ANC National Executive Committee's gender subcommittee produced a 'Report on Delivery to Women', which highlighted some of the key achievements in each department of government. This report places the issue of women's emancipation and development at the heart of nation-building and transformation.

In her foreword to the report, the subcommittee's convenor, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, said: "In the African National Congress, we believe that we cannot say that we are progressing as a people and as a nation, unless the women of our country are truly liberated, and until we have reached a state of gender equality and gender equity."

During the first decade of our democratic government, the ANC has strived to bring about real change: "We have replaced unjust and inequitable legislation with laws that facilitate social transformation. And for the first time in the history of this country, gender equality and gender equity are included in the transformation agenda."

While there have been great advances made towards gender equality and gender equity over the past ten years, it is necessary to be sensitive to the harsh realities that still face the majority of women in South Africa.

"It is women who bear the brunt of poverty. Their lives are still characterised by low levels of literacy and inequitable access to education, adequate food, health care, housing, and water and fuel sources. Moreover, many women are still subjected to various forms of violence on a daily basis, directed at them solely by virtue of their sex and gender.

"Women experience high levels of unemployment or underemployment, and in the case of domestic workers and farm workers, their working conditions are generally sub-human and their wages still unacceptably low. Women have minimal access to legal protection, formal justice and social security. And all of these struggles are amplified in the lives of those women who live in the rural areas and in informal settlements," she said.

One of the central achievements for women in the first ten years was the adoption of the country's new constitution in 1996, and its emphasis on the right to equality. This has been strengthened by laws like The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, which makes provision, among other things, for Equality Courts to deal with charges of unfair discrimination, including on the basis of gender.

The establishment of institutions like the Commission on Gender Equality, Office on the Status of Women, and the parliamentary Committee on the Improvement of the Quality of Life and Status of Women has contributed to placing the rights of women high on the national agenda.

Representation of women

The last ten years has seen a significant increase in the representation and influence of women in all spheres of government and broader public life. The goal of increasing women's representation in parliaments had been agreed upon at numerous international conferences. The target of 30 percent representation of women in key decision making positions was endorsed by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and is part of the Millennium Development Goals.

Largely due to the ANC's policy of ensuring a minimum of one-third representation of women on its election lists at all levels of government, the representation of women has improved significantly. According to Amanda Gouws from the University of Stellenbosch, there are now 131 women in the 400-seat National Assembly, in contrast to the 119 elected in the 1999 election. Women therefore constitute 32.8 perecent of the National Assembly, "mostly due to the increase in the ANC's share of the vote and its commitment to a one third gender quota".

The ANC's MPs make up 82 percent of the total number of women in parliament, a far higher proportion than the organisation's 69 percent of seats. South Africa has now moved up from 15th position to 11th in the world with regard to the number of women in parliament, Gouws observes. Of the ministers and deputy ministers appointed after the April elections, 41 percent are women. Three of the nine premiers are women, up from just one before the election.

Fighting poverty

Much of the work of the ANC government over the last ten years to push back the frontiers of poverty has improved the lives of poor women in particular. This is both because women form a disproportionately large segment of the poor, unemployed and vulnerable, and because government has made efforts to ensure that all programmes address the specific needs of women.

The land reform policy developed over this period has, for example, aimed among other things to give women security and equal rights with men regarding ownership, control and use of land. The Extension of Security of Tenure Act of 1997 gives women and children independent rights as occupiers on farms owned by another person, to ensure women are protected against arbitrary or unfair eviction.

Education and skills development has been a major part of the fight against poverty. An area of particular concern has been to ensure that the girl child has equal access and opportunity to education, and to minimise the dropout rate among girls. The South African Schools Act of 1996 makes schooling compulsory for all children for 10 years and states that there should be no discrimination between boys and girls.

There have been major achievements in the area of health. The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act allows all women access to termination of pregnancy under certain circumstances, helping to improve the rights of women and reducing the health risks associated with illegal abortions. Primary Health Care was introduced with major benefits for poor rural women. In 1994, the government introduced free health care for pregnant women and children under six at state clinics and hospitals. The Integrated Nutrition Programme assists pregnant women to maintain good levels of nutrition. The Health Department distributes female condoms to try and protect women from HIV infection.

Women also have improved access to housing. The Housing Act of 1997 promotes the active participation of women in housing and creates opportunities for women to participate in the industry by granting them bridging finance. One of the aims of the National Housing programme is the provision of security of tenure.

Support given to the People's Housing Process, which gives subsidies and technical support to consumers who want to build their own houses, has benefited women in particular. Government is committed to ensuring that the percentage of housing subsidies that are allocated to women is representative of the percentage of female-headed households in any particular province.

Poor women have also benefited from the social development programmes of government, including the massive extension of social grants. By raising the maximum age of eligibility for the Child Support Grant, and by vigorously campaigning to ensure that all eligible children receive the grant, government has contributed greatly to improving the lives of women who bear sole or primary responsibility for child care.

Since 1996, the number of households with access to electricity increased from 30 percent to 70 percent, and the number of households with access to clean running water increased from 60 to 80 percent. This has a profound impact on the lives of women, who are often have to undertake the work of collecting water and attending to a household's energy requirements.

Tackling abuse

Significant effort has also been made to tackle violence against women. National Policy Guidelines for handling victims of sexual offences were developed and implemented in 1997. Legislation on minimum sentencing for serious crimes, including rape, was also passed. The Domestic Violence Act of 1998 defines domestic violence in broad terms, extends the range of relationships that are protected and places obligations on law enforcement agents to actively assist women to assert their rights. The Criminal Procedure Amendment Act of 1996 aims at eliminating delays in finalisation of trials for women and children. Special courts have been set up to deal with cases of violence against women and children.

Women at work

The position of women in the workplace has also been significantly improved. The Labour Relations Act of 1995, extended to cover the public service in 1996, states that "no-one may be discriminated against on the basis of family responsibility, marital status or sexual orientation". The Act also now covers vulnerable sectors, including domestic workers. Employment Equity legislation aims to increase the representation of women in decision-making positions in both the public and private sector.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act was extended to cover domestic workers. It also addresses the special needs of pregnant, lactating and disabled women by preventing dismissal or denial of employment on these grounds. It requires that alternative work be made available during pregnancy and for 12 months after the birth.

The Skills Development Act identifies women as a group that requires focused skills development for entry into and advancement within the open labour market. The aim is to increase the extent of vocational training in SA. The Act redefines training beyond formal institutions, which benefits women, who are less likely than men to find themselves in formal work situations.

The Community-Based Public Works Programme provides basic infrastructure, schools, clinics, crèches, roads, and temporary jobs in poverty-stricken areas. Women are targeted for employment in this programme, and a significant section of the workforce to date is female.

More Information:

• Report on Delivery to Women, ANC Gender Subcommittee 2004

By-elections

Recent results support Election 2004 trends

The results of recent by-elections support a number of trends that emerged during the 2004 national elections, but also pose some challenges to the ANC. Because by-elections generally have a far lower turnout than general elections, it is necessary however to exercise caution in making definitive conclusions about party support.

Fourteen by-elections were held on 28 July, five of which were only contested by the ANC. The ANC fielded candidates in all the other by-elections, and lost only two.

The results support the significant gains made by the ANC in the 14 April poll in the former heartland of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), with the IFP battling to maintain its support. They provide further evidence of the collapse of the United Democratic Movement (UDM) support around Umtata. The results confirm the consolidation of the ANC's overwhelming dominance among the rural coloured population and the movement's position as the largest party among urban coloured people.

In Hluhluwe ward 2, the ANC won the majority of votes for the first time, defeating the IFP. The growth in the popularity of the ANC can be seen clearly in relation to past results: in the 1999 general election the movement got only 22 percent of the votes in this ward, in 2004 this had grown to 39 percent. In the by-election on 28 July, the ANC finally got a majority of 54 percent of the vote.

The other half of the Hulhulwe story is the collapse in support for the IFP. >From an overwhelmingly dominant 73 percent of the votes in ward 2 in 1999, the party got 46 percent in the by-election.

The other KwaZulu Natal by-election was Emangusi ward 5, where the IFP won. But the ANC is clearly catching up, gaining a greater proportion of the votes - 39 percent - than in any previous election.

In Umtata ward 22, the UDM had secured 72 percent of the vote in 1999, and managed to retain a majority in this ward in the 2004 national election, winning 52 percent of the vote. But in the by-election, the ANC netted 71 percent of the vote. Significantly, the ANC managed to turn out more supporters to the polls in the by-election than it had even in the national election.

In Umzimkulu ward 4, the UDM remained a small minority and the ANC won the ward decisively. However, the turnout was very low, at only 20 percent of registered voters. This perhaps indicates the difficulty in mobilising people to the polls in a situation where the outcome is seen to be a foregone conclusion.

The ANC won a majority for the first time in ward 4 of Siyathemba (Prieska), a deep rural coloured area, achieving just 50 percent of the vote. This is another blow for the Democratic Alliance's claims to represent a broader base: standing together with the New National Party (NNP), the DA had won 56 percent of the vote in this ward in the 2000 local government elections. Clearly, the DA, without the NNP is less popular in this area.

In Breed River [Robertson] ward 10, another rural coloured ward, this time in the Western Cape, the ANC convincing beat both the Independent Democrats (ID) and the DA. In the last local government elections the movement was the biggest party in this ward but only won 44 percent of the vote, with the DA coming a close second at 39 percent. But on 14 April 2004 the DA was relegated to third position by the ID, which got only 11 percent of the votes, to the ANC's 67 percent. In the by-election the ANC made further gains, turning out more supporters to the polls (1,622) than even in April 2004 (1,567). By contrast the ID failed to increase the number of votes cast in its favour, being reduced to only 7 percent in the by-election.

The ANC also won a first time victory in the peri-urban coloured ward 10 of Worcester. Here, the ANC mobilised 908 voters to the polls, outdoing the movement's performance in the general election, where only 789 people voted ANC. The DA, perhaps smelling the direction of the wind, decided not to stand, leaving the resident's association and an independent to contest the ANC. Both did poorly leaving the ANC with 77 percent of the vote on the day.

But not all the results were good news for the ANC, and highlighted some key challenges which the organisation needs to confront when contesting both by-elections and general elections. In ward 2 in Blue Crane Route (Somerset East), a mixed-race area with an African majority, the DA won the ward for the first time, getting 55 percent of the vote. This presents a significant reversal, since the ANC had managed to score 66 percent in this ward in the April 14 election, although the last local government election (December 2000) saw the ANC and DA neck and neck in this ward at 49 percent each. Only 574 people voted for the ANC in the by election, a huge reduction from the 2,400 votes that the movement picked up on April 14. The ANC only has itself to blame for poor mobilisation for losing this ward.

Poor mobilisation nearly cost the movement another seat in Ekurhuleni ward 46, an area which is two-thirds African, and which includes significant number of informal settlements juxtaposed with a large white population. While the ANC won the by-election, it did so with only 30 votes to spare. The DA came second with 48 percent of the votes, to the ANC's 49 percent. While this was formerly a DA ward, previous support for the ANC show that the ANC's margin of victory could have been bigger.

While these results alone cannot be used as the basis for a definitive assessment on shifts in party support, either nationally or provincially, they do highlight particular lessons for the ANC. Key among these is that the organisation does have the capacity to mobilise its supporters to vote in local by-elections, even in some cases to surpass the number of people it mobilised in the national election. Failure to mobilise this support generally results in a poor showing in areas that could be won.

More Information:

• IEC by-election results, 28 July 2004

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