A little less conversation, a little more action
Sending South Africans to recycle conversations about issues facing women at dialogues, summits and conferences is a waste of time and money.
We know the issues, and we can cite the statistics: women are the face of vulnerability and exclusion. We also know the solutions: Good governance, safety, justice and an inclusive economy. Freedom, fairness, opportunity, diversity.
Good governance, Safety and Justice
Any cultural practice that undermines human rights must be outlawed: gender mutilation, Ukuthwala.
I was checking in at Ezibeleni Police Station after spending the morning negotiating calm between police and violent protesters demanding good governance.
I met a woman begging a police officer to arrest her husband.
I remember watching blood from her soaked T-shirt drip onto the floor, and looking up to find the source was her shredded face.
I asked why the woman had not been assisted. The officer replied that all officers were out monitoring the protests, and the vehicles were transporting accused assailants to the Komani police station.
I asked where the victim’s unit was. There wasn’t one available.
I was able to take her to the Nomzamo Clinic for medical attention, but the only place she had to go afterward was back to the scene of the crime. There was no place of safety for her.
Following up days later, she was still struggling to find counselling
We suggest:
- Increase training, employment, equipping and deploying police to maintain permanent visible presence in communities;
- Fund more shelters and places of safety;
- Resource courts to efficiently handle maintenance applications, and mechanisms to enforce them
A Diverse, Inclusive Economy
Economic oppression often imprisons women in abusive relationships, and such financial abuse is created through exclusion from the economy. Now here government and business must work together.
What we often find, however, is government officials (like their private industry counterparts) engaged in one of the most shocking scourges plaguing South African women that are desperate for economic opportunities: sex for jobs, or “carpet interviews”.
This practice, broadly defined, entails the solicitation of sexual favours from women by managers or prospective employers in order to secure positions or even just to hold on to a position.
When employed, only 32% of women occupy management positions and are likely to experience discrimination and pay inequality.
We are trying to catch up with the fast pace of the 4th industrial revolution and women will be left behind if drastic action is not taken to develop and skill women.
Poverty alleviation begins with education. We know that despite performing better than boys, fewer girls complete schooling
Women are often responsible for the care of children and the elderly. This is unpaid work and limits her choice of career through “time poverty”, or compels her to drop out of the workforce.
Obtaining maintenance orders is a nightmare. The courts are overburdened and inefficient, and there are often no mechanisms to enforce maintenance orders.
Gender diversity and inclusion drives innovation and economic growth, and yet there are two misconceptions that inhibit gender transformation: Equality does not mean sameness, and tokenism is not redress.
Apartheid broke our humanity, and government alone cannot fix it; but the DA believes government is responsible for creating the environment that offers opportunity for women to free themselves.
MaSisulu knew these issues and sacrificed herself to struggled against them. When women are not free, safe or working; the abuse of her name for an ANC election campaign is blasphemous.
The President has exposed himself as a Submissive to the ANC.
While his energy and focus is consumed by trying to hold the ANC together before the 2019 elections: the bodies of dead women stack up, and the divide between woman and man widens.
He has perverted “Thuma Mina” to “inthetho nje, akukho nxaxheba”.
Hanging on the coat-tails of fallen heroes like MaSisulu’s name for an ANC election campaign is blasphemous.
Instead of putting Parliament into recess for 75 days to attend to ANC infighting, put the business of the people first.
If you share the DA’s mission to build a safe, secure and working South Africa that includes all her people: we challenge you to action good governance, safety and justice which are not only basic human rights, but the foundation for economic development.
To build one South Africa, we cannot leave half of the population behind.