Marlene and Adam le Roux’s remarkable story, and her address at a Cape Times Breakfast
HISTORY OF WOMEN’S DAY SIXTY-ONE years ago, 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the pass laws as well as inhumane Apartheid legislation. Discriminated against based on the colour of their skin, the pass laws also directly affected their personal lives as well as economic emancipation. THE APARTHEID STRUGGLE As democracy dawned, we deliberated fitting tributes towards recognition of iconic events that led to our emancipation from the shackles of Apartheid. 9 August, the historic day the women marched, was earmarked and declared a public holiday to be henceforth commemorated in honour of women’s struggles towards freedom. The day was to be known as National Women’s Day.
THE STRUGGLE
Just more than 23 years into our democracy, South Africans, we presumed that, given our civil liberties and Bill of Rights, we would be completely and entirely free to live our lives guided by our founding document, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
Alas, a new set of challenges have arisen for all citizens. Poverty and unemployment is unfortunately rising, alarming figures in this regard were just last week released by our Statistician-General Pali Lehohla. Social service delivery still seem to fail many, as manifested through angry protests, while challenges women now face seem to be immense and overwhelming.
Sexism remains rife. Women are judged on what they wear, lambasted for defying traditional roles – both “African” and “West”, vilified for entrenching their guaranteed rights but most of all violently, including sexually attacked due to patriarchal, misogynist norms still MODERN-DAY entrenched within the male psyche. Of course, there are countless men who have embraced the equality and emancipation of women. Sadly, it does seem that they remain in the minority if rape, violent assault, sexual assault, intimate partner violence and domestic abuse statistics collective are to be believed.
One in every three women are raped, including partner/spousal rape every few minutes, more than 50+ percent of women are sexually assaulted, while thousands more are killed yearly, some purely due to identifying either as lesbians or transgender men. Children, too, are bearing the brunt of violence perpetrated against them by many menfolk. The fact that our female prison population has almost remained constant at just 3 percent overall, points to the fact that many (but not all) men are the perpetrators of violence.
The above sketched scenario has to be urgently addressed. Of course, societal challenges as described above requires a multi-pronged approach including the provision of quality education to all, creation of jobs and entrepreneurial skills and equitable service delivery. NGOs need to be strengthened to assist yet we have many NGOs who specifically address the challenges of manifestations such as gender based violence and rape face closure.
NGO STRUGGLES – HIGHLIGHTING THE SAARTJIE BAARTMAN CENTRE
An example of this is the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children in Manenberg, Cape Town. Not only does it have a local reputation but an international one too as one of the finest one-stop centres to provide free shelter, legal and counselling services, job-training programmes and other resources to abused women and their children. More than 4 000 women and children draw support upon their services for safety, housing, legal and medical support, job-training and overall support. Yet in May 2012, the centre was facing imminent closure due to a lack of funding. Like other NGOs, the Centre has been resourced through a network of government support, international donors, and local individual and corporate donors. And like other NGOs, in the current climate of economic challenge and in-province political complexities, the Centre’s fundraising efforts have become more and more difficult. The Centre needs an annual R4 million in operational costs to ensure its doors remain open. It was forced to go public with its plight including petitioning Western Cape Premier Helen Zille.
Thus, the challenge that remains for us as women is to continue the “New” Struggle – that of entrenching our rights as legally enshrined, holding those men and institutions to account who trample on those rights. ANC WOMEN’S LEAGUE Sadly it seems that institutions who are supposed to protect those rights are dismally failing us.
A specific arm that’s part of our governing party took shape in the early 40s as its predecessor, the Bantu Women’s League integrated into the ANC, eventually formalised as structure around 1948. Several defiance campaigns towards achieving freedom supported the formation of our democracy. Yet today it seems to be failing us on the challenges we as women face. It buys into patriarchy when its president Bathabile Dlamini publicly claim that we as women are “too emotional” to debate. It would seem as if they are allowing themselves to be used as proxies (by the governing party) to protect the image of the president of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, instead of advancing women’s rights – the “#RememberKhwezi protest” in 2016 bore testimony to this when its president Bathabile Dlamini refused to comment on the Zuma 2006 rape trial, and recently of course the tacit support of video filmed footage of former Deputy Minister of Higher Education Mduduzi Manana. It remained virtually silent on women on women abuse with the latest Grace Mugabe scandal.
Two other pivotal Chapter Nine institutions, viz. the COMMISSION FOR THE RIGHTS AND PROTECTION OF CULTURE, RELIGION AND LINGUISTIC COMMUNITIES AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, specifically incorporated into our Constitution to strengthen our the rights as enshrined in our Bill of Rights and our democracy at large, seem to be feeble in voice, while the GENDER COMMISSION, also established in terms of Section 187 of Constitution, seems to have a non-existent voice MULTIPLE CHALLENGES Thus we need stronger leadership. Failing that, we as a society need to take charge. Currently it seems as if not just gender based violence and sexism and all its concomitant challenges are overwhelming, but is compounded by a host of socio-economic challenges too.
For all these challenges we need sustainable programmes RESPECTING OURSELVES Equally as women to women, we need to reciprocally honour ourselves to be who we want to be. As women we equally need to show mutual respect to each other. Often we can be our worst enemies too. We slut-shame, judge each other for not performing stereotypical, culturally enshrined “women’s” roles that serve to uphold patriarchy and often “pull each other down”. All these challenges described above have to be addressed, urgently and with fervour.
Meanwhile we equally need the strong support of our judiciary and legal pillars. Women still describe horrific treatment by law enforcement authorities when reporting rape, even disdainful treatment by the medical profession. Legal assistance, the courts and justice still seem to be accessible primarily to those financially advantaged.
PLIGHT OF TRANSGENDER SEX WORKERS
Instances of this horrific treatment are the plight of female transgender sex-workers. Often in life they face a double if not a triple whammy. Many transgender persons are first and foremost ostracised by their families, their societies, their parents.
While our Constitution protect their rights, it’s common that it’s often trampled upon, by government departments such as Home Affairs, of whom many officials still today remain clueless that gender changes can be effected on identity documents since the Alteration of Sex Description Act was signed into law by former president Thabo Mbeki in 2003.
Thus, due to societal stigmatisation, a hostile employment sector (especially those who do not fit the binaries of what is considered male or female) and various challenges to fit into society, or what society dictates are the “rules” to fit in, they are forced to turn to sex-work – an illegal act since the Sexual Offences Act was passed in 1957 (an Apartheid piece of legislation). When arrested, the South African Police Services (SAPS) still do not adhere to the guidelines of affording the primarily female transgender sex worker to be treated as a female. These guidelines include simple acts of respect such as not to remove makeshift breasts of those who present as such, and not to throw them in a cell with other men, for obvious reasons. Sex-workers in general face discrimination, including societal discrimination from us, even as women. Thus perhaps it’s time that we review an Apartheid piece of legislation which puts them at risk and interrogate the decriminalisation of the “oldest profession” CONCLUSION While at times, for thousands of women the “New” Struggle seems insurmountable as South Africa finds itself within a negative outlook climate, (not that we do not have some successes to celebrate), aluta (must) continua. It will only be through the continued resistance against the mountain that hinder our final emancipation that we as women will achieve our freedom. Just as those women 61 years ago, and even those before them since resisting colonial masters, cultural and even religious masters, marched for their freedom, we as women of today need to continue marching towards freeing ourselves from the shackles of sexism, patriarchy and misogyny. We thank all those men who have shown constant support and solidarity with the struggle towards global equality, respecting our enshrined rights. It’s now overdue for those male perpetrators to embrace those rights.
The challenge that remains for us as women is to continue the ‘New’ Struggle