Ten years of progress, lessons and challenges

[XXPANTHAXX]

Courtesy of ANC Today, South Africa

Ten years after the Beijing World Conference on Women, South
Africa has made important strides in implementing the Beijing
Platform for Action. Nevertheless many challenges remain,
demanding greater effort from all stakeholders in society to
improve the status and quality of life of women.

As part of South Africa's input into the UN review,
government has prepared a progress report on the
implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action, outlining
in detail the areas where progress has been made and where
challenges still remain. The report places the country's
progress in the context of the first decade of democracy, and
highlights the interdependence between the struggle for the
emancipation of women and the struggle to build a united, non-
racial and democratic South Africa.

Over the last decade, the ANC-led government has worked with
all South Africans to address the political, economic and
social legacy of apartheid - to build democratic institutions,
ensure equal access to human rights, and push back the
frontiers of poverty. As it has done so, it has worked to
improve the lives of South Africa's women, most of whom have
been subjected to triple oppression, by race, class and
gender. This work has been consistent with efforts to
implement the strategic objectives of the Beijing Platform
for Action.

Women and Poverty

One of the central strategic objectives of the Beijing
platform is to address the needs of women living in poverty.

It calls on member countries to implement macroeconomic
policies and development strategies which address poverty and
inequality among women, to ensure equal access for women to
economic rights, and to provide savings and credit to women.

In its report, government notes that women constitute a
priority group in all aspects of its poverty alleviation and
eradication programme. This covers interventions like social
grants and public works programmes, as well as the provision
of education, health care, water and sanitation,
electrification, housing and land.

As the number of people accessing social grants has
dramatically increased over the last ten years, so too as the
percentage of grants benefitting women. Over 70% of
recipients of old-age pensions are women, while women are
almost always the recipients (as caregivers) of child-care
grants. The percentage of women receiving disability grants
has also increased. Over half the people employed in the
course of the Expanded Public Works Programme between April
and September last year were women.

The Beijing Platform commits countries to ensure equal access
to education, eradicate illiteracy among women, and develop
non-discriminatory education and training. South Africa has
achieved a high participation rate of both girls and boys in
primary and secondary school, with as many girls as boys
participating in school overall.

Adult Basic Education and Training and the national literacy
initiative have largely been targeted at rural areas, and
especially on women living in rural areas. The overall rate
of literacy in South Africa increased from 83% in 1996 to 89%
in 2001.

Yet gender imbalances remain sharp in institutions of higher
learning. Women make up 41% of instruction and research staff
in higher education institutions, but only 17% of professors.

Census 2001 found there were about twice as many women as men
in the social sciences, and about ten times as many men as
women in the engineering sciences.

Women's access to health, another of the Beijing objectives,
has been significantly improved through the extension of
basic health care access to parts of the country and sections
of the population which previously struggled to gain access.

As a result of government's clinic building and upgrading
programme, there are now over 4,350 primary health care
access points across the country, ensuring that all South
Africans live within a 5 km radius of a health facility.

Since 1994, health care has been free at public facilities
for pregnant women and children under six years. There has
been a marked increase in access to antenatal care services
and reproductive health care programmes.

Violence against women

The struggle to ensure the safety of women in society remains
an ongoing challenge. While progress has been recorded in
achieving the Beijing objective of integrated measures to
prevent and eliminate violence against women, gender-based
violence continues to place women at risk.

The report notes the multi-faceted and integrated approach
government has taken to raise awareness and improve service
delivery to combat violence against women. National awareness
campaigns, like the 16 days of activism against violence
against women and children, have received growing support
from across society. Victim empowerment initiatives and
special Sexual Offences Courts have improved the response of
the criminal justice system to such crimes and have decreased
the possibility of 'secondary victimisation' of survivors of
rape and other gender-based violence.

The Domestic Violence Act, adopted in 1998, broadened the
definition of domestic abuse and strengthened the legal
protection afforded to victims of abuse. The challenge is to
ensure that in its implementation, this law - like many other
progressive pieces of legislation - is indeed able to offer
sufficient protection and contribute to significantly
lowering levels of violence against women in the domestic
environment.

Women in the economy

Alongside efforts to address the challenges of women living
in poverty, the government has pursued the objective of
ensuring equal access for women to economic opportunities.

Measures have included issues such as equal pay for equal
work, enhancing women's participation in fiscal and economic
policy, and facilitating women's access to economic resources.

Laws such as the Employment Equity Act outlaw gender
discrimination in the workplace, and place a responsibility
on employers to work towards achieving gender equity in their
workforce at all levels. The Broad Based Black Economic
Empowerment Act includes a focus on ensuring black women
benefit from the economic empowerment process. Government's
code of good practice for black economic empowerment, for
example, requires that women benefit from at least 40% of
empowerment that takes place. Women have also been the focus
of government assistance to small and medium enterprises and
rural development initiatives, and through government's
procurement and licensing processes.

Nevertheless, women - and particularly black women - remain
under-represented at all levels of meaningful economic
activity. While there has been some change, this has not kept
pace with changes in the public sector, where the
representation and role of women has been significantly
increased.

In great measure due to the policies and positions of the
ANC, women constitute a significant proportion of the
country's public representatives and political leaders.

Nearly 43% of national cabinet ministers are women, and over
48% of deputy ministers are women. Four out of the nine
provincial premiers are women, and just under a third of the
National Assembly, and 35% of the National Council of
Provinces are women. The experience of the past decade has
shown that the increased presence of women in these
institutions - far from being mere tokenism -has contributed
significantly to advancing the position of women in society
and enhancing government's focus on the needs of women across
most of its programmes.

An overview of the achievements of the first decade of
democracy and in the ten years since the Beijing conference
should encourage those who seek gender equality in South
Africa. But it also provides a sobering insight to the
challenges that remain. Emboldened by what has been achieved,
and learning the many lessons of the past ten years, South
Africans find themselves in a good position to take these
advances forward.

Writing in the foreword to South Africa's report, President
Thabo Mbeki said: "We are proud of the progress that has been
made towards the genuine emancipation and empowerment of the
women of South Africa. Nevertheless we are acutely aware of
the fact that so much still remains to be done. In everything
we do, we will continue to be inspired by the vision that our
transformation will not be complete until the women of our
country are empowered and gender equality in our society has
been achieved."

[Baba Ahmed]

I'm all for improvements the Azanian people see needed; but to seek a "non racial" society is a pipe dream; a veiled call for integration. The ANC should call for that when they have real power in their homeland. Unequals in power and wealth do not integrate; the powerful either transforms the powerless or swallows them then spit'em out as clones. Amagalmated.

What's happening with the PAC?