Women’s emancipation must remain the focal point in the new South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
Writing in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website ahead of Women’s Day next Wednesday, Mbeki said South Africa could and should be proud of the progress made towards non-sexism during the first 12 years of liberation.
This includes legislation banning gender discrimination, improving the lot of women by providing clean water and electricity, women-targeted poverty-relief programmes, affirmative action programmes in favour of women, opening the doors for women to take their place in decision-making bodies of governance, and consistently addressing the crimes of gender violence.
”However, all of us know very well that we have as yet not achieved gender equality and are still some distance away from realising the goal of a non-sexist society.
”It is therefore important that constantly we must make the nation aware of our scorecard in this regard, and thus place the objective of the emancipation of women constantly at the centre of our work as we strive to effect the reconstruction and development of our country,” Mbeki said.
Also very important is the mobilisation of women themselves to contribute to attaining the central goal of a non-sexist society, building on the many decades of the involvement of women in the struggle to create a new South Africa.
”We hope that the Progressive Women’s Movement of South Africa that will be launched in Bloemfontein in the next few days, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Women’s March, will contribute to the further strengthening of the role of the heroic women of our country as an agent of progressive change,” he said. — Sapa