With South African women remaining society’s most vulnerable members, the country still has not achieved the kind of nation the marchers 50 years ago would be proud of, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon said on Wednesday.
”The simple and devastating truth is that they bear the brunt of virtually all the social ills that confront us today in South Africa,” Leon said in a speech prepared for delivery on Women’s Day.
Leon, who was speaking at a party event in Boland town of Paarl, said that 50 years onwards, women actually have less to celebrate. ”Women are the primary victims of crime, especially the brutal crime of rape and abuse.”
Despite the government’s best intentions, a full 58% of all contact crimes are committed against women and children, with 151 women and children being raped daily or one every 10 minutes.
Leon said HIV/Aids and chronic unemployment also directly affect women.
”In our supposedly non-sexist and non-racist society, too many women remain literally the drawers of water and the hewers of wood,” Leon said.
He questioned the true intention of President Thabo Mbeki’s endorsement of a woman president to take over from him.
”President Mbeki does not want Jacob Zuma to replace him and that is why he said the next president should be a woman.
”Unfortunately, there’s often a lot of selfishness that lurks behind the president’s nice words,” said Leon.
Highlighting the progress made to achieve gender parity in the country, Leon nevertheless feels that many of the prominent female appointees remain ineffective.
He mentioned Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s ”notable silence” on the plight of women in Sudan’s Darfur region, Zimbabwe and Swaziland.
He said there is another high-profile Cabinet member whose deeds rather than her silence let women down badly — Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Leon said he wants to see the best individuals appointed to a job.
”Of course, gender and race need to be plus factors when we make appointments, but there is a huge difference between making gender a consideration for a public appointment and a blind adherence to quotas to trump all other considerations when it comes to considering candidates for office,” Leon said. — Sapa