An ANC gathering on the eve of the country’s first democratic elections in April
1994.
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The women were courageous,
persistent, enthusiastic, indefatigable, and their protest against the pass system
set a standard for anti-government protests that was never equalled.
Nelson
Mandela, former South African president (1918- )
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Since the advent of their
country’s first democratic government, women have imposed far-reaching pieces of
legislation. Making them effective remains an uphill battle
 Right after South Africa’s second
democratic elections in June 1999, the newly elected President Thabo Mbeki appointed
eight women to ministerial positions, double the number in the first government.
The country ranks seventh in the world in terms of women parliamentary representatives
(25 per cent), while the South African constitution and the African National Congress
(ANC) government have entrenched gender equality as a key political value, significant
achievements on a continent where women are all too often regarded as secondary citizens.
The moral support of leaders such as Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela notwithstanding,
women’s gains result from a well-articulated strategy that took shape within the
ANC well before its 1994 electoral victory. With a transition to democracy in progress
in the early 1990s, this strategy focused sharply on representation issues. In 1991,
women within the ANC demanded a quota of seats on the National Executive Committee.
They failed, but in 1994, the ANC was the only party to adopt a 30 per cent quota
of women on its electoral lists. When the ANC started drafting the Reconstruction
and Development Programme, the backbone of its electoral manifesto, women’s groups
within the party lobbied hard for it to address their concerns regarding employment,
health and land ownership. This lobbying was bolstered by a powerful grassroots movement
that shared the aim of making South Africa a non-racial, but also a non-sexist democracy.
Women from all walks of life formed a National Coalition in 1992, which turned gender
representation into a multiparty concern. Accompanying the drive to get women into
power was an emphasis on getting them out to vote through targeted campaigns.
Opposition
from traditional leaders
Once in government,
women were influential in drafting the constitution, adopted in 1996. The task was
not always easy. Even though the country touted itself as a non-sexist democracy,
in pushing for the insertion of an equality clause, women ran into strong opposition
from several traditional leaders, including some within the political fold of the
ANC, who argued that it conflicted with the protection of custom and tradition. Strong
political lobbying efforts by women MPs such as Mavivi Manzini, Baleka Mbete and
Thenjiwe Mtintso undercut the arguments of the traditional leaders. Women MPs were
also instrumental in getting clauses included on reproductive rights as well as socio-economic
rights.
Most women who entered Parliament in 1994 were committed to advancing the rights
of South African women–an inevitable source of tension when their positions came
into conflit with those of their respective parties. Still, a number of routes were
pursued to break through this ‘loyalty’ dilemma. By far the most successful structure
for advancing women’s rights has been the Joint Committee on the Improvement of Quality
of Life and Status of Women. Grouping women from across party lines, this parliamentary
committee consults with women’s organizations in civil society and has played a critical
role in proposing and fast tracking legislation so that it is put on the roll for
debate. Had it not been for this committee, it is more than likely that several far-reaching
pieces of legislation directly concerning women would not have been passed. In particular,
the Termination of Pregnancy Act provides women with access to abortion under significantly
broader and more favourable conditions than in the past. The Maintenance Act of 1998
substantially improves the position of mothers dependent on child support from their
former partners. Free health services have been provided for pregnant women and children
under the age of six. The 1998 Domestic Violence Act was important in sensitizing
the judiciary to the fact that violence within families was a public matter. The
committee has also stood behind a budget initiative which analyzes how different
ministries allocate resources specifically to benefit women.
These gains are laudable. But despite the significant number of women in cabinet–many
of whom come from an activist background –they have been unable to oppose cutbacks
in social service spending or increases in arms expenditure (the deputy minister
of defense is a Quaker and head of the ANC’s women’s parliamentary caucus). And although
health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala is a woman and longtime gender activist, she
has not supported women’s organizations’ demand for the HIV/Aids drug AZT to be offered
to pregnant women and rape survivors.1 The government has argued that
the option is unaffordable, a position not necessarily held by women within the ANC,
nor, for that matter, by the opposition.
Securing
leadership positions in political parties
In the 1999
election campaign, no party questioned the principle of gender representation. Instead,
the focus shifted to specific policy issues such as violence against women, unemployment,
housing and health care, with national television and radio allotting air time to
debate the positions held by the competing parties. Women activists pointed out that
despite the formal commitments to gender equality, political parties failed to outline
policy positions on key gender issues. For example, not one party had a policy with
regard to dealing with violence against women despite the fact that South Africa
has one of the highest incidence of rape in the world.
These interventions during elections highlighted the need for women to become significantly
more organized within political parties and to hold leadership positions within them.
This will give women MPs the support they need to become even more effective within
the legislative arena, but also ensure that internal party mechanisms exist to hold
them accountable to women members and not just party leadership. Joyce Piliso-Seroke,
chairperson of the Commission on Gender Equality, has commented that a long climb
remains. The government, she said, “talks the talk of gender equality, without walking
the walk. The Domestic Violence and Maintenance Acts will remain just so many words
unless infrastructure and human resources are provided to make them effective.”
1. AZT has been shown
to reduce transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to their babies.
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