SACP Statement for National Women's Day

08 August 2002

The South African Communist Party (SACP) salutes millions of South African women as we celebrate National Women's Day on 09 August. This celebration represents valiant struggles for dignity and equality by many women in our country and region. Key in these struggles has been economic transformation.

The South African economy continues to rest on the unspeakably harsh, triple oppression of the majority of women in our country. Black women generally, and African women in particular, have played and continue to play a central role in the production and reproduction of cheap labour exploited in the factories, mines, farms, offices, malls and other workplaces of our land. The burden of the reproduction of this cheap labour is carried by the unpaid labour of women. The majority of black women continue to heavily subsidise our economy through taking the burden of care for the young, the unemployed, the old, the sick and disabled with the most pitiful of resources.

The struggle for a non-sexist society is not simply about integrating women into the modern economy as if their daily grind over more than a century had not been a critical element of the modern economy. Therefore the SACP argues that any sustainable growth and development of our economy has to address the progressive eradication of patriarchal domination in production and in the social reproduction of the conditions for production. This means that, amongst other things, we must work to achieve the following:

• Recognising that the subordination of women is fundamentally linked to capitalist exploitation
• Promoting the role of the state in providing secure employment for women
• Deepening and extending the provision of social services by the state
• Driving a rural development strategy, including service and infrastructure provision and job creation
• Promoting women's access to land
• Campaigning against privatisation measures that deepen the reliance of millions of our people on the capitalist market for basic necessities

We therefore call on women to take an active and leading part in struggles around economic transformation. This includes current struggles for job creation and the restructuring of the financial sector which continues to blacklist and deny credit to many women and projects which would address the conditions of living of women. Without serious attention, by government and other stakeholders, to job creation and the restructuring of the financial sector, many women will continue to suffer and live in misery.

CONTACT
Mazibuko K. Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media, Information and Publicity
South African Communist Party
Tel - 011 339-3621/2
Fax - 011 339-4244
Cell - 083 651 0271
Email - mazibuko@sacp.org.za