8 August 2007
The South African Communist Party wishes all women of South Africa Happy Women`s Day. The SACP is celebrates the fact that Women`s Day is a celebration and commemoration of the strength and struggles of women against the repressive colonial-cum-apartheid regime. Women of South Africa have undoubtedly played a central role in demolishing the apartheid oppression and subjugation, and in the process to construct a just and humane society-free from oppression, exploitation and subjugation.
The democracy, rights and freedom we all celebrate today is consequent of, amongst other things, the strength and vigour women gave to the national liberation struggle. The national liberation struggles and movement in South Africa always had a special space and appreciation of the contribution of women in the struggle, and appreciated the fact that for genuine liberation, patriarchy should be ended. Apartheid had entrenched patriarchy as a social institution alongside oppression of the black majority and exploitation of workers, and the struggle we were engaged in, sought to ensure that these interconnected realities are systematically and concurrently demolished.
Certainly, genuine liberation in South African has always been underpinned by the objective to address the class, national and gender contradiction-entailing that class exploitation, national oppression and patriarchy had to be decisively ended to realise genuine liberation of the black majority and Africans in particular. In South Africa, the liberation movement recognised the objective reality that no liberation would be complete without genuine liberation of women.
The liberation of women occupied a special space in the liberation struggles of South Africa. This is so as women experienced oppression as a race, exploited as workers and suffered exclusion and discrimination on the basis of their gender. The most exploited, oppressed and discriminated section of South African society has always been black women.
Post democratic dispensation, women are encountered with the most brutal of challenges. Women continue to constitute the highest number of the unemployed population, are the most affected and infected by HIV/AIDS, and constitute a majority of people living below the poverty line. Furthermore, women in the workplace continue to be casualised and informalised, therefore facing the most brutal of exploitation. Women continue to face the most brutal of abuses (rape, sexual molestation, sexual harassment and domestic violence) and despise in communities that were shaped by apartheid to treat and think of women as secondary citizens.
In South Africa, women continue to suffer the loss of children at birth rate, with an infant mortality rate of 46 for every 1000 children born. The maternal mortality ratio is in a constant increase in South Africa since 1998, entailing that more deaths of women die when giving birth. The literacy rate of women remains lower than the average literacy rate in South Africa, meaning that women continue to have a relatively lesser chance to access education.
Whilst the uptake of women into the official and recorded labour force is in constant increase, millions of women continue to perform unpaid labour through reproduction of their husbands and spouses` labour power. Women play a critical role of replenishing and reproducing their spouses through various activities and the employers do not take into account the amount of labour women put in the production of goods and services.
Despite these challenges, we should all celebrate the roles women play as mothers, wives, caregivers, community workers, teachers, leaders, health workers, producers of food and various other roles. Women continue to be the backbone of the society under construction- a society free from exploitation, racism and sexism. The role of women should be celebrated and cherished in the building of a just and humane society. No society can ever claim genuine liberation without the liberation of women.
Having ended institutionalised patriarchy and subjugation of women, everyone in society, irrespective of creed, colour or class, should be leading the struggle to protect the rights of women. The oppression and suppression of women should soon be a distant history as everyone commits to building a non-sexist society. The SACP is committed to building a society with no oppression, subjugation and repression of women-this is the cornerstone of a Socialist South Africa the SACP will build. A free South Africa means to the SACP, a society where all national groups have genuine equality, exploitation is ended and Women are genuinely liberated.
Forward to a Truly Non-Sexist Society Forward!