Table of Contents Challenges To Democracy

A subsequent indirect election results in a district council chosen from among sector-level winners. Such a process guarantees women 30 per cent representation.

4. Women’s Councils: These assemblies are elected by women. They feed into the local government through reserved seats for local council leaders, which ensures that there is an official link between these women’s concerns and local government.

5. Ministry of Gender and the Promotion of Women: The Ministry works with gender focal points within other ministries to monitor women’s issues. The Ministry also pursues women’s political empowerment through sensitization campaigns with all levels of government staff and the general public.

Case of South Africa

Aerial view of Cape Town, South Africa ()

South Africa continues to lead the way in women’s political participation in the region with 46 per cent of women in the House of Assembly and provincial legislatures and 50 per cent of women in the cabinet after the May 2019 elections. All the speakers in the national and provincial legislatures are women except for the Western Cape Province whose speaker is a man. Women parliamentarians rose from 40 per cent in 2014 to 46 per cent in 2019.

South Africa is writing a new page in its history thanks to the entry of Nkosazana DlaminiZuma (she was elected in 2012 president of the African Union Commission becoming the first woman to lead this organisation, and currently serves as Minister of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation in South Africa’s Government) and other women, such as Lindiwe Nonceba Sisulu (minister of International Relations and Cooperation until 2019) into the political competition.

As a result women have continued to be involved in political organisations, as well as in the trade union movement and other civil society organisations. Although evolving in a patriarchal straitjacket due to the social role women had been assigned in the past, women no longer have to wait for “the authorization of men” to claim their rights. This feminine tradition of political engagement in South Africa has resulted in the writing of a protective Constitution for women in a post-apartheid multiracial and supposedly non-sexist context.

Activity 10: Conclusion

Objectives:

Time Needed

Methodology

Materials By the end of the activity, participants will be able to:

Review and master the content of the module.

Have summed up the content of the module and link each to the other.

30 Minutes

Group discussion and facilitator presentation

Flipchart, markers and paper

To sum up, even if African countries such as Rwanda and South Africa have more women representation and are doing well by passing laws and measures, due to various cultural reasons such as a more ingrained patriarchal society, community interventions, family pressure, as well as the stigma surrounding single mothers, gender equality is more difficult in Africa. Women in Africa typically depend heavily on their husbands and as a result, they very often suffer in silence and in some instances, are sometimes left alone without financial support.