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The Women’s Charter
CHARTERING A BALANCED OUTCOME
The Women’s Charter sets goals and demands equality for women. TIISETSO TLELIMA fi nds out how far we’ve come
August 2021 saw the launch of the new Women’s Charter for Accelerated Development, setting a 25-year vision and agenda to advance women’s equality, growth and development.
Developed in consultation with women’s formations and civil society organisations across nine provinces, it seeks to build on the 1954 Women’s Charter and 1994 Women’s Charter for Effective Equality by accelerating women’s access to education, healthcare and land, developing policies and deconstructing patriarchy.
The fi rst women’s charter, drafted by the Federation of South African Women in 1954, demanded that women be afforded voting and political rights, employment opportunities and equal pay to men, the right to own property and the removal of marital laws that subjugated wives to their husbands. “The charter was signifi cant because it was the fi rst time women mobilised and formalised their stance against the kind of prejudice women were experiencing and being treated as minors,” explains journalist and political analyst Khanyi Magubane.
Forty years later (1994), a second charter was drafted by the National Women’s Coalition structures, which advocated for the inclusion of women in key sectors of the economy, provision for education and training, access to healthcare and social services, representation in media, decriminalisation of sex work and a rigorous fi ght against gender-based violence to name a few.
THE WOMEN’S CHARTER
Adopted at the founding conference of the Federation of South African Women in Johannesburg on 17 April 1954, the charter expressed the philosophy and aims of the newly established Federation of South African Women.
PREAMBLE
We, the women of South Africa, wives and mothers, working women and housewives, African, Indians, European and Coloured, hereby declare our aim of striving for the removal of all laws, regulations, conventions and customs that discriminate against us as women, and that deprive us in any way of our inherent right to the advantages, responsibilities and opportunities that society offers to any one section of the population.
Both these charters represent critical building blocks in South African history, signifying women’s commitment to challenging the status quo in an unequal society. The third charter, the Women’s Charter for Accelerated Development, comes after a 20-month long review process to determine whether progress had been made since the preceding charters and map a way forward.
STRIDES MADE IN THE WOMEN’S CHARTER
According to Magubane, although some things have stayed the same, a few gains have been made since the establishment of the women’s charter in 1954. “Women have the ability to self-actualise and make their political choices heard,” explains Magubane. “Today, women enjoy the right to vote, the right to property, they can open their own bank accounts, and do whatever they want to do as women.”
With the advent of democracy, women’s rights were enshrined in the Constitution, and laws promoting gender equality, such as the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act of 2000, Employment Equity Act of 1998, Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Act of 2007, and Domestic Violence Act of 1998, were passed.
However, despite the plethora of policy and legislative instruments put in place since 1994, women continue to bear the brunt of high levels of inequality. “We have legal reform, but in terms of material goals nothing has been achieved,” says activist and UP sociology lecturer Simamkele Dlakavu. Dlakavu laments that inequalities in South
Africa are gendered and racialised, meaning that black women still face economic exclusion, unemployment and lack of access to land. “A recent landmark case brought by the Rural Women’s Movement against the Ingonyama Trust shows that women are still fi ghting for ownership of land especially in rural areas where traditional patriarchal leadership bars women from accessing and owning land.” The situation has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen many black women who are domestic or sex workers as well as those working in the informal and Khanyi Magubane service sectors lose their jobs. “We also cannot speak about women’s issues in this country without speaking about how violence impacts women,” says Dlakavu. “We are leading globally in terms of rape, intimate partner violence and femicide rates. In South Africa, most of the time women are unsafe, even in their homes.” Magubane shares the same sentiments adding that what is most troubling is how men and society at large respond to victims of gender-based violence. “If a woman is raped fi ve years before she goes to report the case, she’s met with suspicion and accused of wanting to ruin a man’s reputation. And, there’s a tendency to ask why now.”
Simamkele Dlakavu
CHALLENGES TO GENDER EQUALITY AND TRANSFORMATION
It’s been over 60 years since the fi rst women’s charter was drafted yet South Africa is still lagging when it comes to gender equality. In the Women’s Charter for Accelerated Development document, the legacy of colonialism, deeply embedded socioeconomic disparities and entrenched patriarchal doctrines of oppression are cited as the reason why efforts to realise gender equality are still undermined. While that may be true, Dlakavu argues that women’s issues are still not viewed as legitimate political issues that demand an active response from the state.
“The government continues to underfund women’s shelters and, as a result, women have no safe places to turn to, violence against women is seen as an issue that should be dealt with in the private sphere, and we get band-aid responses to structural issues.”
On the other hand, Magubane says that everything boils down to how women are perceived in society, how they are being devalued and constantly have their worth measured through the eyes of men. Socialisation has meant that women have also become enablers of patriarchy. “We have to set our own agenda and say value doesn’t come from my age or looks – all things men try to impose on us,” says Magubane.
