:9 August 2007  

I wish to congratulate the Executive Committee of our Women's Brigade for organizing this celebration of the National Women's Day by women of INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY.  Inkatha Freedom Party owes its existence to the courage and resilience of our womenfolk.  I say this right upfront because each one of us assembled here is a child of a woman.  We are also children of our fathers but our fathers could not have had us if it was not for our mothers.  VERSE 27 OF THE FIRST CHAPTER IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS states: 

SO GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE

IN THE IMAGE OF GOD HE CREATED HIM;

MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM  

I am still very proud of the fact that the Task Team that set up these Holidays including the National Women's Day was appointed by myself when I was Minister of Home Affairs.  The Mandela Cabinet in which I served approved the recommendations of the task team when I presented them to Cabinet for approval. 

From the time of its founding this Organisation has always attributed whatever success that we have achieved to our women who are the very bedrock of our Organisation.  It is always wonderful to have this opportunity every year for us to pay this well deserved tribute to our womanhood. 

I am delighted to be here today to celebrate and pay tribute to the tremendous role women play in the life of our families, communities and nation. The women of South Africa are remarkable. You are the bedrock of our country. Words are simply too inadequate to express the debt we owe to the women of our nation. Many of South Africa's women carry the burden of raising and caring for our children and being a shield to their husbands, while still leaving their footprints in every sphere of our nation, from politics to the arts and from business to education.

As for leaving your footprints I am proud that during this Women's month the Opera Magogo will be staged in NORWAY on the 15th and the 16th of August. 

Women of courage and talent have shaped the destiny and cast the character of our nation. Can you imagine how different South Africa's liberation history would have been without the courage of our women. 

It is not easy to keep count of brave women in our history who all played different roles to enable us to be where we are today.  One cannot help thinking of the names of Bertha Mkhize, Ella Nxasana , Nokukhanya Luthuli, Dorothy Nyembe, Xolile Gasa, Adelaide Tambo, Helen Joseph, Flora Khawula, Princess Helen ka Solomon, Zorah Khumalo, to name a few who have passed on.  One cannot help thinking of some of our living heroines such as Albertina Sisulu, Nomzamo Mandela, Helen Suzman, Abbe Mchunu, Princess Henrietta, Zanele Magwaza-Msibi and all of you assembled here are our living heroines!  Some of you have records of more than 30 years in the struggle.  Some of you have been in that struggle for a fewer years than these but you are equally heroines in our hearts.  We salute you all! 

In all our struggles women have been in the forefront; in the very coalface of the suffering.  In facing all the evils that constantly destroyed our lives, it is women who have borne the brunt of it all.

One can take anyone of these giants that stand in front of us, one cannot help but conclude that it is women who carry the worse burden of it all.  Whether one thinks of Poverty; who bears the brunt of it? It is Women.  Whether one thinks of Crime - it is women who lose their husbands, their children and their own lives.  And whether one is looking at the terrible and despicable crime of Rape, it is women and Women only, who bear the brunt of this heinous crime.  Whether one thinks of illiteracy and ignorance that we are still struggling against - it is Women, our mothers to whom we owe our education and literacy. 

In this Province one thinks of some of the past provisions of the so-called CODE of Zulu law which prescribed that women were perpetual minors.  They could not even sue or be sued.  And it was myself and my Colleagues in the erstwhile KwaZulu government who repealed those provisions a long time ago.  We remember the painful days when women were chucked out of their homes in our townships, once their husbands had breathed their last breath.  We brought an end to all that.  This was long before 1994 when we abolished that custom in all the townships that were under the erstwhile KwaZulu government. 

I mention these things not to suggest that enough has been done to address the Gender issue.  Not by any means. 

I mention it just to emphasize that it is you that we have been working for this and fighting for it as we pursued freedom for South African women. National Women's Day is ultimately tied up with the ideal of freedom. I believe that for all of us to be truly free, our women must attain their freedom as provided by the Constitution. We must bridge the gap between codified and tangible rights, especially for women living in rural areas.  We have made a start as I have just indicated, but there is much more to be done.  

The distance we have travelled since 1994 is quite remarkable. A country once perceived to be at the edge of the continent is now at the cutting edge in regional political leadership and business. Our Government has many successes tucked under its belt. But it must be said that in some respects it is still failing dismally. Government is persistently failing the poor, the unemployed and those who are infected or affected by HIV-AIDS and other diseases.  Let me stress that I am not suggesting that Government has not tried to address these scourges.  They certainly do and I know because I was myself in government for 10 years.  But what I am saying is what we have done so far has not been good enough.  We can see that this is the case from the restlessness that is becoming such a weekly feature in our society.  The BEE programmes are admirable, but the bulk of our people are still wallowing in gut-wrenching poverty.

It is this poverty at grassroots that needs our greatest attention.  No amount of ferrying people in buses and feeding them at routine government functions such as the sod-turning Ceremonies can hide the fact that we have not yet come to grips with Poverty where it is highest. 

In South Africa, AIDS has disproportionately affected women. Yet women remain the majority participants in community organizations and in caring for the sick. Last year, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV-AIDS (UNAIDS) released their report which stated that women account for the bulk of the epidemic: 58% of HIV-positive South Africans are women. That is 3.1 million out of the 5.5 million infected adults aged 15 and over. 

That makes South Africa the country with the highest number of women infected with HIV-AIDS in the world, almost double the number in India and over triple that in neighbouring Zimbabwe. This is a terrible indictment on our society when one considers our relative wealth and resources compared to the rest of Africa.  When our President stated in his State of the Nation Address last year that our government is spending amounts on HIV-AIDS programmes that are comparable to what other Countries spend on it, I had to react.  In my response I had to say that we could not compare ourselves to any other Country as we have the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the entire World.    

The UN report also bolstered proof of the link between HIV-AIDS and Poverty. On average, South African women earn only 70 percent of what men earn. This already puts them at a high disadvantage for attaining self-reliance. We must therefore help shape practical solutions on how rural women, in particular, can be empowered and how greater progress can be made towards achieving gender earning parity. As I have indicated, solutions must be provided within the context of the Aids epidemic which is ravaging our nation. This will be no easy task. 

For me earning parity should be a given in a non-sexist society like the one we are building. Yet, while the country has made impressive strides in gender transformation in parliament and senior government positions, it appears from recent research that these achievements have not yet been replicated in the corporate arena. The proportion of women represented in top management decreases dramatically as one moves up the corporate pyramid. Only 15 percent of all executive managers and 7 percent of all directors on listed JSE companies are women. It is small solace that the picture of gender representation within State Owned Enterprises is a bit brighter than in listed companies. The question remains: how do we level the playing field and ensure that women are properly represented in the workplace? 

I would, at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, caution against "affirming" women into management positions - or for that matter - any other job by the route of gender-based affirmative action. Women should be appointed on merit and ability, not for their gender. The transformation of women's position in the corporate world should start many years earlier through education and equal access to opportunities.

Education, education, education is the key. Lifelong learning is the way. 

As in almost everything, I believe change starts from the bottom upwards. In South Africa, which has more than its fair share of chauvinists, this will require jettisoning gender stereotypes and inculcating a different perspective of the role of women as equals. This transformation starts with the girl-child.  

Girls must be encouraged to excel in science, mathematics, computer studies, mechanical engineering and other subjects long considered the dominion of boys. It is in the classroom where future destinies take shape. Female participation in these subjects tapers off at the tertiary level; yet, it is these fields that we know are enjoying a prolific boom in the global knowledge-based economy. The workplace today is predominantly based on brains, not brawn. 

In arguing against gender affirmative action, it is equally wrong that women, as I mentioned earlier, bear the brunt of care-giving in families affected by HIV and AIDS. Because of traditional gender roles, women account for the majority of caregivers. With the progression of Aids, the infected person usually becomes bedridden and requires constant supervision, love and care for their most basic needs. Once the infected person dies, the children left behind need caring for. Men too must share the burden - as equals. Responsibilities must be balanced.  

Again, in classrooms, the role of women must be repackaged in the curriculum so that boys and girls from an early age perceive each other as equals with the same familial responsibilities. This is particularly important in our rural areas where gender stereotyping is more pronounced. For women with children (and for single fathers raising children), we must encourage greater flexibility in working arrangements. Women deserve equal treatment, equal opportunities and equal dignity. 

One of the greatest indictments on our nation is the continued existence of domestic violence. We are still not winning this war. I agree with the proverb that if you strike a woman, you strike a rock. Our women are indeed the rock upon which our nation is built. Yet South Africa ranks amongst the countries with the highest levels of domestic violence in the world. In a country where a woman is raped every 17 seconds, we are simply not doing enough. It is devastating to hear that domestic violence is more common than we know. South African women's groups and anti-violence organisations say that most incidents of sexual violence go unreported.  

Why is it that, of the reported cases, only seven percent result in conviction? All too often rape survivors are blamed for the incident which, in turn, encourages others to keep quiet. The stereotypes surrounding this issue still prevail and continue to be perpetuated. I would like to ask you: what programmes can we devise to assist women and children affected by domestic violence and rape in our communities?

Today South Africa needs women and men who will be loud trumpets sounding a clarion call for truth and righteousness. The strongholds of silence and stigma have still not been demolished.  

The IFP is well equipped to lead the call for truth and righteousness.

We have the experience, the guts and the willpower.  Beyond these tools, we have a secret weapon; and that is you, the women of the IFP Women's Brigade. For years I have listened to our women, and worked with women from all walks of life. Hearing your stories I am more convinced than ever that we are living in a country where everything is possible. Our Constitution gives us the freedom to follow our dreams, and our sense of unity gives us the responsibility to help build South Africa and prepare it for the challenges that lie ahead. 

In order to perform these tasks our women need to be properly organised.

The reason why soldiers have to drill and do exercises is because they need to be orderly in attacking the enemy.  A rabble cannot face a well organised army.  An orderly platoon of well trained soldiers can always rout a rabble before breakfast!  This then means that women need to organise themselves properly.  They need to have proper branches in order to tackle problems in an orderly fashion whether it is poverty, whether it is crime, whether it is HIV/AIDS, whether it is corruption or whether it is food production in order to ensure food security for our families.  You cannot tackle any of these challenges unless you are orderly.  That means getting yourselves like an army into proper platoons in order to fight these evils.  This can be done through proper branches.  Your Brigade is the spearhead of our organisation. 

Women are the very pillars on which our neighbourhoods and communities stand; women of ideas, conviction and action, who have an abiding sense of responsibility, solidarity and commitment to others. I am humbled to see just how strong and vibrant our women are. As we celebrate National Women's Day across South Africa, let us remember the unsung heroines and the leaders who have gone before. Let us emulate their example and together build a country in which women are not only free to live securely and with dignity, but are free to lend their enormous contribution to the success of our nation. 

I thank you for inviting me today to be a part of this celebration.