It is fitting that in our IFP calendar year we always end up our series of Conferences of the various segments of the IFP with the Women's Conference. It is fitting because without women there would be no IFP. Women, as I have repeatedly said over the years, are the very backbone of this organisation. This is as it should be because in spite of our women being more victims of the pandemic of Aids than men, they are still the majority of the population. In other words, the majority of voters are women. Anyone, who has their support, has his job more than half done. This is not only because of their numbers, however important that may be as far as votes are concerned, but I have in my long life found them to be more reliable than men. I believe women must lead change if South Africa is going to become what it should be. The IFP is the Party that can make it happen. In the seven months since our electoral setback, we have emerged as a new Party. A Party renewed. A Party regenerated. A Party revitalised.

At the Annual General Conference and at our Youth Brigade Conference, we laid the foundation stones of unity and purpose: unity and purpose so that we can embrace our new role as a moral and constructive opposition.

The Women's Brigade Conference may be the last of our Party's Conferences that we hold each year, but be in no doubt, this Party will not be able to rise to the challenges of providing a better alternative for South Africa without the full contribution of the women of this Party.

Women, as I have just said, have always been the backbone of South Africa and of this Party. Women of courage, including many gathered here today, have literally made history. This year the IFP has joined in the joyous national celebrations of ten years of democracy. From being the polecat of the international community, South Africa steadily emerged over the last decade as a glowing beacon of democracy and a human rights-based culture on the African continent.

We have also celebrated the important role that women played in the struggle for liberation. Like the stars in the night sky, the women who sacrificed so much for the freedom we enjoy today are too many to count.

For a moment try and imagine how different South Africa's liberation history would have turned out without the courage of women of the struggle. Can you imagine how different the IFP's role in the liberation struggle would have been without the contribution of women like Sibusisiwe Makhanya, Princess Magogo or Mrs Ella Nxasana, the first Chairperson of the Women's Brigade or Mrs Hilda Manyathi, a founding member of the Party and the Women's Brigade, Mrs BD Ngcobo, the first National Organiser of the Women's Brigade or Mrs Sue Felgate, the first white person to join the IFP? They have gone, but they are not forgotten. They live on forever in our hearts.

And how would things have turned out without the likes of Albertina Sisulu, or Fatima Meer, Bertha Mkhize, Dorothy Nyembe, Helen Joseph of the Black Sash or Helen Suzman? My feisty friend, Mrs Suzman is only a tiny lady, but she was a formidable and feared opponent of the apartheid regime in Parliament.

As many of you might recall, Prime Minister PW Botha was quite a frightening man. Mrs Suzman tells the story in her biography of how late one night in parliament, she was suddenly jolted awake. She heard the Prime Minister saying that he knew Mrs Suzman did not like him. Mrs Suzman stood up and exclaimed, "Like you? I cannot stand you!"

That is why I say that without the courage of women across the colour divide and from different backgrounds, South Africa could not have emerged from the stench of apartheid into the light of a new order in which people are judged by the content of their characters, and not by the colour of their skins.

And we also look to our mother continent for inspiration. I will mention just one.

Maybe Mount Kilimanjaro stood a little taller over the dusty savannah plains of Eastern Africa this month when the Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai rose to prominence fighting for those most easily marginalised in Africa - poor women. Her campaign to mobilise poor women to plant some 30 million trees has been copied by other countries. Her campaign was not at all popular when it began. In the words of Maathai: "It took me a lot of days and nights to convince people that women could improve their environment without much technology, or without much financial resources". As proud Africans, we salute Wangari Maathai's achievements today.

Madam Chairperson, the year of the first decade of democracy and this Conference venue is a suitable time to appraise what progress has been made, to advance the role of women and towards gender equality in South Africa.

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights, regarded as amongst the most progressive in the world, enshrines and guarantees the rights of women and children. Our Constitution protects women against "unfair discrimination" and upholds the dignity of women. But something, as you know, has gone wrong.

Recently the Institute for Democracy in South Africa carried out a series of research reports on women. On the whole the reports find that excellent policies and legislation have been drawn up in the departments of Social Development, Justice, Constitutional Development, and Safety and Security. Many of them, however, have never been implemented.

The litany of disappointments runs long. The civil service is too often riddled with insensitive and untrained officials who do not take women seriously as prospective employees. Women remain at the bottom of the unemployment pile. Applications for social grants, which many women need for survival, are processed painfully slowly. And police still treat many rape survivors badly.

The government is high on ideals but short on action to improve women's lives.

We are not saying this as just political arm-chair critics. Women in this Province that within the limited jurisdiction we had as the erstwhile KwaZulu Government, I did everything I could to address this issue of the status of our women. First of all, as soon as we had legislative powers, we repealed sections of the Zulu Code of Law, which enshrined the terrible concept that women were perpetual minors. That did not allow women to own any property except their apparel and only the Ngquthu Beast when their daughters got married. I made it possible for women to own houses in all the townships that were under our jurisdiction. Before that women were ejected from their homes once their husbands died. This was done crudely while they were still in mourning.

I quote this to indicate that I have always been very sensitive about the plight of our women. But now that we have such a good constitution, we expect much more to take place as dictated by our Constitution. But what do we see?

Most of the changes in race, such as Black Economic Empowerment, and gender have occurred only at the top of the level of the labour force. The bottom of the pile remains overwhelmingly black, and women are still the most disadvantaged.

Our rural women are not faring any better. A women's rights organisation, the Women's Legal Centre, speaks of "double discrimination", due to gender and race. It claims that black women in South Africa are still being slighted on issues such as inheritance and ownership of land. The list carries on.

As I told parliament on the 17th of August, we have not done enough to narrow the gap between the paper rights of women, codified in the Constitution, and the real lives that women lead.

If you walk into the parliamentary precinct in Cape Town, you will see long banners hanging off the National Assembly listing all the laws that have been passed since 1994. It looks very impressive. But my message to the government is that laws are not enough. The women of South Africa need action, not words.

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, our parliament has passed an array of new and good laws to protect women and children. The problem is that though these laws are good, legislation is simply not enough. As the campaigner Charlene Smith has remarked, laws don't walk with women in the streets, or guard women in their homes, where 65% of South African women will get raped, and one in six will get murdered.

We must ask the question, why does South Africa have the world's highest rate of rape and the most violent? Why has sexual assault figures climbed steadily since democracy? Why is it that domestic violence legislation introduced in 1998 seems to be doing so little to dent high rates of violence against women? I will tell you why.

It is not just laws that South Africa needs. Our country needs moral renewal. Moral renewal cannot begin in government. Moral renewal must be led by the people in their daily lives. Moral renewal begins in the family, the most important building-block of society. Moral renewal must be led by women in the family.

Even here when it comes to moral regeneration it is something that cannot take off, if it is not driven by women, as the very bedrock of our society.

We can adopt all ameliorative measures to deal with the pandemic of AIDS. But we know that if there is any disease where the old saying spells out the truth that "PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE," that is the only formula that can be effective in reducing the incidence of this pandemic. That cannot be done without relying on moral renewal. Even at our last Conference I shared with delegates what the first lady of Uganda, Mrs Janet Museveni shared with us at the Southern Africa Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) in Pretoria in 2003. I think that one should never stop telling people that the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Uganda was 30 percent and it is today reduced to 5 percent, which Mrs Museveni stated was still too high as far as they were concerned. She shared with us that this reduction in the incidence of HIV/AIDS had been accomplished through following the African moral code of their people, and also through adhering to the teachings of the Church. There is your burden as mothers. There is our burden as fathers. There is our burden as Africans. There is our burden as Christians or Believers whatever our faith may be, whether we are Moslem or Hindu, because the human moral code is the same in all religions of the world. While full sexual intercourse before marriage was taboo in Zulu society, our people were nevertheless realistic enough to know that the sexual instinct was very strong that they accepted the custom of ukusoma in Zulu or ukumetya in Xhosa. But chastity was something that was a virtue all unmarried women aspired to. It is quite clear that if we do not look seriously at some of the tenets of our moral code, we will not be able to reduce the incidence of this pandemic or to eliminate it.

I have stated repeatedly as a Christian that I admire the stand of the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops Conference on the issue of how to counter the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. I think what President Yoweri Museveni stated in a speech in Italy in 1998, at a Conference on the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, coincides with the thinking of the Catholic Bishops. President Museveni stated in Italy that if the only thing that we rely on for our salvation from this disease, was just a piece of rubber, then we are already doomed. The President I am sure, did not mean that prophylactics such as condoms should not be used but that if we rely solely on them, we will not be able to face up to the challenge of HIV/AIDS. I have found too much emphasis on the use of condoms than on the teachings of the Church, by some of the Church leaders even in my Church. All these measures can only have any hope of success if they start from our families, as units of our society.

This, incidentally, is the difference between how the ANC and the IFP believe things should be done. The ANC puts great faith in big government. The IFP, on the other hand, knows that real progress and change must come from empowered individuals, families and communities. This comes out of our belief in the bottom-up approach, and not the top-down approach of the ANC.

The IFP is committed to ensuring that the women of South Africa achieve parity with their male counterparts in every sphere of life. We believe our women cannot advance without equality. In fact the Nation cannot advance if our women are still so discriminated against.

The ANC believes problems can be legislated away, and solutions, many of them quick-fix types, can be imposed. The IFP believes that our society can only be changed if the hearts and minds of people are changed.

Today we face a national crisis that affects women worst of all and will only be defeated by a change of hearts and minds. A crisis so serious that I speak of it in nearly every speech I deliver. We know that women are bearing the brunt of the merciless spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. There are women here today who are bearing the heaviest burden of caring for husbands, partners and children infected by HIV. I salute you, and as a leader, I say 'thank-you' on behalf of many ordinary South Africans.

Thank you for the love and care, which you give to your loved ones, infected with this dreadful disease. You are aware that I speak as a parent who has been affected by this disease when I and my wife painfully watched our two children Nelisuzulu and Mandisi suffering so much, until they finally succumbed to the disease and passed away. We know that this is the pain of many of you in this marquee. We know that this is the pain of many other women in this Country who are not in this marquee. We know that it is the pain of millions of women in the whole Continent of Africa at this time.

I know that statistics do not tell the real human story that they hide. But they are frightening. Six times more girls are HIV infected than boys. Last year, two and a half times more young women in South Africa were HIV infected, than their male contemporaries. We also know that in a country, where one in two women is raped in her lifetime, rape is a significant factor in HIV transmission.

Women also fall prey to all that which is going wrong in our war against HIV/AIDS, such as our society's slowness in smashing the absurd belief that by raping a virgin, one could be cured of HIV/AIDS. Young innocent children are sought by infected men who infect them in the stupid belief that this will cure them from this disease.

And government must fulfil its constitutional obligation. Despite Constitutional Court victories, including a ruling on the right of HIV positive mothers to have access to medication to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus, brought to Court by the IFP and the TAC, most HIV positive women still lack access to this medication. Promises were made by the ruling-party before the election, which has not been followed through. And despite a Cabinet promise in April 2002, to give HIV preventative post exposure drugs to rape survivors, this rarely occurs.

According to the Department of Health's own figures, only about 12, 000 patients in the whole Country are receiving anti-retroviral treatment. The chaos of the Department is shown up by investigative journalism which estimates the figure to be 14, 000. Nevertheless, both figures fall alarmingly short of the 53, 000 initially set by the Department. In KwaZulu-Natal, which has the country's highest prevalence rate of HIV, only 930 out of the originally targeted 20, 000 people have received treatment at the province's 31 test sites. Things are even worse in Limpopo. Only 20 out of almost 7000 targeted people have received treatment.

The ANC fails to keep its promises. The ANC talks when the IFP acts. Remember that under the leadership of Dr Lionel Mtshali in this Province, the IFP led government was one of the first to roll out anti-retroviral treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus.

So you can see that from government indifference to pharmaceutical greed and deepening gender inequalities, the HIV/AIDS pandemic flourishes without an end in sight.

The problem is that the government's rhetoric about empowering women is right, but the reality of the lives women lead is dramatically different. That is why I say that the difference between the ANC and the IFP is the difference between what South Africa is, and what it should be.

The IFP will empower women to empower other women to provide leadership for change. We are not saying this just in order to get votes. Our record speaks for itself. The ANC talks when the IFP acts.

I will always be the first to give credit where it is due, and acknowledge that enormous achievements have been made in service delivery over the last ten years. I was involved in that delivery. Yet the gender aspect of these achievements has been lacking in our public discourse. The last census showed that there was a huge overweighting of black women in the lowest paid jobs, and gender was a major issue in unemployment and rural poverty.

I appeal to IFP public representatives to fulfil their opposition oversight role, by separating achievements and challenges in terms of gender during public debates, so that we can appraise what needs to be done to empower women.

The grim reality is that abject poverty affects women worse because they bear the responsibility of raising families, and are often the sole breadwinners.

The issue of HIV and AIDS is linked up with one of the major problems that we face as a people, which is the issue of poverty. In fact we all now know that for people who are HIV positive, good nourishment is a major factor. Our people are disadvantaged because of the abject poverty in which most of our people live.

While we have always found it necessary to give grants such as old-age pensions, child grants, disability grants etc, we know that these grants alone are not enough. This organisation was built up on the foundations of self-help and self-reliance.

Our women more than us men, have for all the decades that we have existed as an organisation been the best exponents of self-help and self-reliance. This was whether it was through the vegetable gardens, or through some other of the various projects that are demonstrated in the Exhibition at the Hall. For years now our women have been the best demonstrators of my preachments on self-help and self-reliance. We need these more than ever, even because we have the extra duty of not feeding only our families, but also of caring for our HIV positive loved ones, who must be best nourished if they are to lead qualitative lives.

We have appreciated the assistance that has been given by some of our leaders such as Ms Zanele Magwaza in the Zululand Municipal district, and Mr Stanley Dladla the Ex-Mayor of UTHUKELA and by many of our Mayors too numerous to mention, in the various parts of the Country. We know that they do not have enough funds to meet the vast needs in order to address the poverty of our people. But we highly appreciate how a number of them have been such good leaders in helping our people with projects such as sewing clubs, community gardens, poultry projects, classrooms, sports facilities and others.

This reminds us that we have the local government elections next year. We do need to ensure that we do as well as we did in the local government elections in 2000, if not better than we did then.

In order to ensure that we get leaders, such as those we have mentioned, we need to start now ensuring that our branches in the various parts of the Country are up and running. As we are all aware, elections are all just numbers games. We need to continue registering voters and not wait until next year to start doing so. I appeal to you to lead this campaign.

We need to weed out those of our Councillors who are either corrupt or who are not delivering services to our Communities. I must balance this by saying that I know that there are Municipalities that were created by the Department of Provincial and Local Government in Pretoria, in spite of our warnings that these artificial municipalities that were proclaimed would not have the capacity as they have nothing. We should, while we are focussing on the leaders that have not delivered, be aware that there are some of the Councils and Councillors that have not delivered because they just do not have capacity or funding. But we need to throw away bad apples in the bag where they exist, right now, rather than later. Let us not be caught napping. I know that the backbone of most of our branches is women. I know that the people who are right at the coalface of our people's poverty, are our women. They are more au fait with these problems than their male counterparts.

In his speech to the State Opening of Parliament in May, President Mbeki spoke of the need to bridge the gap between the "first" and "second" economy. In simple terms, the government is saying that there is a first economy, that is formal and part of the global economy, and a second economy which is made up of people who are not participating in this modern economy. The majority of women are in the second economy.

This presents a major challenge for the IFP. The reason is because the majority of the million or so people who supported the IFP in this year's general election are the rural poor, and the people who care about them. In other words, the overwhelming majority of people who put their trust in you and I in April, are people who belong to the second economy.

As one senior government spokesperson significantly noted, the people who are not part of the mainly urban modern sector of society, are more disadvantaged now then they were under apartheid. Of course, when I had the temerity to point this uncomfortable truth out in Parliament last year, I was accused by a senior ANC leader of wanting to go back to Egypt.

Our people in these squatter areas are equally disadvantaged and also need our attention.

One of the biggest obstacles to empowering women in the second economy is the lack of access to information. This has been worsened by the widening digital divide, with South African women finding themselves on the wrong side of the information superhighway. The scarcity of resources particularly for women, to access empowerment programmes, is one of the biggest obstacles preventing the development of women in rural areas.

Access to information is still skewered, in favour of people living in the urban areas, due to a lack of infrastructure in the rural areas. Many women, for instance, have to use their scare resources to travel long distances to apply for children's grants. The needs of women in the rural areas must be prioritised to bring about the quality of life that is so often spoken about, but rarely realised.

And women are facing the full brunt of the ever rising unemployment. They are the first to be retrenched and they are less employed than their counterparts, in spite of them often being more reliable than men.

I have told you many times that in my longstanding experience in Government, especially when I was the Chief Minster of the erstwhile KwaZulu Government, I noticed that one could always rely on female civil servants to get the work done. Yet, women are still less employed than their male counterparts, which shows the bias in our society still runs deep. Our still male-dominated society does not ascribe the value to women they deserve.

You can see this clearly in the black economic empowerment equity deals that are taking place in the so-called 'commanding heights' of the economy. The economist, Moeletsi Mbeki (I better not mention the other reason why he is famous!) has noted that BEE might enrich a few politically well-connected individuals, but it does little or nothing to alleviate the plight of the large number of people who are employed and living in poverty.

Of the 42 billion rands worth of BEE deals, R25 billion rands (that is 60%) went to two oligarchs in the ANC. Sixty percent to two individuals! The ANC talks about a better life for the people and delivers a better life for the few.

But, despite the bad press, we do need BEE for the reason that the majority of South Africans hold political, but not economic power. But the implementation is simply wrong. As the leader of the largest black opposition party, I would like to contribute to this important public policy debate by making a few observations and recommendations to government. The IFP will be fleshing out is proposals on BEE in the months ahead.

First, broad-based black ownership of BEE is vital because the absence of black ownership might result in political alienation, economic insecurity and, possibly, even political instability.

Second, BEE must be achieved within the constraints of maintaining market integrity and attracting foreign direct investment.

Third, government should give opportunities to companies that comply with social transformation requirements and on their ability to add commercial value to the business.

Finally, potential conflicts of interests must be avoided, and BEE transactions must be weighed against the long-term objective of broadening ownership of the South African economy. An objective, we all share, I believe, across the political divide.

Madam Chairperson, this Women's Brigade Conference is a watershed moment for our Party, as it also marks the completion of a cycle of renewal, regeneration and rejuvenation that we embarked upon after the election. To change, we needed unity. I am troubled by the spirit I see amongst some of our women leaders. I see them contributing to disunity, rather than to unity which we so desperately need in order to make our mark as an organisation. This is something that is creeping into our organisation like a cancer. We may need radical surgery to get rid of it.

We must now focus outwards to offer South Africa a better alternative to the ANC, which is failing South Africa every day. The time has come for us to seize the political initiative. History will judge us harshly if we dare linger for a moment.

Today I have spoken about the many serious issues that face women each day of their lives. I have spelled out the policy challenges. It is now time to do everything we can to make the change.

We may not all have personally experienced the icy cold of winter cutting through to the bone which women, who have to traverse large distances to visit clinics, or even draw water, endure in the rural areas. We may not have personally experienced the heart stopping fear and shame of domestic violence. We may not have all experienced the indignity and soul destroying failure to gain employment. Job application after job application cast aside.

But my message to the women of South Africa is this: your thrust is our thrust. I look to you, the women of our Party, to provide leadership for change and unity so that women can take their rightful place in South Africa.

The gauntlet I throw in front of you at this Conference is : "IFP WOMEN PROVIDE LEADERSHIP FOR CHANGE AND UNITY". I ask you to pick it up! I thank-you.