Address by Her Excellency, the Deputy President of South Africa Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the 2007 Women's Parliament, Parliament, Cape Town

Mme wa ngwana o tshwara thipa ka bohaleng!

Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Ms Mahlangu-Nkabinde,
Ministers,
Deputy Ministers,
Members of Parliament,
Representatives of non-governmental organizations and community based organisations,
Officials from the three spheres of government,
Friends,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Introduction

I am pleased to be participating in this fourth Women's Parliament which has been an annual outreach programme of Parliament since 2004.

This Women's Parliament is held during August when we commemorate and remember the sacrifices made by women in the struggle against apartheid. We remember the significant role women have played in creating our democratic society, and we also acknowledge the crucial role women must continue to play in ensuring the reconstruction and development of our country because 'Mme wa ngwana o tshwara thipa ka bohaleng!'

The Constitution

Deputy Speaker, I would like to begin by referring to the founding Provisions of our Constitution which our Parliament adopted in 1996, and I quote some of the values:

"The Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values:
a. Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.
b. Non-racialism and non-sexism."

What is a non sexist and non-racial South Africa? How do we build it and who must build it?
We must build a South Africa, for which women fought and deserve, the South Africa our founding mothers dreamt of.

In that regard and notwithstanding the progress we have made. It is still not good enough for some women who are still victims of sexism. We are failing them. For women who continue to hold the knife at the sharpest end, the pain from the sharp end, of the knife is just that; pain!

Passing of important legislation

What is the use of passing good legislation if we do not pay attention to the impact and access to benefits of good legislation; therefore I appeal that we shift our focus to that space of implementation and impact and ensure we get the desired results through ensuring access and implementation of good legislation.

Some of the Pieces of Legislation, examples are:

Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, (Act No 92 of 1996); the Employment Equity Act, (Act No 55 of 1998); the Maintenance Act, (Act No 99 of 1998) and the Domestic Violence Act, (Act No 116 of 1998).

Let us agree on a plan to make at least these four work better; laws are not sufficient on their own. We need to make sure that these laws work. We must take practical steps at all our levels, as women leaders, we must remind ourselves and practise that we too have to handle the knife at the sharpest end, or 'tshwara thipa ka bohaleng!' Without that, our talk is cheap. We need to know the 'How, Who and Where' of implementation. We need a game plan, not just events, certainly less celebrations, and more problem solving and pushing of frontiers.

Poverty eradication needs women

The important role women need to play in current issues and SAWID

Women need poverty to be eradicated. We can learn from the practical steps by the South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID). Action, action and more action!

We must remove poverty so that families become free of poverty recreating conditions. We, therefore, will have the possibility of reducing the number of poor people, which means reducing the number of families and people who are poor, which is more than reducing the level of poverty with households through, for example, food security. Government, indeed, is doing an extraordinary job in taking people out of absolute poverty. Government needs more partners to eradicate poverty.

The link between eradicating poverty and education

Empowering and educating women and girl children is crucial, and should underpin all our efforts to create a better life for all our people. It is the most reliable intervention to remove poverty and its recurrence in a family, especially because, if you educate a woman, you educate a nation! With education, there are more chances of economic self- reliance. The lack of women education is at the heart of women's poverty.

Eradicating crimes against the vulnerable

Notwithstanding government's efforts at creating safer communities, women, children, the aged and those living with disabilities continue to bear the brunt of crime. It is clear that social transformation and forming partnerships with civil society, is the only way government can protect the most vulnerable in our society.

Poverty, lack of education and economic deprivation contribute significantly to the unpleasant conditions of women.

We must help government and ourselves to bridge the gap between reducing levels of poverty and reducing the numbers of poor people! It is in eradicating poverty and reducing the number of the poor that we will win the fight against poverty.

The role of mothers in caring for our girl children

Deputy Speaker, government, Parliament, business and civil society all have their role to play in ensuring gender equality. However, I want to stress the crucial role individual women have played and continue to play in their families. Nurturing children is the responsibility of both parents. Yet women should not abdicate the responsibility of caring for their children, particularly their girl children. Mothers cannot abdicate this responsibility to the school and to government. These institutions do not have the capacity.

No amount of entitlement of women to their own hard won freedom makes it, less important for women to 'tshwara thipa ka bohaleng!' or handle the knife at the sharpest end.

But even better, we have to aim to remove the need for women to have to handle the knife at the sharpest end!

Girl children need to be free

We want girl children to be free to become engineers, educators, medical personnel, Members of Parliament, mothers and loving wives. We do not want our girl children to be burdened by early sexual encounters, which leave them pregnant and HIV positive. Mothers are role models to their daughters; let us take care of our girl children. Let us engage with girls from an early age about the importance of education and economic independence. Let us, at the appropriate, time engage our girl children about their bodies, motherhood, and the importance of remaining HIV negative.

We want all children to grow up in a caring society.

Important role played by women

Deputy Speaker, women also have an important role to play in educating men about gender equality. Mothers need to educate their sons about respecting girls and women. Sons need to understand the consequences of unprotected sex and the responsibilities, which fatherhood brings. In a nutshell we need to break the cycle of poverty through engaging with our young people on vital issues such as education and health.

I am alarmed by the number of young male chauvinists one hears in the mass media. There is something we are doing wrong on that score to still have so many speaking publicly and questioning women's equality.

Educating Women

* We must promote mentoring of young women. e.g.
* We are making strides in the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) by placing young women - eleven thousand (11 000) in just over one year � in engineering, tourism, finance and Information Communication Technology (ICT)
* Bursaries and Further Education and Training (FET) and universities by the Department of Education (DOE).
* Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) is in the pipeline.
* Presidential women's working group making progress.

Economic independence of women

Deputy Speaker, our government continues to prioritise the economic independence of women. Women need to take their rightful place in our mainstream economy.

The Women's empowerment initiatives led by the Deputy Minister Thabethe are aimed at positioning women in the economic mainstream:

1. A Women Entrepreneurs' Fund to be launched in November 2007.

There has been important progress towards a fund to support small businesses owned and run by women � the Women Entrepreneurs' Fund. The recent presentation by the Presidential Working Group of a women's retirement fund proposal programme designed for women and poorer workers is an outstanding initiative.

Their proposals highlight the need for inclusion of domestic workers, a sector that is always overlooked, but plays a critical role in our economy. This initiative will also force retirement funds to look at representation of women in the sector, and can therefore, speed up the process of diversification. Women will be able to increase their savings as well as invest in their future through this retirement initiative.

Women representation on retirement fund decision making

As members, women contribute 50 percent to the 1 Trillion rand retirement fund yet their representation as decision makers on the fund is only 7 percent.

In the public sector retirement fund, of the 146 trustees only 22 are women. While in the private sector retirement fund, of the 172 only four are women.

2. Jobs for Growth (J4G) Fund in partnership with Old Mutual South Africa (OMSA) and other initiatives are
3. Co-ops for women
4. One municipality, One Product.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Deputy Speaker I want to wish the participants well in their deliberations during this Women's Parliament. We encourage women to continuously talk to law makers and specifically to the Member of Parliament in their constituency, about to the experiences and the challenges they face in implementing laws and policies.

We, as women, need to ensure that the Constitution of our country, which we fought for as a collective, becomes a living document. I understand that a number of topics will be discussed including Education, Environment and Tourism and Agriculture and Land. We hope that the outcome of this Parliamentary sitting will have clear programmes to empower women.

We have much, much more to do still. We still need to 'Tshwara thipa ka bohaleng'- to hold the knife at the sharpest end, because we have not yet arrived!

I thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
28 August 2007