Date: 18/02/2009

Source: The Presidency

Title: SA: Tshabalala-Msimang: Address to the National Assembly by the Minister in the Presidency, on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women

Honourable Madame Speaker of the National Assembly
Honourable Deputy Speaker
His Excellency, President Kgalema Motlanthe
Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers
The Chief Whips
Honourable Members of Parliament
Distinguished guests

I bid you all a very good afternoon and wish to thank the Honourable Madame Speaker for acceding to my request to address this distinguished House on the upcoming United Nations Commission on the Status of Women scheduled for the 2 to 13 March 2009 in the UN headquarters, New York. I am further encouraged by the Honourable Speaker allowing for a debate among the Members of Parliament on substantive issues in this regard.

Madam Speaker,
Allow me to begin by congratulating His Excellency, President Kgalema Motlanthe on his address to the Nation on 6 February 2009. This address is in fact a highly gender mainstreamed address - the Honourable Members of Parliament will have noted that women's concerns and issues were raised throughout. However, of note is the special mention of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development as well as the issue of the 50/50 representation of women in decision-making positions. His Excellency, The President, also mentioned the review of the institutional mechanisms for promoting women's empowerment and gender equality. But this was not to be so with the national budget 2009 being silent on the financing for women's empowerment and gender equality, given that the Ministry for Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality is currently under discussion.

Allow me also, Madam Speaker to remind the house that the portfolio over which I preside in The Presidency includes advancing and promoting women's empowerment and achieving gender equality in the country. This mandate has been quite challenging, given that it has been only a short period that I have had to focus on a few critical issues facing women in this country, including meeting the backlog on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Reporting process, which has been now dispatched to the UN. This report will also form the basis of our contribution at the UN CSW.

Some of these issues will be raised under the banner of discussions at the upcoming UN Commission on the Status of Women in March this year. I therefore believe that would be expedient of me to raise these matters with the Honourable Members of Parliament prior to the country's participation in the UN processes.

The UN CSW, as the commission is known, is a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which is dedicated exclusively to promoting the advancement of women. The commission was established by Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOC) Resolution 11 (ii) of 21 June 1946 with the aim to prepare recommendations and reports to the council on promoting women's rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. The commission also makes recommendations to the council on urgent challenges requiring immediate attention in the field of women's rights.

As a principal global policy-making body, the commission annually holds a two-week meeting in early March. This meeting provides member states with an opportunity to evaluate progress made, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies on advancing women's empowerment and gender equality worldwide.

This year the CSW will be focusing on three themes. The priority theme is on equal sharing of responsibilities between men and women, including care-giving in the context of HIV and AIDS.

I have been working with the National Gender Machinery in preparing for the country's participation in this thematic area and to date we were able to look at the theme during four of our gender machinery meetings. However, I believe that it would be significant to raise some of the issues today as they have serious implications for the women of our country. We will be emphasising prevention, support and care, including nutrition, treatment where indicated and the importance of research.

In terms of the global policy and legal frameworks, UN Member States have committed on various platforms on the equal sharing of responsibilities between men and women including care giving in the context of HIV and AIDS. Some of these commitments include those made at:
* the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994,
* the fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing in 1995,
* the World Summit for Social Development in 1995,
* the twenty-third Special Session of the UN General Assembly in 2000.

It is therefore important that we reflect on how we have translated these agreements into our national policies and legal framework and to determine whether we have adequately incorporated these into pieces of legislation to guarantee the attainment of this principle.

In this regard, the Honourable Members of Parliament must also be reminded that as a country we have not as yet acceded to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention no 156 of 1981 on Workers and Family Responsibilities. It is becoming quite apparent that we need to incorporate the articles of this convention, together with other global agreements we have acceded to, to turn these policy issues into action for the society to actually begin to transform gender and power relations, to effect the principle of shared responsibilities and shared work.

Madam Speaker,
We must look at our national policies, strategies and practices to ensure full participation and partnership of both women and men in productive and reproductive life, including shared responsibility for the care and nurturing of children and maintenance of the household. During this period of preparation for our participation at the UN CSW, we will also be reviewing the issue of maternity, paternity and family responsibility leave to identify whether these are advancing our goals towards increasing the shared responsibility between men and women.

While we have a very forward-looking Labour Relations Act which puts workers rights at the top of the agenda, the issue of maternity leave and paternity leave must be reviewed in line with the commitments we have made globally. Furthermore, not all women in our country are able to enjoy fully paid maternity leave - many women have to utilise their Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) in this regard.

The paternity leave men are entitled to in terms of our legislation is insufficient time for a father to bond with his newborn baby or be trained on the care and nurturing of the baby. Our society needs to grapple with the issue of increasing the role men play in respect to the delivery of their babies, child rearing and in sharing responsibilities for household chores.

There needs to be appropriate measures to balance the daily burden of domestic responsibilities, the greatest share of which falls on women, and to truly recognise the unpaid work by women, look at the issue of flexi-time and flexi-hours of work, day-care facilities at work places, maternal leave, breast-feeding policies, and health insurance, in order to accelerate our progress towards empowerment of women and achievement of gender equality.

Furthermore, we must begin the discourse on how to translate similar rights to those working in the informal and non-formal sector - where we find predominantly women and poor people confined. How do we address the issue of the gendered division of labour and household responsibilities within our society? This is imperative if we are to be seen to be moving towards our goals of transformation which must go beyond just a focus on numbers and representation.

Madam Speaker,
How do we raise awareness of, and challenge those gender stereotypes that perpetuate perceptions of women as natural caregivers and men as the main bread-winners, including through interventions in the education system, the media and through awareness-raising campaigns?

In the light of many of these thought-provoking questions which I am raising today, thematic area two of the UN CSW will be looking at the issue of equal participation by men and women in all levels of decision-making.

The national delegation to the CSW will share the country's experiences and any best practices in this regard with the international world.

On the national level, allow me, Madam Speaker to inform the house that in line with the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development we recently signed in August 2008, and which we will be forwarding to National Parliament for ratification in the near future, all SADC Member States will be embarking upon national campaigns on the 50/50 representation of women. So too is our country. The National Gender Machinery is launching its 50/50 national campaign tomorrow, 19 February, here at national Parliament. It is being hosted by the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Improvement to the Quality of Life and Status of Women.

I have kindly requested the committee to host a multi-party media briefing on the issue and in this regard, while extending the invitation to all Members present today, I must also extend The Presidency's sincere gratitude to the committee for undertaking this task. This national campaign is envisaged to meet the target of 2014. We are again reminded that such processes requires adequate funding and full support and commitment by the political leadership which will then cascade into the administrative and governance spheres of society, at all levels and in all sectors, including the private and corporate world. We urge all political parties to carefully scrutinise the election lists for the 50/50 representation.

Madam Speaker,
The UN CSW will focus on theme three, which is the impact of the global financial crisis on women. This theme is related to the priority theme of the 52nd Session of the CSW in 2008, which looked at the issue of financing for women's empowerment and gender equality. Once again, several commitments have been made towards this. The Monterey Consensus of the International Conference for Financing for Development outlined that a holistic approach should be adopted for financing for empowerment of women and encouraged the investment in girls and women especially in encouraging the financial empowerment of women towards their economic independence. In addition, entrepreneurship among women is strongly being encouraged at the global level.

Discussions on this topic at the recently held national gender machinery meeting raised the point on whether the current global economic meltdown should be looked at only as a crisis, or both a crisis and an opportunity at the same time. This is in keeping with the "Remake the World" concept raised by the honourable Minister Manuel in his Budget Vote Address.

However, it is widely acknowledged among us that the face of poverty is female. In that regard, the impact of this economic downturn is felt most strongly by women. Even when men are laid off work, it is the women who must now carry the additional burden of finding food to feed the family. The most critical element of the current financial crisis has to be the deepening of inequality, which most affects women. The spiralling effect of women's unpaid work together with the declining value of care in a monetary economy exacerbates the current dilemmas. Caring for children, relatives, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and the ill, as well as still trying to grow food for the family is felt most strongly by women at the lowest end of the economic ladder - mainly poor rural women.

What the honourable Members of Parliament must consider during this debate is the issue of an inclusive economic framework that begins to look at issues of women and their unpaid work beyond marketplace exchange and defining economic activity beyond monetary transactions.

His Excellency, President Motlanthe, during his address to the nation, raised the issue of establishing a task team that would look at these issues. The caveat I raise now is - will this team also look at women in the informal sector who are the direct bearers of the impact of this financial crisis?

Madam Speaker,
Allow me the opportunity to therefore relate this particular issue to the urgent and pressing need that impelled the women of the country to decry the inadequacies of the current institutional mechanisms established to advance and empower women and attain gender equality. The gender machinery of the country has not been able to address the issue of the increasing feminisation of poverty, the eradication of violence against women and the girl-child nor the burden of disease especially toward the attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) one, four and five among the many other issues we should be dealing with.

The resolution of the ruling party carried forward at its 52nd conference in 2007 has therefore given a very clear directive that the current mechanisms needed to be reviewed, and enhanced as necessary with special consideration to be given to the establishment of a women's ministry. I am happy to state that we have undertaken this task, and developed a concept paper titled "Towards the strengthening of the institutional mechanism for advancing women's empowerment and gender equality in South Africa by the addition of a Women's Ministry."

The concept paper is to be presented to the appropriate authorities and contains an outline of the location, proposed name, structure, and proposed functions. In addition, the paper identifies three options of the form and nature of the ministry.

Of significance to the theme on implications of the financial crisis, the concept paper suggests that the proposed ministry, among its co-ordination and facilitation tasks, will need to undertake strategic programmes, including the issue of addressing the female face of poverty, Early Childhood Development (ECD), accelerating the eradication of violence against women, and gender based violence, meeting MDG one, four, five and six, among others.

Madam Speaker,
I want to also take this opportunity to inform the honourable Members of Parliament that South Africa has been able to meet its deadline regarding the country's periodic progress report on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). We have completed the second, third and fourth report and happy to announce that we are now up to date in terms of this report. The next CEDAW report is only due on 14 January 2013. We are currently preparing for the country's report on the progress made in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action - a Fifteen Year Review.

Madam Speaker,
In concluding, I want to recall the opening comments of Ms Gertrude Mongella as the Acting Secretary-General to the fourth UN World Conference on Women, in Beijing, China in 1995.

Quote: "...a revolution has begun. There is no going back. There will be no unravelling of commitments. Neither today nor last years' and certainly, not this decades' commitments. This revolution is too just, too important, and certainly long overdue." Unquote

Thank you.