REGIONAL OFFICE: CAPE TOWN
27th October 1999
THANK YOU.
Good afternoon everyone.
Chairperson
Members of staff of the Western Cape Regional Office
Ladies and Gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to be here today.
I believe that today is a significant day for the justice system in the Western Cape. It marks a new beginning and a new direction. It marks the formal, official launch of the Gender Forum for the region.
Now what exactly do we mean by gender forum? What will it do and how will it operate?
A Gender Forum is a mechanism, a tool, a process. It is what we are going to use to feed into, and interlock with, the various processes, whether national, provincial or local, to advance gender equity and gender equality.
The Gender Forum provide wonderful opportunity, if we choose to make it work, to influence the transformation of both the justice system, and the Department of Justice, as the place where we all, women and men, work together.
But I think that some of you may well be wondering whether a Gender Forum is really necessary, or whether it's just another fine idea that's going to get in the way of doing the real work? Or thoughts along similar lines.
So, in case are asking those sorts of questions, I thought I'd share with you some of the thoughts of our clients. These are the words of real people, of real women in fact, who have passed through the Sexual Offences Court in Wynberg.
They are quoted in a study of the court that was conducted by Rape Crisis, Cape Town, the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town and the South African Human Rights Commission. The statements are all taken from complainants in rape cases. In other words, they were some of our more vulnerable clients.
One women said: I thought that the purpose of the consultation with the prosecutor was getting preparation for what could happen in court, and the kind of questions that I'd maybe be asked, but because he was busy we could not meet and I even had to wait for him.
Another woman said this: I'm glad it was a woman prosecutor and I wouldn't have chosen it otherwise because I always think a man is in the man's favour. I always think that... he won't understand emotionally, psychologically and physically what I had been going through
Yet another woman said: I mean, they just phoned me in the morning and said I must come to court ... Then I had to rush, and the kids also had to go to school... so then they just had to come with me to the court ... and I didn't like it but what could I do???
What are these quotations telling us about the service that we are providing to our clients? There's quite a lot in them, and here I must point out that I'm not using them to criticise or get at' anyone, especially prosecutors. Believe me. I have some understanding of the problems that court personnel are facing at the moment, and the pressure they working under.
I've used these quotations to illustrate to you that gender is a very important aspect of the justice system, and one that we cannot ignore. Sometimes the particular gender issue is a surface issue, like not realising that most women are the primary caregivers for their children, and that they have to make alternative arrangements for their children if they have to be in court, or somewhere else.
Other gender issues are more complex. They have to do with:
These are the hardest issues to think about. This is because, in most instances, we are not even aware of the fact that:
has anything at all to do with the similarities or the differences between men and women, and how they are able to function in the world.
If we want to be gender sensitive, we have to begin by getting a sense of how just how the lives of women and men differ. And then, we need to make a conscious effort to understand the underlying factors that produce these differences.
This will almost certainly force us to question some of our own assumptions about the roles of women and men. And it will sharpen our ability to recognize the systemic discrimination that comes from our assumptions.
The distinct life experiences of men and women are influenced by inherent biological differences. There is, however, no inherent reason why these differences should create social, legal and economic inequality.
Women make up approximately 51% of our population, yet they do not share equally in the benefits of South African society.
The reason for this systemic inequality lies in the simple fact that our social, legal, economic and political structures were all designed by men.
And, as a result, half of our population is trying to fit into social, legal and economic structures that were not designed, in any way, to respond to the realities of their lives.
Ultimately, this situation benefits no one, neither the men who live in the systems that were designed by men, nor the women who struggle so hard to fit into them.
Gender discrimination, and other forms of systemic discrimination, including discrimination based on race, culture, age, disability or sexual orientation, to name just a few, is pervasive in our society. In fact, it is so much a part of our ''landscape'' that it is virtually invisible. What I'm saying is, that we are so familiar with gender discrimination, and other forms of subtle discrimination, that we don't even see them, let alone question them.
One of the ways that we can address this is through Gender Forums.
Gender Forums are designed, together with other gender analysis tools, to help us to respond to the full diversity of our population. Participating in Gender Forums can help us to focus on, and to really see, the impacts of gender, and other forms of discrimination more easily, and to identify ways to address them.
Now to illustrate what I'm talking about, let's look very briefly at five of the key factors in women's lives that open them up to gender discrimination. I'm sure that you'll be able to identify with some or even all of them.
Lets look at family structures:
While some women in South Africa do live with their husbands or partners, one of the legacies of apartheid has been the disproportionately large number of single-parent families, and most of these are headed by women. Even so, our legal, medical and social services are still based on the idea of families that are composed of a man, a woman and one or more children. This is both alienating and impractical.
Let's look at economics:
Gender is significant in economy. Women control less money than men do, and occupy less well paid segments of the workforce. Women are much more likely than men to interrupt their careers due to child-care, care of elderly parents and other family responsibilities. These factors contribute to a persistent wage gap, with women earning an estimated, fifty to sixty cents for every rand earned by men.
Let's look at violence against women:
Fear of violence and the experience of violence limit the choices and expectations of many women in their homes, workplaces and communities.
Let's look at health and social issues:
Gender plays an important role in social factors, such as income, working conditions, social status and education, and all of these factors have an important influence on the quality of our health and well-being.
And finally, let's look at legal implications:
Gender biases often occur in legislation, as well as in the interpretation, application and enforcement of laws. Many laws are drafted without considering the real life experiences of women. Consequently, they can unintentionally, but severely discriminate against women.
Obviously there is more. This is a complex subject. I've barely scraped the surface of it. But I hope that these few examples will serve to draw you into the subject, and to get you thinking about gender issues and the impact that they have on all our lives.
And that brings us back to the topic of Gender Forums generally, and this one in particular.
We hope that your Gender Forum will serve as advisory body and a monitoring mechanism to ensure that gender considerations are integrated into mainstream issues. It should also provide an opportunity for justice personnel, including cleaners, typists, interpreters, administrative personnel, prosecutors and magistrates, to meet and to share their experiences of life and of the workplace.
In this way, you will be able to code the experiential gaps between you, and to move on to a level of understanding that will erode systemic discrimination. Ultimately, this will enable you to play your particular part in building a society that values all its members, including its women, equally, and therefore benefits everyone.
Thank you.