7 August 2000
The struggle for gender equality is also about economic transformation The South African Communist Party (SACP) joins millions of South African women in celebrating National Women's Day on 09 August. This celebration represents valiant struggles for dignity and equality by many women in our country and region. We regard this year's celebrations as a call for unity and decisive action for accelerated transformation of gender relations in our society.
Key in this transformation is the position and role of women in the economy. For some time, the SACP has been warning about the effects of job losses, unemployment and poverty on women, in particular African women in our country.
The continuing job loss bloodbath adversely affects women more than any sector of society. Unemployment and poverty put pressure on women as they are the ones who perform what is called unpaid labour at home - work that includes childcare, home health-care , informal education, household production, looking after the sick and the elderly. These conditions have led to women devising ways and means such as stokvels and burial societies in order to lighten the burden and make ends meet.
The stokvels and burial societies are co-operative economic ventures which bring together our people's resources and whose main beneficiaries are women. We need to build more and more forms of collective and co-operative economic ventures in order pull our people's resources together and utilise them for economic transformation which would contribute to gender equality.
We therefore call on women to take an active and leading part in struggles around economic transformation. This includes current struggles for job creation and the restructuring of the financial sector which continues to blacklist and deny credit to many w omen and projects which would address the conditions of living of women. Without serious attention, by government and other stakeholders, to job creation and the restructuring of the financial sector, many women will continue to suffer and live in misery.
CONTACT
Mazibuko K. Jara (surname Jara)
Dept. of Media, Information & Publicity
South African Communist Party
Tel: 011 339-3621/2
Fax: 011 339-4244
Cell: 083 651 0271
Email: sacp1@wn.apc.org