9 August 2008
The 9th of August marks the celebration of women day in South Africa. The SACP takes this opportunity to wish millions of women a Happy Women’s Day as we commemorate and remember the role played by women in the struggle for the liberation of this country.
The SACP remains consistent with our analysis of what constituted the core of the South African crisis commonly referred to within our ranks as Colonialism of a Special type, a crisis that required us to collective struggle for the resolution of the national, class and gender contradictions. This resulted in the triple oppression of women and thus places enormous responsibility on us to transform the lives of women in this country for the better.
For many years women performed unpaid labour to sustain the barbaric capitalist system and strengthen the dominant minerals- finance-energy complex that has taken grip of the South African economy.
Fourteen years into our democracy, women remain locked in the crisis of Capitalism. The soaring prices of food and now lately the rise in the electricity crisis has worsened the living conditions of ordinary women.
Women continue to be at the lower rung and the most affected by lack of service delivery.
Our health system continues to let many of our women down due to its inability to efficiently respond to them or those they are taking care of. In that regard we support the call made by the YCL for free distribution of sanitary pads to women and increased supply of free female condoms in public spaces.
Lack of access to basic food has already deepened the crisis of those infected and affected by the highly unacceptable high levels of HIV/AIDS. The SACP calls on the increased support to women co-ops in fields like baking and agriculture to increase food production at small scale and secure food for the poorest of the poor in our country.
It has been women who have been at the worst receiving end of the neo-liberal policies of the Mbeki administration. Most of the sectors that absorbed our women were outsourced and to date the conditions of women as casual workers in the retail industry, the cleaning services and the textile industry have strengthened whilst the bosses walk away with their pockets full. When we say we need change in the economic policy, we say so because we need to change the conditions of the majority of the women in this country.
We say we need change because we need to move away from narrow BEE framework that has co-opted the elite women into deals whilst majority of women are turned into mere recipients of the top down approach delivery as conceptualised by the 1996 Class Project. We ought to change this in true honour of the memory of Dora Tamaana, Ruth First, Lillian Ngoyi, Ray Alexander, Ncumisa Kondlo and many heroines of our struggle.
Part of our struggle includes the fight against patriarchy in our society and its accompanying ills including violence against women. We need to mobilise more of our women into street committees and for them to play a leading in this street committees as part of our broad movement against crime and las leading organs of development in society.
Issued by the SACP.
Contact: Malesela Maleka (SACP Spokesperson) @ 082 226 1802