South African History Online

Speech by President Mandela at the Symposium for World Women's Day

October 15 1998

Premier of the Eastern Cape
Master of Ceremonies
Members of
Zenzele
Women of South Africa

Through centuries of oppression, the formal education that our people
received never included their own history. We learned nothing of our societies
values, practices or culture at school.

It was only through the oral tradition and the culture of story-telling that
many of us learnt of our proud history and value system. And it was the women
who were mainly responsible for passing on our legacy. This is the strength that
Professor D.D.T Jabavu recognised when he helped to establish Zenzele Women's
Association in the 1920's. This is the strength that has held the women in this
province and in the country bound together in a common struggle against
oppression and hunger. This is the strength that has seen women participating in
their own upliftment, learning new skills and planting seeds to give their
children a brighter future.

And so I am honoured to be with you today. Although this is a gathering of
one of the most vulnerable sectors of our society it also brings together the
sector which holds the most powerful potential in its hands.

As rural women, you know how much damage was caused by apartheid and
colonialism. You know too well the difficulties of being able to get clean
water, sanitation, health care, housing, welfare services and proper education.

Apartheid also had other costs, like the loss of family life due to parents
having to leave the rural areas in search of work.

The result is that today in South Africa, there is a wide gap between rich
and poor, between those in the cities and those in rural areas, between the
educated and those who cannot read, between the healthy and those who are
malnourished.

Government, in partnership with the private sector, business and workers, is
doing everything in its power to make that gap smaller. This is why we are
steadily shifting more and more of our national resources towards improving the
lives of the majority of our people, especially the most vulnerable, including
women, and in particular rural women.

The greatest impact of our programmes for socio-economic upliftment are being
felt in the country-side.

People in the rural areas from the bulk of the 2,6 million people who have
received access to clean water; the people who can now walk to one of the more
than 600 clinics which have been built; the 5 million children who receive
nutritional meals at schools; the people whose lives have been changed by the
electrification of over 2 million homes and the connection of over 1 million
telephones.

Government's Poverty Relief programmes are also focused on empowering rural
people and especially rural women.

Last year government put aside R300 million for poverty relief, and this year
we have allocated another R500 million for poverty relief. Much of this money,
as well as other funds for infrastructure development, will go towards building
access roads in rural areas. Other Poverty Relief funds will boost the water
supply programme, assist emerging farmers, and improve our welfare and nutrition
programmes that are focused on assisting households which are run by women. Most
importantly these and other infrastructural projects create opportunities for
people to build a better life for themselves.

Many of you will be familiar with some of the projects that are already
operational in the Qumbu and Tsolo areas. One feature of the programme is that
the majority of people employed should be women. This is being done because we
know that unless women are involved first hand in development, it will not be
genuine and lasting.

To change the lives of women and to achieve our goals as a nation, we must
also ensure that women participate fully in every sphere of the economic and
political life of our country. Democratic government and the policy of
affirmative action, is beginning to make an impact. We have confirmation of this
in a report just released by the United Nations Development Programme. Because
of our past, South Africa still ranks number 89 in comparison to the general
development of countries. But when we were rated in terms of our efforts to
empower women, we came in at number 23.

All these figures that I have quoted show how seriously government takes the
role of women in the education, training and all-round development of our
nation. It is of course only a start to an enormous change that is required
before the situation of women is properly addressed, and Government is committed
to continuing in this direction. But it is also expected of you as leaders of
our nation to play your part. You must now seize the opportunities that are made
available to you to care for your health; to educate yourselves; to familiarise
yourselves with new technology; to play your rightful role in the economy and
government of your nation - in short; to assert the rights you now have as
women, which you were denied before. Our nation is depending on you to help put
our economy along a path of lasting growth so that we can continue to expand the
improvements in the lives of our people.

We are also counting on the women of South Africa to make a strong
contribution to the building of our new nation. By dividing our country and
making us strangers to each other, apartheid took away the freedom of all;
oppressed and oppressor alike. It is therefore of great importance that this
gathering is providing an opportunity for women who were once set apart to talk
to each other about how to build a better life for all and how to shape the
South Africa of tomorrow.

I wish you well in your proceedings.

I thank you