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Address by Deputy Minister
Aziz Pahad, 16 Days of No Violence Against Women and
Children Campaign, Union Buildings, Pretoria, 14 December
2003
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Ten years ago when we won the battle for our freedom,
we knew we had come so far from where we had begun on
this long and difficult journey against colonialism
and apartheid rule. Ten years ago, when we established
a non-racial and non-sexist democratic South Africa,
we believed that this would be a new beginning for the
people of South Africa.
Finally we had it in our power, within the palm of
our hands to create a people-centred society, a country
of caring communities that would work together to create
a better life for all. We took our proud and rightful
places as Africans concerned about the fate of the African
continent and as people of the South eager to reclaim
our place as equals in the world community.
The world itself was in upheaval, globalisation was
creating changes that no-one had foreseen. The people
of the world who lived so separate and so far apart
could begin to communicate with each other as though
they truly were living in one space, one village of
one world.
Yet it was doing these profound changes, that the people
of this planet recognized that sexism and discrimination
were continuing to rear its ugly head - the victims
of genocide and war, of daily suffering and unprovoked
violence were the world's women and children. Those
who were raped, beaten, deprived of their livelihoods
and their loved ones, held in captivity, tortured, and
killed, were women. It was during this period that rape
began to be recognized as a war crime, that the plight
of women during war time as well as in reconstruction
began to be recognized as crucial especially with regard
to reconciliation and in the building of a new society
in the post-conflict period. The campaign of 16 days
of no violence against women and children came to exist
as a United Nations endorsed initiative, so that the
people of the world would participate in creating a
consciousness of women's suffering and the need for
a human rights culture that was sensitive to and fully
inclusive of women and children's rights in society.
Within our South African society, we knew that although
we had come so far through struggle, that the fight
for women's emancipation had only just begun, that the
battle for women's freedom from want, from violence,
from suffering, had to be taken from the public podium
into the private spaces of the home, into the hearts
and minds of ordinary people, both men and women. The
girl child and the boy child would need to be informed
of their rights and the rights of their mothers and
grandmothers. The new African should emerge into a new
democracy, conscious that the place of women is equal
to the place of men and to the respect accorded to men.
As it is stated in the conclusion of a new book called
Gender in Southern African Politics: Ringing up the
Change:
"South Africa is no stranger in struggle.... A
lesson of the last two decades is that freedom can never
be taken for granted.... Enter the struggle for gender
equality with a reminder that democracy has not even
been achieved because patriarchy (the system of men
dominating women in all spheres of society) is incompatible
with democracy.... We can thus not be complacent about
democracy, relying on it to deliver gender equality
The point is we need to transform gender relations...
It is the biggest challenge that all Southern African
countries and people face, as we go into the next future."
Thus, as we participate in this grassroots campaign
of consciousness and concerted action to take us towards
a healthy nation of peace-loving people working together
towards prosperity and sustained development, let us
bring our ideas together as to how we can take this
campaign further, so that we do not have to retrace
our steps into the past, so that we do not falter in
our democratic endeavours, but take along everyone.
Every woman, every man and every child needs to move
forward into a better future and only non-sexism and
non-discrimination – the notion that as the human
race we need to be accorded full equality - that while
people are different in colour and creed and culture
and sex, together through preaching and living equality,
they can ensure a more humane reality for the world.
To stop the violence requires more than 16 days work.
It requires 365 days a year - if not more - of consciousness-building,
teaching and actions that bring about full emancipation
and equality. It also requires great strength on the
part of our people, especially of our women to report
any wrong-doing, to speak out and not to continue to
bear the brunt of suffering and abuse. I am reminded
of a poem by Abena Busia, daughter of the late Kofi
Busia, a former Prime Minister of Ghana, when in her
poem "Liberation", she so aptly describes
the plight of women and their power to overcome this
and to be fully free. I would like to end by reading
from this poem that honours the role of African women
and celebrates our struggle to overcome the past and
to create a new Africa that contributes to a new world.
Liberation
We are all mothers, and we have that fire within us,
of powerful women whose spirits are so angry we can
laugh beauty into life and still make you taste the
salty tears of our knowledge-
For we are not tortured anymore;
we have seen beyond your lies and disguises, and we
have mastered the language of words, we have mastered
speech And know we have also seen ourselves raw and
naked piece by piece until our flesh lies flayed with
blood on our own hands.
What terrible thing can you do us which we have not
done to ourselves? What can you tell us which we didn't
deceive ourselves with a long time ago? You cannot know
how long we cried until we laughed over the broken pieces
of our dreams. Ignorance shattered us into such fragments
we had to unearth ourselves piece by piece, to recover
with our own hands such unexpected relics even we wondered
how we could hold such treasure. Yes, we have conceived
to forge our mutilated hopes beyond your imaginings
to declare the pain of our deliverance: So do not even
ask, do not ask what it is we are labouring with this
time; Dreamers remember their dreams when they are disturbed-
And you shall not escape what we will make of the broken
pieces of our lives.
In this spirit of strength and of the importance of
rebuilding broken lives, of an African recovery for
an African renaissance, let us pledge to do all we can
do and even more than what we dream is possible to take
forward the message of equality, to bring home the importance
of full emancipation and to convey the reality of what
this means, and how we can build a new society by taking
the first necessary step to stop the tide of violence
so that we can take great strides into a better future.
I thank you.
Issued by Ronnie Mamoepa : 082 990 4853
C/o Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001
14 December 2003
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