Women’s march to Union Buildings 51 years ago – Commemoration
07-08-2007 , 11H30, (This is a copy of the speech delivered by ID MPL Rose Gudlhuza in the Gauteng Legislature this morning)
This is her speech…
I am black and I am a women and I can have pride in myself because I have claimed the rights that the people fought for in the struggle. The independent DEMOCRATS is proof that women's rights have been put on the map in South Africa. I stand here proud of all those women who, like me, have pride and conviction in who they are and the rights that are theirs.
But I stand here today as part of a minority. The majority of women still make up the poorest of the poor, the majority of women still suffer under frightening levels of sexual and physical violence that our country carries with it year after year, too many parents facing problems take their daughters out of school before their sons and statistics continue to show that the majority of those infected with HIV/Aids are women. But while women continue to be downtrodden by their elders, husbands and stigma, they do not see that they can assert their rights because they are well within their reach.
Our Constitution, our laws and the programmes we have implemented in Gauteng have enshrined women's rights. Yet some women remain unaware of their rights and consequently cannot claim them. There are still others who know their rights, but do not breathe life into them, with the danger that the struggle of our predecessors will continue to stumble along a rocky path.
As women, we must start to take responsibility and use our rights to fight for our futures and those of the generations of women to follow. All women must educate one another on our rights and ensure that each and every one of us contributes to the fight to turn them from paper rights into a reality.
The independent DEMOCRATS believes that the women of Gauteng must take the rhetoric of politics and laws and turn them into actions within our homes and churches, our schools and communities, to make South Africa an equal society. It is my responsibility as a woman to do this and it is the responsibility of all women of South Africa to free ourselves from the rhetoric and stigma of our past. It is our responsibility to take into our own hands, as individuals and sisters in plight, the work and the struggle of those women who walked on our behalf to the Union Buildings all those years ago.
Released by Rose Gudlhuza – 082 707 9621
I am black and I am a women and I can have pride in myself because I have claimed the rights that the people fought for in the struggle. The independent DEMOCRATS is proof that women's rights have been put on the map in South Africa. I stand here proud of all those women who, like me, have pride and conviction in who they are and the rights that are theirs.
But I stand here today as part of a minority. The majority of women still make up the poorest of the poor, the majority of women still suffer under frightening levels of sexual and physical violence that our country carries with it year after year, too many parents facing problems take their daughters out of school before their sons and statistics continue to show that the majority of those infected with HIV/Aids are women. But while women continue to be downtrodden by their elders, husbands and stigma, they do not see that they can assert their rights because they are well within their reach.
Our Constitution, our laws and the programmes we have implemented in Gauteng have enshrined women's rights. Yet some women remain unaware of their rights and consequently cannot claim them. There are still others who know their rights, but do not breathe life into them, with the danger that the struggle of our predecessors will continue to stumble along a rocky path.
As women, we must start to take responsibility and use our rights to fight for our futures and those of the generations of women to follow. All women must educate one another on our rights and ensure that each and every one of us contributes to the fight to turn them from paper rights into a reality.
The independent DEMOCRATS believes that the women of Gauteng must take the rhetoric of politics and laws and turn them into actions within our homes and churches, our schools and communities, to make South Africa an equal society. It is my responsibility as a woman to do this and it is the responsibility of all women of South Africa to free ourselves from the rhetoric and stigma of our past. It is our responsibility to take into our own hands, as individuals and sisters in plight, the work and the struggle of those women who walked on our behalf to the Union Buildings all those years ago.
Released by Rose Gudlhuza – 082 707 9621
