Women’s Day message from MEC Makoma
In South Africa, August is declared as Women’s Month and on 9 August annually, we commemorate and pay tribute to women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 in protest against the extension of pass laws to women.
As we commemorate this important day in South African history, it is imperative we as South African citizens not forget their contribution to the continuous struggle for a free, non-sexist, non-racial and democratic country. Some of these heroines have paid the supreme sacrifice for our freedom today with their lives.
Announcing the theme of this year’s Women’s Month, the President, Jacob Zuma, declared 2017 as the year of OR Tambo as it coincides with the centenary of struggle icon OR Tambo, who was a strong advocate for gender equality. This year, Women’s Month will be commemorated under the theme The Year of OR Tambo: Women United in Moving South Africa Forward.
Let us, in our respective provinces, include the National Dialogues on Violence Against Women in our activities to help combat the continued scourge of violent attacks and abuse against women. These dialogues will serve as a platform for deepening democracy while ensuring safer and crime-free communities, especially for women and children. We must remember we still have many female-headed families with no source of income living below the poverty line. It is our responsibility as women to stand up and give those families the necessary support moving forward.
Let us unite as a nation and remember the words of the late OR Tambo when he said: “The mobilisation of women is the task, not only of women alone, or of men alone, but of all of us, men and women alike, comrades in struggle. The mobilisation of the people into active resistance and struggle for liberation demands the energies of women no less than of men”.
Happy Women’s Month!
CoGHSTA MEC, Makoma Mmakhurupetje
