Ramaphosa acknowledged the government and men in society should be doing more to protect women.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has used a national Women’s Day speech to slam critics of his government’s employment equity and BEE policies.
The Employment Equity Act was passed to avoid the discrimination of people on the basis of race, gender or disability, while black economic empowerment (BEE) is more specific in its remedies. The policies have been criticised by some as being open to corruption and prohibitive to economic growth.
Speaking at the Nkowankowa Stadium in Tzaneen, Limpopo, Ramaphosa said such criticism was bemusing.
“It is funny for me that there are those in our society who oppose the Employment Equity Act, who also impose empowerment instruments that were put together and they at least realised that all those instruments are meant to lift all those who were oppressed by the previous system, including those white people who the previous system gave privileges to.
“It did not give all the privileges, because people who are disabled who happen to be white were not empowered. People who are women who happen to be white were not empowered. It is through these acts, employment equity and various other acts, that we are seeking to raise everyone who was disadvantaged in the past.
He said SA women needed to be lifted up because they have “borne the brunt of the oppression of the past”.
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GBV
Ramaphosa acknowledged the government and men in general should be doing more to protect women.
“We continue to see incidents of gender-based violence. What is more troubling is how the men of our country continue to abuse women by raping and brutally killing them.
“But it gets worse when it actually involves the rape of children, children as young as a few months, children as young as two years and the impregnation of young girls, as it was being said earlier here by Minister [in the Presidency for Women, Youth and People with Disabilities, Sindisiwe] Chikunga.
“That is painful. And that is why we say we must all rise up against gender-based violence. We must all rise as men and make sure that we bring the levels of gender-based violence down.”
WATCH: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s full address
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