Every year on August 9, we celebrate Women’s Day in South Africa… which happens to be today! This is a public holiday that pays homage to the women of our nation – the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters who fought tirelessly against the tyranny of the apartheid government.

This day commemorates the national march of women, on this day back in 1956, to petition against legislation that required African persons to carry a ‘pass’. The ‘pass’ was an identification document that restricted black South African people’s freedom of movement under apartheid. The ‘pass’, which allowed them to enter ‘white’ areas, had come into force under the Urban Areas Act (commonly known as the pass laws) of 1950.

In 1956, on this day, 20,000 women staged a march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against proposed amendments to the Act. They left petitions containing more than 100,000 signatures with Prime Minister JG Strijdom and stood silently outside his door for 30 minutes.

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The women then sang a protest song that was composed in honour of the occasion: Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo! (Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock).

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