Local organisation tackles the status of women in SA 30 years into democracy

As Freedom Day and the 2024 national elections draw near, Hlanganisa Community Fund for Social and Gender Justice held a dialogue at Emoyeni Estate on April 16, to tackle pressing challenges that continue to affect women.

The organisation’s CEO Bongi Ndondo conducted a presentation based on gender analysis of election manifestos.

“We decided to do a gender analysis of four manifestos to asses what the manifestos said about women, mainly because our Constitution is anchored on gender equality and there are numerous policies that speak to women’s rights. The last census stats revealed that SA is made up of 51.5% which shows an increase of more than a million women compared to the previous census count.

The parties chosen by Hlanganisa for the gender analysis of election manifestos were the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP and FFP.

The gender framework used to decide which parties to use included:

• Minimum compliance
• Empowerment.

The indicator framework points used were as follows:

• Gender sensitivity
• Parity
• Legislative priorities
• Political pledges with socio-economic priorities
• Provision of services.

Ndondo’s findings in the analysis concluded that since the dawn of democracy in 1994, women continued to be marginalised.

“Based on what the [political] parties are promising, there was a lot of gender blindness in how society viewed socio-economic issues. There is no appreciation that women continue to be impacted differently from men and often disproportionately from men.
“As long as we do not have the gender lens, we will continue to deliver services in the same manner we have been. We will continue to look at issues with a gender-neutral lens that does not recognise women’s needs in society.”

The chairperson of the organisation Lebo Ramafoko highlighted that 30 years into the country’s democracy, particularly as black people and as the LGBTQI+, citizens could not speak of the past 30 years as only doom and gloom but equally could talk about the past 30 years as successes that have made people’s lives as desirable as they hoped they would be.

“I say that because we cannot underestimate what it means to live in a democratic SA. 30 years ago for me was ungovernable, I witnessed people being necklaced and killed. People say it was a peaceful transition and had no war, which is partially a myth because townships were war-stricken.”

She concluded that to emerge into a democracy with the kind of hope that we had and opportunities we took advantage, of is nothing short of a miracle, “I don’t want us to dwell on the statistics and what happened to SA 30 years ago in a way that almost makes us lose out on the momentous occasion of what election day means.”

Related articles: Organisations and Lions cricket partners spent their 67 minutes at the DP Wanderers Stadium