THE National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has saluted the brave generation of women who on 9 August 1956 marched to the Union Buildings to protest against the oppressive apartheid government.
Second deputy president Puleng Phaka said the last 28 years of so-called democracy haven’t created the kind of free society envisioned by the likes of anti-apartheid activists Sophie Williams-De Bruyn, Lilian Ngoyi, Albertina Sisulu and Helen Joseph when they were fighting apartheid.
She said they negotiated a settlement which gave birth to this democratic dispensation which has not created a genuinely free and equal society for all.
Phaka said in 2022, the African working-class majority is still suffering under the burden of crippling poverty, the highest inequality in the world and high unemployment.
She said according to Statistics SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey of the second quarter of last year, women were more likely than men to be exploited through unpaid labour.
“The rate of unemployment among women was 36,8% in the second quarter of the year, compared to 32,4% among men. The unemployment rate among African women was 41% during this period, compared to 8,2% among white women, 22,4% among Indian/Asian women and 29,9% among coloured women.”
She said working-class women were under pressure and weren’t safe anywhere in the country.
“Recently, we have been besieged by reports of shocking attacks against women. South African women are living in a war zone and it seems the authorities are paralysed to stop it.”
She said the suffering of women couldn’t be isolated from the crisis of the capitalist system and the brutality that they are seeing, where there were increased levels of violence, were all examples of capitalism’s failure.
“Numsa supports demands to eradicate income inequality between the sexes and we will continue to fight this battle in workplaces all over the country. We also support calls for increased policing in our communities so ordinary women can feel safer,” Phaka said.
