How Is Women’s Day Celebrated In South Africa
What Is Women’s Day
Every year on August 9, South Africa observes National Women’s Day as a public holiday. The day honors the 1956 march of about 20,000 women to Pretoria’s Union Buildings to protest the nation’s pass laws, which mandated that South Africans classified as “black” under the Population Registration Act carry an internal passport known as a passbook. These laws served to maintain population segregation, control urbanization, and manage migrant labor during the apartheid era.
When Is Women’s Day Celebrated?
On August 9, 1995, the inaugural National Women’s Day was observed. For the march’s 50th anniversary, a recreation of the event was staged in 2006, with many of the 1956 march’s original participants.
The 1956 Women’s March
In opposition to the planned changes to the Urban Areas Act of 1950, also known as the “pass laws,” more than 20,000 South African women of all races organized a march on the Union Buildings on August 9, 1956. Sophia Williams, Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa, and they led the march. Frances Baard was among the other participants. On National Women’s Day 2009, Northern Cape Premier Hazel Jenkins erected a statue of Frances Baard in Kimberley (Frances Baard District Municipality). The women stood in silence for 30 minutes before beginning to sing a protest song written in honor of the occasion: Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo! The women dropped 14,000 petitions at the prime minister’s office doors. (Now that you’ve touched the women, you’ve hit a rock.).Since then, the saying—or its most recent form, “You strike a woman, you strike a rock”—has come to stand for women in South Africa’s bravery and fortitude.
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What Is The Importance Of The Women’s Day?
National Women’s Day raises awareness of pressing problems that African women still confront, including child rearing, domestic abuse, sexual harassment at work, pornography, unequal pay, and girls’ education. It can be utilized as a day of advocacy or opposition to certain beliefs. This public holiday has resulted in numerous important improvements. Prior to 1994, there were just 2.7% women in the Parliament, which was a low representation. There were 27.7% women in the national assembly. At 48%, this number now represents nearly a doubling of the entire national government. National Women’s Day promotes many of the same freedoms and rights as International Women’s Day and is largely founded on the same guiding concepts.
How Is Women’s Day Celebrated In South Africa?
The celebration of National Women’s Day in South Africa raises awareness of a number of significant problems that women in Africa still encounter, including domestic violence, workplace harassment and discrimination, equal pay, girls’ education, and other challenges.Seminars and Conferences are held to educate and create awareness of the problems of typical South African woman in the society.
