NATIONAL ASSEMBLY THURSDAY, 14 MARCH 2019

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industries. The treaty will contribute to safeguarding for international exchange and access for foreign markets. This will stimulate multiple sources of investment in local production.

The Beijing Treaty, as the chairperson of the portfolio committee, hon Fubbs, has alluded that it is only 24 out of 199 member states that have ratified this treaty and South Africa will become the 25th member state. By ratifying this treaty many more will ratify thereby entering into force.

Our activists in the area of arts and culture created a platform from which the world could tap into the apartheid South Africa of old. Our plight could be better pronounced in the songs of the artistic work of the artistic works of Mama Mariam Makeba, Letta Mbuli, Abigail Kubeka and Dorothy Masuku. The later have just left us and may their souls rest in peace. I am deliberately giving examples of women for a change. Ours is the history of battle against oppression where politics and arts merge like concoction. In the days