House Chairperson, thank you very much. Hon Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, hon members and guests, the fact that we, as South Africans, have set aside 21 March as a day on which to celebrate human rights is no accident of history. Suffice it to say that the inherent contradiction in this celebration makes it altogether more fundamental in building our democracy.
This day evokes in the imagination of many South Africans visions of the poor women and children being shot with live ammunition for daring to exercise their rights to freedom of assembly, to demonstrate and to picket.
House Chair, let me quote from Proverbs, chapter 31, verse 8:
Speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless. Speak for them and be a righteous judge. Protect the rights of the poor and needy.
The first protest of women against the carrying of passes, which took place in Bloemfontein in 1913 in the then Orange Free State, was a response to the above quotation. Comrade Charlotte Manye Maxeke, the cofounder of the Bantu Women's League, led this protest to speak up for the rights of people across gender and race divisions who could not speak for themselves.
This organisation organised women to defiantly burn their passes or tear them up while they shouted remarks at the policemen and provoked the authorities into arresting them. These were brave women who had had enough of triple oppression on the basis of race, class and gender. Chair, despite the elevation of women in politics, religion, the economy, government and domestic situations, there are still so many drawbacks and resistance contributing to hindering the full enjoyment by women of their human rights.
The abuse of farm workers by farmers led to the Barberton Potato Boycott of 31 May 1959. This protest was a response to the inhumane treatment of farm workers and children who were forced to dig for potatoes with their bare hands, and was in protest against child labour and the abuse of human rights. The effectiveness of the potato boycott paralysed the potato industry and drew attention to the inhumane working and living conditions of farm labourers in Bethal.
Even now, we are still witnessing the abuse of farm workers in the Western Cape at the hands of rogue farmers, who are paying their workers by using the deplorable dop system, while the DA provincial government watches in tacit approval, as these rogue elements are treasured members of the DA ... [Interjections.]
... soos byvoorbeeld in die Boland ... [... such as, for instance, in the Boland ...]
... and women are the most affected by these nefarious muscle flexes. We must still have a campaign in the Boland to make these women aware that the dop system is not the right way to receive a salary. [Applause.]