Chairperson and hon members, my speech is on the impact of international treaties and instruments and I will cite a few examples.
Udlame olubhekiswe kubantu besifazane luyinto endala. Yimpica badala nje, endala kunolwandle futhi endala kunezintaba. Ayazi mingcele, ayazi mibala. Ziningi ke izinkomfa esezike zenzeka, zenzelwa khona ukuthi kuke kuxoxwe ngale ngwadla ebhekene nomhlaba.
Kulezi zinkomfa kuye kuvunyelwane ukuthi kuzokwenziya njani ukuze kubhekanwe nalezi zimo. Ukubala nje ezinye izindawo la kuke kwaba nezinkomfa khona: iseMexico ngo-1975, eCopenhagen ngo-1980, eNairobi ngo- 1985 nase Beijing ngo-1995, kodwa-ke zikhona nezinye izindawo eke yenzeka nakuzo. (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)
[Violence towards women has been in existence for a long time. It is a sticky situation, older than the sea and older than the mountains too. It knows neither boundaries nor colour. There are quite a number of conferences that have taken place to discuss this mystery facing the world.
In these conferences some agreements are reached on how to tackle these situations. Let me mention some of the places where these conferences took place: in Mexico in 1975, in Copenhagen in 1980, in Nairobi in 1985 as well as in Beijing in 1995, but there are other places as well.]
South Africa has signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Cedaw, the optional protocol as well as the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CRC, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to mention but a few. However, the SADC Optional Gender Protocol is still outstanding.
Women in Africa have used Cedaw and the Beijing platform as well as other human rights treaties to their advantage. Zambia ratified Cedaw in 1985. In 1991 it extended its bill of rights to cover sex discrimination. Sara Longwe, in the case of Lusaka International Hotel, which had a policy prohibiting women from entering a hotel unless accompanied by a man, took the case to the High Court. The High Court felt that the hotel was using an exclusionist policy which was discriminatory, and therefore ordered the country to have that scrapped.
In Botswana, in the case of Ms Unity Dow, she claimed that the Citizenship Act violated both constitutional and international law. The Appeals Court sited Cedaw in its opinion and invalidated the law as unconstitutional. In the case of E V Pastory in Tanzania and in the case of Venia Magaya in Zimbabwe, both were denied the right to own and dispose of land in their respective countries because they were women and equivalent to minors. The High Court held that the custom that denied women the right to own and dispose of land violated the bill of rights, Cedaw and other international treaties.
In Nigeria, in the case of Ugokwe, a local custom allowed a father to keep one of his daughters unmarried perpetually in his home to raise male children for him. The court found the custom to be discriminatory and violating the right to marry and to freedom of association, and thus declared the custom to be undesirable and unenforceable. Reference was made to Article 5 of Cedaw, which calls for the elimination of discriminatory practices.
South African women, like some of their continental counterparts, have to seriously consider using the tools of international and regional instruments in order to deal with violence against women in particular. This would include making it possible for the courts to begin to use Cedaw, so that they can fight their cases in line with the international treaties.
However, there are cases of violence against women inflicted by other women. For example, we are aware that in East Africa female genital mutilation is done and it is done by women to young women. But one of their kings, after reading Cedaw, felt that it was not fair for the women to do it and he made the enquiry that, if God put it there, why remove it now? So, he was talking around the custom and wondering why the women were doing it.
We are reading stories and we are hearing through television and other electronic media quite atrocious stories such as those about fathers who traffic their own daughters, and use them for sex slavery and procreation; and colonial systems with practical examples of trafficking, sex slavery and being used for exhibition purposes, as in the case of Sarah Baartman, whose remains were only returned to the country in 2002.
In countries which are war-torn and in which there are conflicts, children and women are exposed and endure all sorts of slavery, rape, infection with HIV and other sexually transmitted conditions, and they become pregnant and some of them are killed. About a week back two Sudanese women and a journalist were sentenced to 20 lashes and fined the equivalent of R780, allegedly for having committed an act of indecency by wearing pants at a party.
Muhammad Ali, the famous boxer, said: "I have one son and six mistakes", meaning that he had only one son and six daughters. This is equivalent to being verbally violent to his daughters. Both Cedaw and the Beijing Platform for Action should become staple items in the libraries of women politicians; but not only women politicians, of all politicians and key decision-making people at all levels. If the rights of women should be protected meaningfully, these treaties should be popularised are to also used, even in courts, to address the very issues that are affecting women.
From here, where do we go as a country to deal with the struggle within a struggle of meaningful liberation and empowerment of women in a new dispensation? This is a war. And we have to seriously lobby for wars as well to stop on the continent. I thank you. [Applause.]