{"id":233567,"date":"2022-08-08T10:46:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T08:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/gbv-remains-biggest-obstacle-to-gender-equality-president-ramaphosa\/"},"modified":"2022-08-08T10:46:43","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T08:46:43","slug":"gbv-remains-biggest-obstacle-to-gender-equality-president-ramaphosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/gbv-remains-biggest-obstacle-to-gender-equality-president-ramaphosa\/","title":{"rendered":"GBV remains biggest obstacle to gender equality \u2013 President Ramaphosa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Cyril Ramaphosa says the prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) remains the biggest obstacle towards achieving full and meaningful gender equality.<\/p>\n

In his weekly newsletter, the President reflected on Women\u2019s Day, which will be commemorated on Tuesday. He emphasised that ending all forms of violence against women and children is vital to national progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as we work as a collective to rid society of gender-based violence, we should not diminish the progress we have made in building a non-sexist society.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must celebrate the many achievements of women in our country and pay tribute to those who continue to lead the way,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n

He called on men to be part of the solution, starting with their own attitudes and conduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we work to achieve gender equality in all areas of life, we must acknowledge that we have come a long way, and that we still have much further to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

South Africa on Tuesday will commemorate the day in 1956 when thousands of women marched on the Union Buildings to protest against apartheid pass laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all familiar with the iconic image of Rahima Moosa, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Sophie Williams de Bruyn marching defiantly up the stairs of the amphitheatre of the Union Buildings on that historic day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn their hands were thousands of petitions from women across the country to Prime Minister JG Strijdom. The petition opens with the words: ‘We are women of every race, we come from the cities and the towns, from the reserves and the villages. We come as women united in our purpose to save the African women from the degradation of passes’,\u201d said the President.<\/p>\n

In the South Africa of today, the President said women enjoy the fundamental rights and freedoms that their grandmothers and great-grandmothers were denied.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, women can advance in any occupation, study in a place and field of their choice and own businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to employment equity legislation and other policies of the democratic government, women\u2019s representation in the workplace, in government and all of society continues to grow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to South Africa\u2019s most recent review of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, the country is on an upward trend towards the achievement of gender equality.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s representation<\/strong><\/p>\n

President Ramaphosa highlighted that there are several areas where the representation of women has been on the rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Parliament, 46% of National Assembly members are women. Currently, 62% of the entire public service is female, and 44% of senior management posts are filled by women,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

President Ramaphosa said the current administration has accelerated the agenda for advancing women\u2019s representation by appointing the first woman to head the National Prosecuting Authority and the first female Directors-General in the State Security Agency and the Presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week, we appointed the first female Deputy National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, and last month Justice Mandisa Maya was appointed as South Africa\u2019s first female Deputy Chief Justice. Out of 256 judges on the Bench, 114 are female and nearly half of all magistrates are female,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Right to reproductive health care<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another area of progress is the right to reproductive health care, which is enshrined in our Constitution, said President Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n

Unlike a number of countries, he said South African women have access to contraception and safe termination of pregnancy in the public health system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe democratic State has worked to repeal all laws that discriminate against women, and over the years our courts have ruled against policies and practices that unfairly discriminate against women on the grounds of motherhood, sexual orientation or other factors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The President said the country has laws that protect women against harassment in the workplace and that address modern forms of victimisation of women.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen in traditional communities have rights to own land, to enter into contracts and to inherit,\u201d he said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Cyril Ramaphosa says the prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) remains the biggest obstacle towards achieving full and meaningful gender equality. In his weekly newsletter, the President reflected on Women\u2019s Day, which will be commemorated on Tuesday. He emphasised that ending all forms of violence against women and children is vital to national progress. \u201cEven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-233567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/gbv-remains-biggest-obstacle-to-gender-equality-president-ramaphosa.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}