• Official Delegation and Technical Experts
• Opening Comments
• Full 43-page report in rich text format available to download
• See also Republic of South Africa 2nd Report

Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Presentation of the Initial Country Report on the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to the United Nations

24 June 1998

Official Delegation and Technical Experts

Official delegation presenting the initial report of South Africa to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women:

• Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Minister for Welfare and Population Development.
• Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Deputy-Minister of Justice.
• Advocate Mojanku Gumbi, legal adviser in the Office of the Deputy-President.
• Dr Ellen Kornegay, Office on the Status of Women.

Technical experts providing assistance to the official delegation:

• Professor Edith Vries, Department of Welfare and Population Development.
• Ms Mavivi Myakayaka-Manzini, Office of the Deputy-President.
• Advocate Thuli Madonsela, Department of Justice.
• Ms Florence Maleka, Department of Welfare and Population Development.
• Ms Zethu Khoza, Department of Justice.
• Ms Irma Engelbrecht, South African Permanent Mission to the UN.

Opening Comments

Chairperson
Honourable Members of the Committee
Members of other delegations
Ladies and Gentlemen

The South African Government appears before you today, through this delegation, to present its initial CEDAW report. We bring you greetings and good wishes from our President, Nelson Mandela, as indeed the whole South African Government.

On occasions such as these, Chairperson, we need to again extend the gratitude of all South Africa's people to the United Nations and all its structures, as well as the international community, for the assistance given to us in our struggle for liberation from the oppressive apartheid regime.

Chairperson, that oppressive apartheid regime left us a legacy of under-development, the magnitude of which we are just beginning to appreciate.

When the new Government assumed power in 1994, the content of every South African's life was defined by the colour of their skin and level of income. Four years later, the discrepancy in development between white and black South Africans still poses a major challenge for our Government. This discrepancy led to a recent debate in our country which our Deputy President referred to as the "two-nations" theory; one black and poor, the other white and prosperous.

The statistics set out on pages 1-1 to 1-6 of our report paint a stark picture of the legacy of the discriminatory practices of the previous Government. With the data available to us, it is quite clear that race, geographic location and gender are the main determinants of who is poor.

Because of this depth of deprivation, 61% of Africans live under conditions of abject poverty, while only 1% of whites are poor. In 1995, 95% of all reported rapes were of African women. Africans are 20 times more at risk from being killed than whites.

It is this reality that informs our continued call to the international community to assist us in the reconstruction of South African society.

It is also within this reality that the South African Government has to address the question of the empowerment of women, which remains high on the national agenda, despite all the challenges facing the Government.

The Republic of South Africa signed CEDAW in January 1993 and ratified it on 15 December 1995, without entering any reservations, in spite of all the differences in religion and cultures.

The period 1994 to 1997 was spent on the development of new policy across all Departments in Government. Chairperson, we needed to transform all the policies of the past. This period also saw the Government being confronted with the challenge of nation building and service delivery in the face of the painful revelations revealed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The Government has largely approved transformative legislation necessitated by the adoption of new policies based on the Constitution. This report being our first, we focus mainly on systems we have put in place to address the question of the empowerment of women. The next report will probably have more detail on the impact that CEDAW has had in our country.

As soon as the new Government took over, an office on the Empowerment of Women was set up in the President's Office. The mandate of that Office was to develop a women's empowerment policy for the new Government. That project was coordinated by one of our better known non-governmental activists.

The research done in that office resulted in the emergence of some consensus on the nature of national machinery we needed for South Africa.

The Government also set up a coordinating secretariat for the Fourth World Conference on the Status of Women. This secretariat was located in the Ministry for Welfare and Population Development and coordinated both the pre- and post-Beijing activities of Government.

Another secretariat, also within the Department of Welfare, was charged with the responsibility of coordinating the compilation of the CEDAW report that we are here to consider. South Africa did not adopt the attitude that we cannot continue with the work that needed to be done before the national gender machinery was in place.

To actualize the Constitutional requirement with respect to gender, men and women embarked on an extensive consultation aimed at mainstreaming gender into a transforming society. Central to this consultation was a review of the best mechanisms and best practices that could be applied in the South African context to ensure gender transformation. These best practices were translated into an action programme which is commonly referred to as the "national machinery". This national machinery is composed of a variety of structures operated from the premise that transformation and reconstruction cannot be complete without transforming gender relations.

A multi-pronged approach to gender mainstreaming was imperative to accomplish the constitutional objectives. This meant the utilization and creation of structures at all levels of society aimed at changing gender relations. Consequently, the national machinery is composed of a multiple set of structures located at different levels of our society to execute specific functions which collectively should advance South Africa to gender equality. The structures within and outside Government comprise:

• Office on the Status of Women;
• Gender Focal Points and Structures in government departments;
• Committee on the Quality of Life and Status of Women in Parliament;
• Independent Bodies: Commission on Gender Equality; Human Rights Commission; and
• A strong Women's Movement.

The key structures are the Office on the Status of Women (OSW) and the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE).

Per recommendation of the women's movement, the OSW, at national level is replicated by OSWs at the provincial and ultimately at the local government level. The OSW functions through the Gender Focal Points at the departmental levels.

Both structures were established in January 1997 to ensure that the constitutional and transformational objectives of gender equality are translated into real and meaningful government programmes.

The location of these structures was very carefully thought through. Per request of the Women's Movement, the OSW is located in the Office of the Deputy President with a mandate to undertake internal and external transformation of government. The Commission on Gender Equality is charged with changing the culture and mindset of all society.

Since January 1997, the OSW has accomplished the following:

• Production of a framework for activating the OSW mandate;
• Production of first draft of the National Policy Document;
• Development of a National Plan of Action;
• Development of six provincial plans;
• Standardization of approach among provincial OSWs;
• Development of a comprehensive Capacity Building Strategy;
• Development of a draft Gender Audit Framework;
• Development of Framework for compiling the bi-annual Status of Women Report;
• Identification of clear areas of operation;
• Development of performance indicators for the national and provincial OSWs;
• Identification of priority cross-cutting programmes; and
• Initiation of a capacity building process for provincial OSWs.

There has been legitimate concern raised about the capacity and resourcing of the OSW. We must, however, not lose sight of the fact that the OSW is part of a whole. Its structure includes gender desks in the Departments, both nationally and provincially. The CEO of the OSW is therefore supported by a much bigger structure. Two additional members of the professional staff in the OSW have just been appointed.

Chairperson,

We have been invited to present our initial country report to the Nineteenth Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women between 22 June - 10 July 1998. We wish to thank the Committee for the invitation to participate in this Session.

We also expect to learn from the presentations of the other countries (Slovakia, Panama, the United Republic of Tanzania, Nigeria, Peru, Republic of Korea and New Zealand) participating in this Nineteenth Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and consider it a privilege to share this Session with them.

We appreciate the scrutiny of the international community of our efforts to work towards the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. South Africa is both proud to proclaim its successes towards the achievement of gender equality, and mindful of that which it still has to achieve.

This document comprises the contents of the South African presentation at the Meeting of the Nineteenth Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women on Wednesday, 24 June 1998. This presentation will focus on the contents of the initial country report and draw attention to significant changes and progress since its submission.

Having studied our report and listened to this presentation, we anticipate the questions and concerns of the Committee, and we will gladly and honestly respond to those during the meeting designated for that purpose.

We also welcome and are honoured by the recognition of South Africa's possible contribution to the development of Women's Empowerment, evidenced by the election of an outstanding South African woman, Ms Mavivi Myakayaka-Manzini, to the CEDAW Committee. Ms Myakayaka-Manzini is with us today to observe the proceedings of this Session of the Committee.

Chairperson, I will now proceed to the discussion of the articles of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women. I want to preface the presentation with a few comments:

• throughout our report we mention the unavailability of data, or the unreliability thereof due to under- or non reporting. This was particularly so for the period pre-1994. Since then we have been able to establish systems and baseline data in some areas;

• we deviated from the usual format of an initial report which stipulates that baseline data must be provided. We were unable to do so in areas where this is not available;

• given our special circumstances, among other, the proximity of our first democratic elections and the unequivocal statement of the expectations and ideals of South Africans it represented, we choose to report on our achievements since 1994; and,

• we amalgamated Articles 2 and 3 to avoid unnecessary repetition, and we hope that this is acceptable to the Committee.

A fitting introduction to the discussion and consideration of the CEDAW articles are the reflections of the first Chairperson of the Commission on Gender Equality, six months after she took office: "When we consider how far South Africans, particularly women, have come since that historic march on the Union Buildings in 1956, we have much to be proud of. Yet so much needs to be done".