The Minister for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Sindisiwe Chikunga hosted a Women Trade Intervention Dialogue to launch the 2025 Women’s Month Under the theme “Building Resilient Economies for All”.
The Women in Trade Intervention focused on the following
three priorities, The Support of the survival of informal economy across
identified key economic sectors; Identification of key sectoral interventions, including Agriculture;
Manufacturing and the Green Energy Sector as well as Calling for collaboration
and leveraging off sector agreements to increase investments in local
economies.
South Africa commemorates Women’s Month in August as a
tribute to the more than 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on 9
August 1956 in protest against the extension of Pass Laws to women. The
Government of South Africa declared August women’s month and 9 August is
celebrated annually as Women’s Day.
The Women Trade Intervention forms part of the Department
of Women, Youth and Persons with Disability G20 priority on Financial
Inclusion. This priority emphasizes the need to accelerate financial inclusion
for women and girls. Which includes ensuring women access to financial
services, digital tools, credit, and entrepreneurship opportunities. With the purpose
of dismantling barriers that prevent women from fully participating in the
financial system and achieving economic independence.
‘’What makes Women's Month particularly significant is how
our struggle has evolved from resistance to reconstruction, from wanting mere
inclusion to demanding a fundamental re-structuring of power relations. Today,
building on the legacy of 1956, our transformation agenda is much more daring
to the patriarchal script. Our agenda is rooted in centuries of systemic
exclusion that relegated women to subordinate positions across virtually every
sphere of human activity. At its core, our movement for gender equality seeks
to uproot entrenched patriarchal structures that have historically denied women
equal participation in economic, political, social and scientific spheres of
life,’’ said the minister.
COURTESY: X - @DWYPD_ZAChikunga reflected on women doing it for themselves and
excelling in different roles. She says President Cyril Ramaphosa is making
strides in ensuring gender equality and women's empowerment in the country
‘’The significance of appointing Justice Mandisa Maya as
the first South African woman to occupy the position of Chief Justice and Head
of the Constitutional Court, cannot be overstated. Today, South African women
hold 43.5% of the seats in Parliament, occupying 171 out of 400 seats—an
increase from 28% representation in 1994. The Signing of the Public Procurement
Bill and the Land Expropriation Act are clear signs of our commitment to
gender-responsive land redistribution and related productive assets. The
establishment of the R20 Billion a year Transformation Fund and its emphasis on
supporting emerging women industrialists and SMMEs affirms our bold commitment
to transformation. The National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide
(NCGBVF) Act has now been passed, and the process of establishing the National
Council is underway,’’ said Chikunga.
The minister outlined successes of the G20 Activities in
South Africa, reflecting on the Empowerment of Women Working Group which has
elevated three overarching priorities, namely policy perspectives on the care
economy, financial inclusion, and the elimination of gender-based violence.
‘’Care economy: On the Care Economy our working group is
rallying governments to not only recognize but value the care economy, which
encompasses both unpaid and underpaid labor that sustains families, communities
and economies worldwide. Today, Women perform approximately 75% of the world's
unpaid care work, valued at trillions of dollars globally, yet they remain
systematically excluded from economic calculations and policy considerations.’’
‘’This invisible labor - from childcare and eldercare to
household management and community support - has historically been dismissed as
"natural" women's work rather than recognized as the very foundation
of all economic activities.’’
‘’Financial inclusion: We have also elevated Financial
Inclusion as a critical instrument for women's economic empowerment. For us,
True financial inclusion must therefore be understood as a structural
intervention to redistribute opportunity, autonomy, and economic agency to
women.’’
‘’GBVF: On Gender-based Violence and Femicide, we have managed to rally G20 Member States and local partners to strengthen our work against emerging forms of GBVF such as online harassment and technology-facilitated abuse, which increasingly weaponize digital platforms to silence, surveil, and intimidate women.’’
COURTESY: X - @GovernmentZAChikunga, said over the next five years, governments focus
will be on women empowerment
‘’Once enacted, our Promotion of Women's Rights,
Empowerment, and Gender Equality Bill will institutionalise gender-responsive
planning, budgeting, procurement, and service delivery across all organs of
state, and will provide the enforcement mechanisms that have long been missing.
To effectively institutionalise and implement economic empowerment of
businesses owned by women, youth, and persons with disabilities, we are working
with the National Treasury to fast-track the regulations of the Public
Procurement Act.’’
Minister Chikunga also touched on this year’s theme
“Building Resilient Economies for All”.
‘’First, for as long as wealth and income inequality
persists along gender lines, there can be no resilient economies for all. A
resilient economy is one that should be able to withstand, adapt to, and
recover from various shocks and disruptions while maintaining its ability to
grow. And certainly, no economy can be truly resilient for all when half of its
population is economically marginalized. It is important to emphasize that, for
us, financial inclusion goes far beyond access to banking—it represents a fundamental
shift in economic power. This struggle includes challenging discriminatory
lending practices, advocating for property rights reforms that allow women to
use assets as collateral, and confronting cultural norms that position men as
the primary financial decision-makers.’’
‘’Secondly, True economic resilience requires a deliberate
re-construction of systems and structures that harness the full productive
potential of all citizens, with particular attention to those who have been
historically excluded from economic power - this is inclusive of women from all
walks of life,’’ she added.
Chikunga called upon policymakers, businesses, and
development financiers to intensify their efforts to eliminate these barriers
and expand trade opportunities for women.
The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with
Disabilities (DWYPD) and the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC), in
partnership with the Limpopo Provincial Government will host the 2025 National
Women's Day Commemoration on Saturday, 09 August in Tzaneen.
Done By: Mitchum George
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