lebogang Marishane

Although this year’s theme for International Women’s Day focuses on empowering women technologically among other thing, the extent in which this could be done is limited. Since those who are responsible for designing these programs tend to be men – who don’t really have a complete idea of women’s needs. Marishane recalls an incident were women in rural areas were encouraged to access information to health issues through the web using their cellphones.

In his Budget speech, Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan made specific reference to creating safer communities.  While we welcome the increases to the budget allocation, we await to see how the department of Police and Justice and Constitutional Development will spend it. With the technological revolution, we are fast becoming “online communities” and we are also seeing more crimes perpetrated using advanced technology. As  online spaces are also becoming unsafe (a reflection of what is happening in our society), especially for young girls and women, we need our police and justice system to respond to the challenges. Perpetrators of gender based violence are increasingly using technology to lure, track, monitor and stalk women and girls.

Deadline: 08 December 2011

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By Lebogang Marishane (Women'sNet)

Indeed, the challenges are at all levels, most of all at the economic level. The leader of the ANC youth league, Julius Malema has been saying we need a revolution. Perhaps he needs to revisit this, and look which sectors of our society need to be revolutionized. We need a revolution in pushing the gender agenda at all sphere. Young political leaders need to begin talking the language of the youth of South Africa, and that means being relevant and practical in their strategies to address issues faced by young people.