women rights

The proposed law results from consultations between the state and traditional leadership structures. It ignores the voices of millions of rural women disenfranchised by those structures.

The Traditional Courts Bill is meant to replace the Black Administration Act of 1927 with a law that is constitutional.

Instead, if passed, it will in effect strip between 17 million and 21 million people living in rural South Africa of many of the rights we enjoy in the rest of the country.

About 59% of these people are women, who, along with other members of their communities, will cease to be citizens and exist only as subjects.

As is stands, the bill creates a separate legal system for rural folk, geographically recreating the old Bantustans with no irony on the eve of the centenary of the 1913 Land Act.

Coming at a time when WHRDs have received little attention in the human rights arena, the Global Report on the Situation of WHRDs plays a crucial part in advancing the recognition of WHRDs.

It is intended that the Global Report is primarily an advocacy and capacity building tool, both important measures for WHRDs’ protection and the prevention of further abuses. The Global Report is a contribution to the ongoing documentation of the situation of WHRDs that will enable informed advocacy from the local to regional and international level.

To download the report in pdf click here.

Hard copies are available by email request to whrd [at] apwld [dot] org.

As part of women's month, a one day workshop on the promotion of the new sexual violence law in the DRC was held on 31 Monday March 2008 in Kinshasa, under the aegis of the International NGO Network for Development (RIOD). The workshop was organised by RIOD and other female NGO networks to make women aware of their rights, so that they can fight the impunity of those who commit acts of sexual violence.