[South Africa] 70% of those living in poverty in SADC are women and girls

from African News Dimension

Position in the workplace:

· In the USA although women hold more than one-half of all management and professional positions, they make up less than two percent of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1 000 CEOs.

· 80% of the companies surveyed showed women employees concentrated at the semi-skilled level while 20% had women stalling at junior management – Commission on Gender Equality, South Africa, 2005

· Of the 364 listed companies and state-owned enterprises in South Africa only seven have female CEOs and 60% have no females on their boards … almost two thirds of companies in South Africa have no women in top positions – Business Women’s Association of South Africa, 2004.

· Amanda Trotter of Agenda said they had seen a “sliding back of progress in gender advancement in the workplace (in South Africa) in the last four years” (to 2005).

· A submission made by the CGE to the Portfolio Committee on Labour at parliament in May 2005 examined 20 employment equity reports submitted to the Department of Labour and the degree of compliance with the much-hailed Employment Equity Act, companies ranged from large multinationals such as Coca-Cola, De Beers and Nike, to South African corporate giants like Spur Corporation, MTN and Shoprite Checkers (which sponsors the pre-eminent women’s award in the country). They found, 80% of the companies surveyed showed women employees concentrated at the semi-skilled level while 20% had women stalling at junior management. Shoprite Checkers, which has an award that celebrates excellence in female achievement, had 15 women (276 men) in top management, 204 (693) in senior management, 543 (968) in middle management, 730 (954) at junior level, 6 883 (2 347) semi-skilled and 4 013 (3 113) at unskilled level.

· In 2004 the Businesswomen’s Association of South Africa said women made up 52% of the population and 41% of the working population.

· Statistics South Africa reported in September 2004 that “the formal sector accounted for the largest share of total employment – 80,4% of men and 63,7% of women.”

· BWASA 2004: 14,7% of executive managers are women and 7,1% of directors. Of the 3 125 directorship positions held, 221 are held by women. Of the 364 listed companies and state-owned enterprises in South Africa, only seven have female CEOs and 60% have no females on their boards at all … almost two thirds of companies in South Africa have no women in top positions.

· 58% of those unemployed are likely to be women, according to research by Daniela Casale and Dorrit Posel, Agenda, 2005.

· African women working in professional categories in South Africa rose from 69 000 in 1995 to 130 000 in 2003, largely attributable to employment equity and affirmative action legislation.

· In 2003, two thirds of work for African women in South Africa was still in domestic employment.

· The Employment Equity Act (SA), makes discrimination on the basis of “gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, family responsibility” illegal. The Basic Conditions of Employment Act extends compulsory (unpaid) maternity leave to four months, while the Unemployment Insurance Act, which from 2003 also covered domestic workers, allows women to claim maternity benefits to a maximum value of 60% for 17 weeks.

· Research by Debbie Budlender in SA (Agenda, 2005) shows that only 17% of African women are in the wealthiest sectors compared to 66% of white males and 21% of African males. However, she curiously gives no comparison for white females

Poverty

· “Women and girls form a startling 70% of those living in extreme poverty.” – SADC 2004

· Welfare expenditure is the third largest spending category after education and debt repayments, with the child support grant being the biggest area of grant awards – Trevor Manual, South Africa’s Finance Minister, 2005

· “Systemic failures to enforce maintenance orders have a negative impact on the rule of law… The judiciary must endeavour to secure for vulnerable children and disempowered women their small but life-sustaining legal entitlements. If court orders are habitually evaded and defied with relative impunity, the justice system is discredited and the constitutional promise of human dignity and equality is seriously compromised for those most dependent on the law.” – Judge Yvonne Mokgoro,
SA Constitutional Court, 2002

· A communiqué from the SADC Gender and Women’s Empowerment NGOs to the sub-regional Beijing +10 review in Lusaka in 2004 declared that “women and girls form a startling 70% of those living in extreme poverty” in the region. This is despite the fact that the region is enjoying a long period of prosperity: In macro-economic terms the SADC region had an average economic growth of 3,2% in 2003/04 with 7% for Mozambique and 5,3% for South Africa.

Women in the eyes of the Law:

* Women remain legal minors in Zimbabwe – despite women in parliament and a female prime minister. Women cannot buy or inherit land in Swaziland.

* In Botswana women are represented in parliament and can now pass citizenship on to their children (in cases where the father is not a citizen of Botswana), a woman is now Chairperson of the House of Chiefs and another woman leads the Dutch Reformed Church in Botswana. Almost all laws that had been discriminatory against women have been revised by the Botswana government and its Women’s Ministry.

* Mauritius has considerable equity, but for export processing zones where women workers predominate and often work under poor conditions.

Agriculture

* The impact of subsidies for northern farmers impacts heavily on women in developing nations who produce 60% to 80% of agriculture.