On August 9, we celebrate the achievements of the women of South Africa and we come together to advance women’s struggles for empowerment and their rights
to full equality.
On the birth of this day, 53 years ago, on 9 August 1956, 20,000 women made their way to the Union Building in Pretoria. Women came from all over the country to march to the Union Buildings to protest against the extension of government regulations to African women concerning the carrying of passes, led by Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Sophia Williams and Rahima Moosa. Although an appointment had been made to hand the document over to then Prime Minister JG Strijdom, it was later announced that he would not see the women. Their anger was expressed in a song: “Strijdom, you have touched the women, you have struck a rock, you have dislodged a boulder, you will die.” To date, this is the biggest mass gathering of women ever held in South Africa.
The women’s anti-pass campaign lasted for seven years. By constant arrests and intimidation, the anti-apartheid government finally forced black women to carry the hated passes. In the early 1960s, it put a total ban on all rural women coming to urban areas. Today the pass books are a thing of the past. Still, 9 August is celebrated each year as Women’s Day – in memory of the 1956 mass anti-pass demonstration and in honouring the history of women’s resistance in South Africa.
On National Womens Day, we celebrate and honour women. We recognise the important role of women in the transformation to a democratic South Africa. Women should be treated with dignity and honoured for the endless hours of unpaid work done by them in the home and in caring for children. Women need recognition in their communities, their respective cultures, education and government.
“Wathint’ aBafazi, waThint’ iMbokodo!” ~ “You strike a women, you strike a rock!”
