Equality demands that we recognise and compensate women's care work - Women's Rights Activists

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08 Apr. 13

Women’s rights activists support Queen Mpinga’s R1.6 million claim for medical negligence from the Health MEC Hope Papo. Mpinga’s leg had to be amputated when a wound became infected after a state doctor failed to stitch it closed after a cut was made during medical examination. With permission from the Johannesburg High Court to sue Health MEC Hope, Mpinga is claiming for prosthesis, loss of income and domestic help.

On the 2nd of April 2013, the Beeld newspaper reported that Health MEC Hope Papo argued that domestic help for the plaintiff was not necessary as most of her children are daughters.

According to the Women’s Legal Centre, a non-profit, independently funded law Centre with a vision to achieve equality for women in South Africa, the belief that women’s care work in the household is not worthy of remuneration is sexist, and it should be challenged if the country is serious about gender equality.

“Unpaid health care contributes to the feminisation of poverty,” says Jennifer Williams, Director at the Women’s Legal Centre.  “We would like to see a society as envisaged in our constitution, where women aren't expected to give up economic and educational opportunities to work in the home, caring for the elderly, children, and the sick; a  society where the contribution of women who do care giving work at home is equally valued in monetary terms.”

Samantha Hargreaves, a Research Associate at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) - Wits University agrees with the position.

“MEC Hope Papo’s argument that the claimant, Mrs Mpinga, does not require domestic support and can instead rely on her daughters must be rejected as deeply sexist and offensive,” says Hargreaves. “Mrs Mpinga’s claim is a ‘revolutionary’ one in which she asserts, contrary to the established practice of most societies around the world, that the labour of women (young and old) is not a ‘free’ resource to fill in for the failure of governments to provide the needed basic service or care for their citizens.”

Many women and girls in South Africa find themselves having to give up educational and career opportunities to take care of sick family members. The role these women and girls play is often undermined and taken for granted.

“The sexist and exploitative rationale that women would compensate through their unpaid labour for cuts in budgets and staffing for public services, a feature of neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund since at least the 1950s, is exactly what the Gauteng Department of Health and its MEC Papo is advancing in its legal defence,” added Hargreaves.

Mpinga injured her leg in 2006 when she fell while selling blankets and clothes in Mpumalanga. The quantum of Mpinga’s main damages claim will be set in October 2013.

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Issued by the Women’s Legal Centre

For more information contact:

Jennifer Williams: 021 424 5660

Samantha Hargreaves: 031 467 0853

About the Women’s Legal Centre

The WLC is a non-profit, independently funded law Centre, started by a group of lawyers in Cape Town in 1999, with a vision to achieve equality for women in South Africa. The Centre has identified five strategic focus areas. These are: violence against women; fair access to resources in relationships; access to land/housing; access to fair labour practices; and access to health care (particularly reproductive health care).

The WLC has been at the forefront of legal reform in relation to women’s equality in South Africa since the Constitution came into effect, having won several precedent setting cases in the past.

The WLC is targeting socio-economic rights of women as an important area for advancement by litigation and advocacy, and will challenge the most unenviable forms of indirect discrimination that act to prevent women from achieving real equality.

In order to empower women through knowledge of their rights, the Centre also offers free legal advice to women. Women are assisted or referred to the relevant body, NGO or court for assistance.

About Samantha Hargreaves

Samantha Hargreaves is a Research Associate at the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at Wits University – Johannesburg.

WLC supports the call for a National Commission of Inquiry into Gender Based Violence

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WLC supports the call for a National Commission of Inquiry into Gender Based Violence

11 February 2013

The Women’s Legal Centre (WLC) supports the ANC Women’s League’s call for a Commission of Inquiry into rape and gender based violence.  Such a Commission should look at the allocation of resources to fighting this “low level war” on women, addressing the flaws in the criminal justice system and improving the implementation of existing law and policy.

This call follows last week’s rape and mutilation of Anine Booysen, a Western Cape teenage girl. This is one of many rape cases in South Africa, most of which often end up unreported resulting in perpetrators escaping prosecution.

“The Booysen case is an exceptional case” says Jennifer Williams, Director of the WLC “the perpetrators were identified and charged. The state has the opportunity to prosecute, and we hope that all efforts will be put in to make sure that conviction takes place as soon as possible”.

The WLC alone has received one hundred and twenty seven gender based violence (including rape) complaints in the last twelve months, while the recent statistic reveal that rape takes place every four minutes in South Africa.

“So many rape cases do not get reported, and perpetrators are not prosecuted.  This is an indictment on our criminal justice system. A system in which perpetrators are caught, prosecuted, and sentenced; where victims are treated with dignity and respect, is a system that would encourage victims to speak out about rape and gender based violence.” asserts Williams.

“It is time for a national commission of inquiry into gender based violence and the state’s response thereto in South Africa. Let’s get the best minds together and look at what causes are, where the system is going wrong and devise a holistic, comprehensive strategy to deal with this.”

Issued by the Women’s Legal Centre

For more information contact:

Jennifer Williams: 021 424 5660 / 078 803 3110

About the Women’s Legal Centre

The WLC is a non-profit, independently funded law Centre, started by a group of lawyers in Cape Town in 1999, with a vision to achieve equality for women in South Africa. The Centre has identified five strategic focus areas. These are: violence against women; fair access to resources in relationships; access to land/housing; access to fair labour practices; and access to health care (particularly reproductive health care).

The WLC has been at the forefront of legal reform in relation to women’s equality in South Africa since the Constitution came into effect, having won several precedent setting cases in the past.

The WLC is targeting socio-economic rights of women as an important area for advancement by litigation and advocacy, and will challenge the most unenviable forms of indirect discrimination that act to prevent women from achieving real equality.

In order to empower women through knowledge of their rights, the Centre also offers free legal advice to women. Women are assisted or referred to the relevant body, NGO or court for assistance.

Harmful Provisions of the Sexual Offences Act declared unconstitutional!

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Harmful Provisions of the Sexual Offences Act declared unconstitutional!

17 January 2013

On 15 January 2013 the Pretoria High Court declared sections 15 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act unconstitutional. This is a great victory for the constitutional rights of children, especially girl children. The Women’s Legal Center acted as a friend of the Court, together with the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre (TLAC), in order to emphasise to the court the discriminatory and disproportionate effects of these sections on girls between the ages of 12 and 15 in South Africa.

Before the judgment, sections 15 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act made it a crime for children between the ages of 12 and 15 to engage in any and all conduct of a consensual, sexual nature – including hand-holding, cuddling, kissing, and other behaviors part of a normal adolescent sexual development. The court agreed that apart from creating strange anomalies, when read with other laws relating to children, these sections infringe a range of children’s constitutional rights, including equality, and are not rationally connected to the purpose the state claims it sought to achieve with these sections. The court found that the state had failed to provide any evidence that criminalising normal, consensual teenage sexual behavior would deter or regulate unhealthy sexual conduct by teens, or that such criminalisation would provide “protection” to children – a point that was conceded by the state in legal argument. The court found that exposing children to the criminal justice system would only result in trauma and stigmatisation, whereas what is required is open and frank discussion between children and adults about positive sexual behavior.

Sanja Bornman, attorney at the Women’s Legal Centre, says “These provisions were particularly harmful for girl children, as girls can bear a physical marker of sexual intercourse in the form of pregnancy, where boys do not. Girls would thus be ‘easy targets’ for prosecution under these misguided laws. Far from deterring risky sexual behavior, these sections would have promoted it by discouraging girls from reporting rape for fear that they might instead be charged with so-called ‘consensual sexual penetration/violation’.”

Acting Director at TLAC, Nicky Vienings, asserts “Should girls experience a defamatory and negative interaction with the legal system at an early age for an incidence which is deemed ‘unlawful/criminal’, but is in fact part of their natural development in sexual exploration, they would be less likely to report any incidences of sexual or domestic violence that may be perpetrated against them later in their lives. This not only puts them at risk, but also lends itself to girls experiencing deep psychological scarring from the discrimination they would experience from the state and quite possibly from the communities in which they live.”

“The Department of Justice has been reported as saying the judgment has far-reaching implications in the escalating rate of sexual violence among children under the age of 16 years. But this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. It is irrational to suggest that criminalising children’s normal consensual sexual behaviour will result in a decrease in child rape or sexual assault, which is covered by entirely different sections in the Sexual Offences Act.” concludes Bornman.

Issued by the Women’s Legal Centre.

For more information, contact:

Sanja Bornman (WLC): 083 522 2933

Nicky Vienings (TLAC): 011 403 4267

About the Women’s Legal Centre

The WLC is a non-profit, independently funded law Centre, started by a group of lawyers in Cape Town in 1999, with a vision to achieve equality for women in South Africa. The Centre has identified five strategic focus areas. These are: violence against women; fair access to resources in relationships; access to land/housing; access to fair labour practices; and access to health care (particularly reproductive health care).

The WLC has been at the forefront of legal reform in relation to women’s equality in South Africa since the Constitution came into effect, having won several precedent setting cases in the past.

The WLC is targeting socio-economic rights of women as an important area for advancement by litigation and advocacy, and will challenge the most unenviable forms of indirect discrimination that act to prevent women from achieving real equality.

In order to empower women through knowledge of their rights, the Centre also offers free legal advice to women. Women are assisted or referred to the relevant body, NGO or court for assistance.

About the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre

The Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence Against Women (TLAC) is a non-profit organisation that promotes and defends the rights of women to be free from violence and to have access to appropriate and adequate services. Our key activities include research and policy development, litigation and advocacy, training and public awareness.

The organisation was established in 1996 and in the same year its first Director, Joanne Fedler, became a member of the South African Law Reform Commission’s Project Committee which drafted the 1998 Domestic Violence Act. Since then the organisation has argued before the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal, as well as appeared before a number of parliamentary committees to present its research and law reform proposals. In 2011 Tshwaranang was accredited as a law clinic.

Lack of women judges a symptom of underlying inequality in our society – the WLC

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Lack of women judges a symptom of underlying inequality in our society – the WLC

16 January 2013

The Women’s Legal Centre, a non-profit law centre that seeks to achieve equality for women, is greatly concerned that no women were nominated to be justices of the Constitutional Court Yesterday by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).  None of the five shortlisted candidates for the constitutional court vacancy is a woman.

“It is of great concern that the highest court in the land falls far short of the provisions of Section 174 of the Constitution which envisions a judiciary that reflects the racial and gender composition of South Africa. The recent census showed that women are more than half of the population,” says Jennifer Williams, Director of the Women’s Legal Centre.

With 51.3% females in the country, having only two female justices in the highest court on constitutional matters, is inexcusable.

William says that the lack of women judges is a symptom of the underlying inequalities in our society which need to be taken into consideration and addressed from school level right up to the JSC.

Gender inequality is still one of the pressing issues in the country, and this action by the JSC shows just how much is still to be done.

“We note that Sonke and the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit (DGRU) have lodged a complaint with the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE), and support that process. However, this is a matter that should be addressed by the JSC, Department of Justice, professional bodies, Deans of Universities and the judiciary itself,” adds Williams.

“We call for an investigation into women in the judiciary and obstacles to their full participation, including the process of appointing acting judges, briefing patterns, the unofficial exclusion of academics and those not practicing or who haven’t acted, the nomination and appointment process, and the barriers that exist once in the judiciary,” concludes Williams.

Issued by the Women’s Legal Centre

For more information contact:

Jennifer Williams: 021 424 5660 / 078 803 3110

About the Women’s Legal Centre

The WLC is a non-profit, independently funded law Centre, started by a group of lawyers in Cape Town in 1999, with a vision to achieve equality for women in South Africa. The Centre has identified five strategic focus areas. These are: violence against women; fair access to resources in relationships; access to land/housing; access to fair labour practices; and access to health care (particularly reproductive health care).

The WLC has been at the forefront of legal reform in relation to women’s equality in South Africa since the Constitution came into effect, having won several precedent setting cases in the past.

The WLC is targeting socio-economic rights of women as an important area for advancement by litigation and advocacy, and will challenge the most unenviable forms of indirect discrimination that act to prevent women from achieving real equality.

In order to empower women through knowledge of their rights, the Centre also offers free legal advice to women. Women are assisted or referred to the relevant body, NGO or court for assistance.