The South African legal profession is complex and carries the burden of a patriarchal legacy of racism and gender discrimination. It is particularly Black women who continue to be viewed through a stereotypical lens, with their work historically being undervalued and underpaid. Given South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history, it comes as no surprise that
Category Archives: Opinion
Charlene May and Mandi Mudarikwa unpack the Bwanya Judgement, which points to women in our patriarchal society often lacking the bargaining power in relationships to negotiate a marriage and highlights how we can change that in a court of law.
On Monday 8 August 2022, over 50 working-class women from across the Cape Flats will picket at Constantia Circle, a site of privilege and food security, against the invisible violences of hunger, poverty, unemployment and neglect from government and big business who export and waste tons while our communities go hungry.
Through our work as the Women’s Legal Centre, we are all too aware that simply because our constitution requires equality both as a right not to be infringed and a value by which we all strive to live, traditionally most male partners dictate the nature and evolution of a romantic and intimate relationship.
Violence against women remains a pandemic in South Africa, and when women experience domestic violence, Magistrate’s Courts are often the first entry point to access justice.
Continuing with South Africa’s current separate marriage dispensation reinforces the marginalisation and stigmatisation of LGBTQIA+ persons. Instead, the Women’s Legal Centre and Triangle Project urge government to step up their current efforts to reform marriage and relationship laws by bringing all interpersonal relationships under one legal umbrella that recognises people’s diverse social, religious and cultural
The Women’s Legal Centre strongly believes that if we want womxn in South Africa to enjoy the full benefit of legal protection in their personal relationships, we must make it easier for them to register customary marriages and ensure that existing relationship-related rights are also practically extended to all customary marriages. A low rate of
If the state is committed to reforming South Africa’s family law in a manner that realises rights, it must provide a broader recognition and protection of the diversity of relationships and family structures in South Africa. This must include a recognition of domestic partnerships, religious and customary marriages. In 1996, the census data recorded that
This Worker’s Day the Women’s Legal Centre joins womxn around the world in urging their governments to ratify the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 190 to eliminate violence and harassment in the world of work.
Victory for opposite-sex couples in domestic partnerships, but the fight for equality continues Couples living together, either prior to marriage or instead of marriage, are a common practice in South Africa. In law, this is referred to as a domestic partnership, which is defined as an interpersonal relationship between two people who live together and