It is under a dark cloud that South African’s celebrate Women’s Day tomorrow, 9 August, after the Deputy Minister of Higher Education Mduduzi Manana slapped a woman in Fourways in Johannesburg.
In a country where on average one out of every five women older than 18 has experienced physical violence, we cannot allow a Deputy Minister to continue to hold his office after he violated the right of those he is supposed to protect. To say sorry and to show remorse when you hold a position as one of the guardians of the future of this country, our children, is not good enough.
The United National Transport Union (UNTU) therefor calls on Manana to do the honourable thing and to resign, this Women’s Day to send out a message to all out South Africans: women must be respected, cared for and protected. As South African’s we say no to any form of abuse.
On Women’s Day, we are supposed to celebrate and remember the great women’s march of 1956, where women marched to the Union Buildings to protest the carrying of pass books. On 9 August 1956, about 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest legislation aimed at tightening the apartheid government’s control over the movement of black women in urban areas.
If we would have to repeat that march again today, UNTU believes that women will march against all forms of abuse they suffer, irrespective if it is at home, at work or being humiliated in a night club with a slap from a Deputy Minister.
UNTU would like to wish all our members a Blessed Women’s Day. As we celebrate the day, remember the legacy of the 1956 women.
For more information phone UNTU Spokesperson Sonja Carstens at 082 463 6806.
For UNTU Press Releases e-mail enquiries@untu.co.za
UNTU Greetings,
S Carstens
o.b.o SA Harris
GENERAL SECRETARY
