STATEMENT OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS WOMENS ’S LEAGUE FOLLOWING THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING HELD ON THE 2ND TO 4TH SEPTEMBER 2016

4 September 2016

The National Executive Committee of the African National Congress Women’s League held its scheduled NEC meeting from 3 - 4 September 2016 at the St George’s Conference Centre, Irene.

This is the venue where the newly elected leadership of the ANCWL was elected exactly a year ago and given a fresh mandate to RENEW, RE-ORGANISE. REAFFIRM and REMOBILIZE the ANCWL.

We also met as this NEC at a time where we come from a very highly contested 2016 Local Government Elections in the history of our democracy.

South Africans have spoken and as the ANCWL we want to thank all South Africans especially women who went out in their numbers to vote for the ANC. We want to especially thank our young women who have taken the call as mandated by our last conference to establish the young women's desk and assisted us in our campaign and voted for the ANC.

Comrades,

if as women of this country we do not take decisive leadership this country will not move forward. We need to move vigorously and with the utmost speed to make sure that the ANC remains the leader of society. We need to make sure as women that the ANC is united and is held accountable to change the lives of ordinary South Africans.

It is a known fact that the face of poverty, unemployment and inequality remains a woman. We need to make sure that our women are empowered and we cannot rest until they are totally emancipated. Patriarchy is our enemy. We need to speak with one voice when it comes to fighting this monster.

Comrades

August is the most important month in the struggle for the emancipation of the women of South Africa. This year marked 60 years of the women's march to the Union buildings and the ANCWL will continue throughout the year to celebrate the contribution of women in the liberation struggle of South Africa whilst focusing on the status of women in the context of existing policies on women empowerment and gender equality and the impact thereof in the democratic dispensation.

NEC report

The meeting received the political overview from the President of the ANCWL and the report of the National Working Committee and deliberated on the following issues:

The performance of the ANC in the last election
The intimidation and killing of women candidates
The recently released crime statistics and their impact on women and children and
The ANCWL approach towards the ANC 2017 elective conference

Comrades,

While we cannot deny that the ANC has won the majority of councils but we need to call this by its name - we have lost key metropolitan councils and we are concerned as the ANCWL. We received from all Provinces, the Western Cape and Gauteng remained the most difficult when it came to the participation of women in election decision making structures.

Although it is the policy of the ANC to have no less than 50 % representation, most structures did not adhere to the policy, patriarcy reared its ugly head and women were intimidated and some instances killed because men wanted to hold onto power. This shows that as the ANCWL we have a mammoth task ahead of us.

The ANCWL resolved that we should go back to our structures, have women to lead branches of the ANC as they constitute the majority of the membership of the ANC. Women must enforce the 50/50 representation policy of the ANC in all our structures and that towards the policy conference we want to propose that the top six of the ANC must have 50/50 representation. We also want to lobby for officials (top six) of the ANC to be recognized as structure

Comrades

We are not backing down on our mandate that the next President of the ANC must be a woman. We are going to have a programme that goes back to branches and communities to thank the voters, humble ourselves to issues raised by the electorate and make sure we carry out the mandate of South Africans working with women of all sub-sectors.

We have noted with great concern that during the list process many women were nominated and supported by communities but were removed, some could not come out because they feared for their lives. We experienced the most brutal and most cruel and merciless killings of women comrades and we cannot allow this to continue.

We have, therefore, asked Provinces submit the lists to the ANCWL so that we can ensure that the reversal is done as per the commitment of the ANC structures. We must respect our women and the will of the communities.

We commit as the ANCWL to give political and economic support to all the women comrades who did not make it with Gauteng, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu- Natal on top of our priorities.

THE 2015/2016 CRIME STATISTICS

ANCWL welcomes the release of the 2015/2016 crime statistics by the Honourable Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko. Whilst we welcome the decline in our crime statistics, for us as the ANCWL one incident of crime is one too many as the victims of crime are mostly crime women and children. Crimes like murder destabilize families and leave many children as orphans with lifelong psychological scars. The majority of victims of sexual violence is women.

The crime statistics reveal the continuing nexus between race, class, poverty and inequality and violent crime. When it comes to homicides, the Western Cape and in particular Cape Town, has the highest rates - well above the national average of 33 homicides per 100 000 people. Gauteng is at the lower end of a the scale but still alarmingly high by global standards. Cape Town's Mitchell's Plain tops the national list followed by Joburg's Hillbrow - areas that are densely populated, mostly black and where a large proportion of its residents are poor. Both communities are surrounded by some of the richest residents on the African continent.

While Cape Town has the highest murder rate these are generally located in the black areas in the Cape Flats.

The stats indicate that the victims of violent crime are poor who also happen to be predominantly black. However, if one had to make judgement calls on who the victims of violent crime are, based on the mainstream media and social media, one would think that it is the rich and affluent that are under siege by criminality. The statistics indicate that this is not the case.

The stats further indicate that women victims of violent crime are still more likely to be harmed by people that they know, especially intimate partners. Social and contact crimes, therefore, provide a window the intersections between race, class and gender. Tackling the root causes of violent crime, therefore, requires greater effort to dismantle racial capitalism and its twin, the ideology of male superiority.

ROAD TO 2017

Comrades

The debate started with our understanding that as we come out of elections, the ANC with all it's structures has listened to the people and therefore has to act or respond the issues raised by the people. Issues range from leadership issues, policy gaps and implementation there of. 2017 is the next ANC elective congress, the build up towards elections and the outcomes has given the ANC much more to work on.

The conference must be preceded with a preparation that will respond to these issues....from issues of leadership, relevance into the current political environment, policy gaps and implementation that would inform programs. As democracy matures, it requires us to respond differently to society.

The ANCWL was concerned with the campaign and election outcome and realized that we still have much more to do in preparation for the conference.

As the ANCWL we are concerned with the public spats from individuals, various groups and structures within and outside the ANC who purport to represent or assist the ANC but fail to adhere to the processes of the organization, thereby disrespecting the organization. Such actions are not assisting them, neither the ANC and the poor masses become the victims. This diverts the programs that need to fast track "Radical Socio-Economic Transformation of our people.

There be no justification of an ANC conference without processes of ensuring we have strong branches in good standing that would deliberate on matters to be taken to conference including the issues that society raised. An early conference would defocus our attention to issues that we have identified that need to be dealt with urgently such as the situation in our universities and education in general, issues of economic empowerment of women and gender based violence issues as will be deliberated below.

We don't support any structure of the ANC that calls for an early elective conference. If we are to agree to that as the ANCWL, we believe the agenda of women will disappear and our efforts to emancipate women will be reduced to nothing. The ANCWL has a mandate to carry to the policy conference from the women of this country! 

our young women are calling for fees to fall and as it is women who are affected by the exorbitant fees

Our young women want access to education and it is the policy of free education is a policy of the ANC.

It is young women who are forced to prostitute the bodies to survive at our institutions of higher learning. It is young women who are forced to sleep with the Professors and male administrators to get admitted at our institutions

Young girls are missing school because they do not have access sanitary towels.

We should not be proud when we see a 13-year-old shouting Amandla and calling for security to arrest them because she is a victim of racism. Children should be in class and playing with their friends and not carrying the burden of protecting who they are and their existence in our country - 22 years later!

We need to get closer to the issues of our children in high schools too and reactivate Amasupatsela while we also make sure that incidents like those in Vuwani do not happen again.

Issued by The ANCWL, 4 September 2016