Pretoria - Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, has called for elimination of all forms of discrimination against women in order to promote their socio-economic progression.
Speaking before her departure to Kenya for the African Women's Decade Conference, Mayende-Sibiya expressed concern that women continue to carry the heaviest burden of poverty, diseases, lack of skills and other social problems facing the African continent.
She will represent the South African delegation to the African Union-led conference taking place in Nairobi on Friday.
The event is convened to review and celebrate progress made so far towards gender equality and women empowerment.
It also seeks to map concrete actions that should be taken to accelerate the achievement of goals articulated in AU Declaration on Gender Equality.
"With the launch of the Decade of African Women, our continent is taking a major step to focus on these challenges and improve the overall status of women in Africa," said the minister.
The conference, which brings together delegates worldwide, will also see AU members embarking on a massive campaign to empower grassroots initiatives by women by the year 2020.
Mayende-Sibiya said South Africa had already played a leading role globally in areas such as representation of women in political decision-making positions. SA is currently number three among countries with highest representation of women in parliament.
"We will be sharing these experiences and learning from fellow AU member states on how they are addressing challenges facing women in their countries," she said.
The conference will also provide an avenue for the launch of the AU policy, which will be a key reference document in actualising the decade's goals.
"The objective of the African Women's Decade is to re-invigorate commitments to accelerated implementation of agreed global and regional commitments of gender equality and women empowerment," the African Union statement said.
The campaign's main areas of focus will include 10 priority areas, including fighting poverty and promoting economic empowerment of women and entrepreneurship.
It will also promote the role of women in agriculture and food security. The other areas of focus will be the health, maternal mortality and HIV and AIDS.
The campaign will also dedicate time to look at the role of women in education, Science and Technology, Environment and Climate Change.
