East London - President Jacob Zuma has demanded quick action to address the country's slow transformation in the workplace, saying South Africa was not achieving the kind of gender parity required by its democratic rule.
Addressing a packed Women's Day event at East London's Absa Stadium on Monday, Zuma pointed to a recent employment equity report which revealed that transformation in the work place, particularly in the private sector, was slow.
Zuma said unless something was done urgently, South Africa may struggle to achieve its set targets of workforce gender balance.
"Some urgent action is required in the private sector to improve gender and race diversity at top management level," he said, referring to the report's finding that 63 percent of top management positions at South African companies were occupied by white men.
He told the more than 5000 people gathered to commemorate the country's women struggle that legislative reforms would be put in place to deal with slow transformation.
South Africa marks 9 August as national Women's Day. It honours the women who broke racial barriers and marched to the Union Buildings in protest against apartheid government's oppressive pass laws in 1956.
Zuma on Monday heaped praise on the 20 000 women who, under the leadership of Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Sophie Williams - de Bruyn, Amina Cachalia and Rahima Moosa, "braved" the regime to say "enough was enough".
"They stated their resolve that they would never give up the fight until the dawn of freedom. We shall not rest until we have won for our children their fundamental rights of freedom, justice and security on this special day we salute those women who had great foresight," he said.
He singled out former struggle icon and former President Nelson Mandela's wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela whom he said kept the flag of freedom flying. "She kept hope alive inside the country, in the face of endless persecution by the apartheid security apparatus. Through her, we salute all women who lived in fear and persecution for years...because their husbands or family members were activists."
While authorities admit there is still much that needs to be done to increase women representation in top management positions, there has been progress made on legislative reforms since 1994 to facilitate gender equality and improved representation of women in decision making positions.
Women's representation in Parliament jumped to 45 percent following the country's recent elections, giving South Africa a third place spot in the global women in parliament rankings.
According to Gender Links, a Johannesburg-based non-governmental organisation that focuses on research, training and advocacy for achieving gender equity, political party candidate lists submitted to the IEC, for the 2009 elections, showed an 11% increase in the number of women in parliament.
South Africa now sits just behind Rwanda and Sweden in the global rankings, who have 56 percent and 47 percent women's representation in their respective parliaments. The number of women ministers and deputy ministers increased from 18 percent in1994 to 40 percent after last year's poll. Women are also in charge of powerful portfolios in Defence, International Relations and Cooperation, Energy, Correctional Services and Home Affairs.
Zuma said the country had also done well at provincial government level with five women having emerged as Premiers, pushing the representation of women at this sphere of government to 55 percent.
But he acknowledged that while celebrating the strides the country had made, "the struggle for a truly better life for women continues".
"A lot of work needs to be done to increase the representation of women at senior levels of the public service. At the moment, women make up an average 36 percent of senior management". Measures had to be taken, sooner rather than later to address the imbalance.
As the survey by the Labour Department shows, there is still under-representation of women as paid employees in general and the challenge worsens at top management level of the private sector.
The Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya wants to change these statistics with a new Gender Equity Bill which will enforce gender parity measures across all sectors.
"16 years into our democracy we still have men holding 63 percent of top management positions in the private sector while African women are at less than three percent," she said.
"These are women who are faced with daily struggles of caring for their families while at the same time they compete in the labour market. They need to be competent workers while caring the burden of unpaid, and mostly unrecognised, work within their household. In most cases these are the women who constitute the majority of the unemployed, the poor and underdeveloped section of our society," she added.
The minister warned that if the current pace of transformation continued, it could take the country almost 40 years to attain 50-50 gender parity. "We cannot allow that," she said, adding that urgent measures needed to be taken to ensure fair women representation in all key sectors of society.
Zuma said government recognised that promotion of gender equality and women empowerment was central to all efforts to combat poverty and stimulating sustainable development. For this reason, he added, the focus would shift to improving access to socio-economic rights which are enshrined in the country's constitution.
