Today, staff from Sonke Gender Justice are at a meeting organised by the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) in response to complaints lodged by the men’s organisations Isikhalo Samadoda and the Social Imbalance Movement.
The organisations sent letters of complaint to both the CGE and the Department of Justice and Correctional Services claiming that women’s rights are attained at the expense of men and that women have too many rights in South Africa. Of course this is not the reality in South Africa where the struggle for women to achieve equality with men is still underway, and where women are greatly marginalised in many areas of society. Further, no country in the world can boast paying women the same as men for the same work – worldwide, women still earn between 10-30% less than men. In a country like South Africa where there is still deep patriarchy in communities and institutions, where there are an estimated more than a million rapes per year, and where more than a thousand women are killed at the hands of “intimate partners”, it is especially harmful to say that women share the same rights and privileges as men do, nevermind to suggest that they share more.
Sonke’s Patrick Godana and Nokhwezi Hoboyi are at the CGE meeting to ensure that women’s rights are not infringed upon and to counter the accusations being made by complainants.
Photos from Sonke’s Patrick Godana
