WOMEN'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE HEARS FURTHER EXPERT COMMENTS AND SOUTH AFRICA'S RESPONSE ON ITS INITIAL REPORT

WOM/1060
29 June 1998


The cultural cancer of violence against women must be attacked through education, an expert member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women said this afternoon, as that body concluded its consideration of South Africa's initial report on the situation of women.

Education was needed to counteract stereotyped perceptions of women, facilitate understanding of their potential and ensure that all people viewed violence against women as unacceptable, Committee experts stressed. The country's highly disparate system of income distribution might also be a factor in the high rate of violence against women, it was noted.

The Committee, which monitors States parties compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, is made up of 23 experts who serve in their personal capacities. This afternoon, they made concluding comments after hearing responses to questions and comments they posed after South Africa presented its initial report on 24 June.

During her presentation, South Africa's Minister for Welfare and Population Development, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, said that South Africa's national machinery for women was being launched at a time of heightened institutional reform and social transformation to change the national psyche and make institutions responsive to constitutional imperatives in programming.

The national machinery for gender equality was established in 1997, she said. The first year had been devoted to planning for a national strategy, now being implemented. Indicators, which were an important part of the programme, were being designed around key national and international instruments to ensure that issues of equity were monitored in relation to equality.

National structures were just now becoming operational and delivery was paramount. That was particularly difficult when the government structure had inherited no institutional base from which to operate. Thus, the focus in South Africa was on developing an infrastructure and on pursuing an integrated approach between programme units and the institutional base. The national machinery for gender equality was located in the office of the President, giving it the authority to bring about compliance to its directives.

In concluding comments, the Committee's Chairperson, Salma Khan (Bangladesh), said South Africa had many factors in its favour with regard to complying with the Convention. It had used the document's provision on temporary measures with great effect for increasing women's participation in public life. Non-governmental organizations were producing valuable work on the Convention, and the country's President, Nelson Mandela, was utterly committed to women's rights.

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 30 June, to begin its consideration of the combined second and third periodic reports of Panama.

Committee Work Programme

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women met this afternoon to continue its consideration of South Africa's initial report. The 23-member expert body was scheduled to hear responses to comments posed at earlier meetings during the current session.

(For background on South Africa's initial report, as well as on the experts' comments, see Press Releases WOM/1057 and WOM/1058 of 24 June.)

South Africa's Statement

GERALDINE FRASER-MOLEKETI, Minister for Welfare and Population Development of South Africa, said her delegation was responding to questions in terms of relatedness rather than linearity. The Committee recommendations would be communicated to the Government.

With regard to the national machinery, she reiterated that the machinery embodied the most suitable practices, both within and outside South Africa, for the transformation of gender relations. The machinery was being launched at a time of heightened institutional reform and social transformation, with the intention of changing the national psyche and making institutions responsive to Constitutional imperatives in programming.

The distinguishing characteristic of the machinery was the scope and manner in which programmes were made operational, she said. For example, all structures were involved in gender mainstreaming but there was a difference in their points of entry, their levels of involvement and their thrust of operation. The Office on the Status of Women would be composed of the national office, provincial offices and local government offices. The provincial offices had been in operation longer than the national, and the overall national machinery for women's equality consisted of the National Office and the Commission on Gender Equality. Both were established in 1997, and the first year had gone into planning for a national strategy ready to be implemented.

Design of indicators was an important part of verifying and implementing the National Gender programme and the question of impact, she said. That was a principal task of the national machinery structures and the indicators were being defined around key national and international instruments to ensure that those issues of equity which retarded progress in equality were carefully measured and monitored. A baseline study for identifying and evaluating indicators had been begun.

The context of the overall national machinery had to be considered when looking at a situation in which there seemed to be no coordination at the national level, she said. In South Africa's case, because national structures were just becoming operational, coordination of activities related to this Committee was located in the Department of Welfare. By Cabinet decision, each line ministry had a gender structure or gender focal point, and both were critical for the delivery capacity of the structures in handling both internal and external transformation. Proposed projects for promoting gender equality in all structures of the government included a gender audit and inclusion of non-government organizations in projects.

Delivery was paramount for the national machinery, she emphasized, and that was particularly difficult when the structures had inherited no institutional base from which to operate. Thus, the focus in South Africa was on developing an infrastructure and on pursuing an integrated approach based on a close relationship between programme units and the institutional base within which programme they were based. The question of capacity had to be viewed in context of the skills deficit facing gender programmes universally. South Africa had devised a three-year programme to be carried out by provincial and national staff, both to develop policy and to gender mainstream staff.

The national Office on the Status of Women resided in the office of the Presidency because of the authority inherent in that office, she said. From there, departments were coordinated and given authority to bring about compliance. Through both private and government funding, a budget of 3,061 million rands had been allocated for the 1998/1999 year for the Office, representing 12 per cent of the total budget allocated to the Office of the Deputy President.

A special focus of the Office was on changing traditional or cultural practices, she said, accomplished through provincial and regional workshops and establishment of relationships with local traditional leaders. Exchanges had been held on discriminatory practices and customs, and also on those that advanced women's important role in society. Lessons were being introduced into education and information strategies, research and pilot projects were being carried out, and mass media were being employed to get across the message for change.

Turning then to women's access to finances, she said that a Women's Development Bank in South Africa extended credit to rural women, and a number of micro-credit lending institutions focused on urban women. However, the new Government had inherited a huge external debt. For every rand it collected, about 24 cents went to service that debt. The situation was unsustainable; the larger the debt, the higher the interest bill and the less there was to invest in social development.

The Government had developed and adopted the Growth, Employment and Redistribution programme to address the problem, she said. Women benefited from that strategy, in part from the reprioritization of the budget, which resulted in increased expenditure for social development and poverty relief. In 1998-1999, part of the national budget would be set aside for community- based poverty relief, targeting women and rural areas. In 1998-1999, 60 per cent of non-interest government spending would be for education, health and welfare services.

She then responded to questions on sex roles and stereotypes and the role of education. While education was not a panacea to all social problems, South Africa believed that educators must show leadership and that a starting point for change was within the education system itself. South Africa's education system was the country's single largest organization; it greatly influenced gender relations and career paths.

A White Paper on Education and Training cited certain trends in relation to gender and education: boys dropped out at higher rates than girls; women were overwhelmingly represented in teaching services, but underrepresented in educational management departments; and sexism and violence against women were common on and off campus. The Department of Education's Gender Equity Unit would address a wide range of issues including gender imbalances in enrolment and drop-out rates, and sexism in curricula.

Media was another powerful instrument to address stereotyping, she said. South Africa and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) were promoting women's participation in media, to address stereotypes and increase women's access to information. The project sought to enhance the democratization of information and increase access to the media of women and marginalized groups of South African society. It was hoped that a new generation of media organizations and workers would become truly representative of South Africa's cosmopolitan society.

Moving to questions on the exploitation of the girl child, the Minister said that the extent to which vulnerable children could be pushed into prostitution and trafficking was a complex matter and a source of concern. There were many programmes which promoted the social and economic development of marginalized people. During 1997, the Department of Welfare alone funded 1,140 development programmes which targeted poor women and children. A White Paper had been developed on promoting small, medium and micro enterprises. Several institutional arrangements were in place to support that strategy.

None of those programmes specifically targeted young women who were vulnerable to prostitution, she noted. However, programmes addressed poverty. The qualitative impact of those programmes was indisputable. South Africa had yet to develop an integrated and holistic plan for social development, but it had established a Coordination and Implementation Unit in the Office of the Deputy President, with social development being a primary component.

Regarding women's access to health, she said the goal of the Department of Health was to develop a comprehensive and integrated national health system to provide accessible health care services for all South Africans. A number of strategies were in place to address inequities. For example, many settlements had limited access to medical doctors within the public health system. The Department of Health had therefore introduced a system of community service, whereby newly qualified doctors would be required to work in public service for one year before being allowed to pursue independent practice. Another strategy to ensure doctors in underserved areas was the foreign doctor programme, by which doctors were being employed from around the world through government-to-government agreements.

Reproductive health services were part of the comprehensive services at all levels, she said. The Government recognized the right to safe drinking water as a basic right. In 1995, 67 per cent of the population had access to adequate drinking water; the rate had increased to 74.5 per cent to date. She outlined policies and programmes to encourage food security.

The Department of Health provided free contraception services and encouraged the availability of contraceptives in the private sector, she said. In cases where staff refused to perform abortion, they were encouraged to attend values clarification workshops to be able to counsel and refer women who required the service. Health workers were not forced to participate in abortions, but they were not allowed to obstruct access to such services.

Programmes for combating HIV/AIDS incorporated various strategies, she said. An inter-ministerial committee had been established to make HIV/AIDS a national concern. Ratios for births were unreliable, with large percentages unreported. The Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Health had developed new registration forms to be utilized for babies that were born outside the health services. Statistics on the number of childhood deaths were not available.

High levels of alcohol consumption were a source of concern, she said. Foetal alcohol syndrome was as high as 15 per cent in some areas. Despite success in the Department of Health's anti-smoking campaign, some 30 per cent of South Africans smoked. A national Drug Master Plan had been formulated, covering all legal and illegal drugs. Research indicated that substance abuse was increasing among women, particularly use of over-the-counter drugs, such as sedatives.

On the problem of female genital mutilation, she said that the practice had not been adequately documented or researched. Anecdotal reports indicated that it was practised in the northeastern part of South Africa. However, practitioners in those areas claimed to have never seen a single case after many years of gynecological practice. A major problem in some parts of South Africa was male genital mutilation (male circumcision). Traditional leaders were being involved in efforts to make traditional circumcision safer.

A major debate was ongoing with regard to the status of communal land, she said, which was one issue impacting on rural women. A number of Acts had been introduced to protect women's rights to land and to housing in a non-discriminatory manner. A disaster management strategy had been introduced, as well as a number of reports and programmes for improving productivity and economic empowerment for women, as well as informing them of their rights.

In the area of support for beneficiaries of affirmative action, she said the Government's affirmative action programme was backed by a skills development programme in a national framework. Management was provided in both the private and public sectors and accelerated training programmes were being initiated. Temporary targets had been set, in such areas, for example, as women's employment, and voluntary targets to be set by both public and private employment sectors were required.

Answering a number of specific questions on employment, such as legislative actions taken for skills development programmes, she said the gender dimensions of the high levels of unemployment was a matter of grave concern. The macro-economic strategy set targets for creating jobs and reducing unemployment. Rather than being the responsibility of one single government department, the range of programmes in that important regard included pilot programmes and support services.

Domestic workers numbered approximately 1.2 million and constituted the second largest sector of the South African workforce, she said. Since 1994, domestic workers were covered by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1993, but they were not adequately covered by other protective measures. Measures to identify and best remedy the situation were being researched.

She then turned to a wide range of constitutional and legal issues. The Constitution protected every person from slavery, sexual and forced labour. Efforts to discourage voluntary participation in commercial sex work were integrated into the national poverty alleviation programmes. The high incidence of rape could not be separated from the violent and patriarchal system from which South Africa was emerging, and the problems arising from the present period of transition. The crime of apartheid had given birth to systematic violence in communities and families. It left a legacy of viewing violence as a mechanism for conflict resolution.

In the past, South African society did not categorically condemn violence against women as unacceptable, she noted. This fact was changing. Similarly, in compliance with the Constitution and international human rights norms, corporal punishment had been abolished. A new culture of human rights based on human dignity and the security of the person needed to be inculcated. Traditional attitudes which perceived women as sex objects, as well as the power relations involved in violence against women, were other contributing factors to the high incidence of violence.

The common approach to removing discrimination was to first remove overt discrimination, she said. Regarding questions on women's use of the office of the public prosecutor to file complaints against public institutions, she said the office was fairly well used, and efforts were being made to extend it to rural areas. Justice officials were involved in dialogue with religious and traditional leaders to shift attitudes.

The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act (1998) removed women's minority status and provided for formal equality between men and women. Single women were not subject to minority age rules, but some institutions had until recently required parental consent for black women, which indicated that they were treated like minors.

Legal aid was primarily confined to criminal law, and was being extended to rural areas throughout the country, she explained. The question of de facto access to land was subject to specific land reform initiatives under the Department of Land, Agriculture and Housing. The Law Commission had developed an issue paper on maintenance benefits with a view to reviewing and improving the maintenance legislation. Disparities in matrimonial contracts would be removed by the Customary Marriages Act. Widows property rights would also be addressed by the Succession (Customary Law) Act.

Regarding lobola, or bride price, she said the new legislation was silent. The strategy was to let it die naturally due to lack of value through lack of enforcement, based on the understanding that legislation against deeply-entrenched practices often reinforced rather than abolished them. New legislation sought to approach polygamy creatively. The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act facilitated the demise of the practice by making it difficult for spouses to enter into subsequent marriages.

She answered numerous questions on violence against women by citing measures and laws that had been instituted to eliminate it. A national summit was planned to take place in September to consolidate a national programme of action aimed at implementing recommendations of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) conference, including the accountability framework that was a part of the programme.

The Domestic Violence Bill had been introduced to address legal gaps, and a paucity of research into violence against women was being rectified, she said. Rape in marriage was criminalized. The Ombudsman's Office received complaints, but since it did not at present keep gender disaggregated data, it was unable to quantify the number of complaints. It was safe to acknowledge, however, that law enforcement was not very effective in control of violence against women. The main report had referred to a number of measures being introduced to re-engineer the criminal justice process and to improve effectiveness in handling violence against women specifically. Those included changes in the substantive law and procedural framework, automation of case-flow management and training of service providers, among others.

In the area of general issues, she said that an 11 per cent gap in the target set for hiring of women in the Department of Foreign Affairs was being handled through a gender unit in that Department, which would hire a gender officer by the end of 1998. Nationally, South Africa had a 25 per cent representation of women in the national Parliament, 23 per cent in the provincial and 19 per cent at local government levels. That was a great achievement by the new democratically elected government which had adopted the system of proportional representation.

Women had played a leading role in prioritizing transformation, she said. Many of the women in Parliament had been activists in the liberation struggle against apartheid. It would be regrettable if they left and were not replaced by others. The manner in which the initial country report was received by the Committee, as well as the comments and questions on the report, had challenged the South African delegation in many ways. The findings would assist in the struggle for equality of the sexes in the country.

Committee Expert Comments

Several experts commented on the responses of South Africa to the questions raised after presentation of its initial report. One said South Africa had addressed many of the problems shared by other developing countries, including debt servicing and female genital mutilation. She agreed fully with South Africa's views on obstruction of termination of abortion and on violence against women. Several expressed congratulations on the steps South Africa was taking to equalize the status of women in its society.

Experts stressed the importance of eliminating stereotypes about women. They emphasized the importance and the difficulty of the task but said that changing people's mindsets was central to achieving equality. Changing stereotypes was a critical aspect of addressing violence against women. Education played an important role in that regard. Education of women must be promoted, so they could understand their potential roles and so that all people knew that violence against women was unacceptable. When violence against women was not addressed systematically, that was another violation of human rights.

Violence against women was a negative and self-perpetuating phenomenon that created cultural cancer, an expert said. If the cultural aspect of such violence was not attacked at the root, by means of education, then new generations would also internalize inappropriate perceptions.

The Minister then made several technical corrections to the report. Regarding comments on violence against women, she stressed that the Government and the women of South Africa had identified it as a major problem area. It was a focus of gender considerations, and was a priority in the national strategy against crime. The Government supported non-governmental organizations (NGOs) initiatives in that area. Violence against women was recognized as a priority crime and a violation of human rights.

SALMA KHAN (Bangladesh), Committee Chairperson, thanked the Minister for her frank response to the Committee's comments. Despite the legacy of apartheid, South Africa had rapidly created an enabling environment for gender equity. The struggle of women in South Africa had been strong, even during the apartheid regime. South Africa had made great strides in the areas of law reform. Its legislative framework had been redesigned. Those efforts would prove helpful to further advance women.

Efforts were also being made to address social and economic needs, she continued. While many of the causes for violence against women had been discussed, another reason should be taken into account: income distribution. South Africa was one of the region's richest countries but there was a stark distinction in income distribution.

From civil society to the governmental level, she noted determined efforts to end discrimination against women. A more coordinated, joint effort, as well as better budgetary allocations, could help address issues in a more effective manner. Having changed policies, South Africa should also be able to change facts.

Another area of concern was the difference between legislative and constitutional laws, she said. While the Committee was told that the latter took precedence, traditional values often prevailed in South Africa's traditional society.

The country had many things in its favour, she continued. It efficiently and successfully used article 4 of the Convention, on temporary measures to achieve de facto equality, resulting in remarkable increases in women's participation in public life and other areas. South African NGOs had created useful documentation on the Convention; those should be used more. Another strong asset for women's equality was the leadership of Nelson Mandela. In his first address to Congress, he had stressed the importance of women's rights. She expressed confidence that South Africa's next report would reveal higher levels of compliance, and hoped that the Committee's report on the country would be disseminated widely.