SACP Statement on National Women's Day 2024

Friday, 9 August 2024: In the commemoration of the 68th anniversary of the seminal 1956 Women’s March against the apartheid regime, the South African Communist Party (SACP) is mobilising united working-class action and public policy interventions to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and achieve decisive implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI). Tackling the cost-of-living crisis and decisively implementing the NHI will have a significant positive impact on the lives of women, particularly urban and rural working-class women, of whom there are millions living in poverty, who are the majority and endure capitalist exploitation and inequality.

To secure the social emancipation of women, society, with the state playing a leading role, must fully recognise and give universal access to reproductive rights for girls and women: to this end, the NHI implementation is particularly crucial. South Africa must ensure and enable equal participation of women in all sectors of society and spaces of societal life – including, but not limited to, the economy, the workplace and in the institutions of political life, like schools, universities, sport and culture, and in all organs of people’s power. The family must not entail any exploitative and unequal gender division of labour and must not be considered a private sphere where any behaviour that violates gender equality can be tolerated. Every adult woman must have access to the means and protection to be independent, to express her views without fear or favour and to control her own destiny and decisions. All girls and women must be safe in their homes, in places of learning, in workplaces, and in places of sport, culture and entertainment, and in the community, regardless of their choice of gender identity and sexual orientation.  

The 1956 Women’s March was part and parcel of the struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression and patriarchal relations of domination that have been aggravated by the exploitative system of capitalist exploitation and marginalisation of the working-class, with women the most impacted. The majority, being black working-class women in general, and African working-class women in particular, endured triple oppression – racial oppression and discrimination, class super exploitation and marginalisation, and patriarchal domination and subjugation. As a result, they are more severely affected than other women and historically than racially oppressed and exploited men.

Tackling the ever-rising cost of living requires the recognition and advancement of the right to work for all. This imperative must be articulated to consider the fact that African women in particular and black women in general are, in terms of class, race and gender, the worst affected by unemployment, poverty and inequality, and therefore need greater attention in the creation and provision of work, poverty eradication and efforts to eliminate inequality.

Addressing the rising cost of living cannot be accomplished under conditions of neo-liberal policies, including austerity measures imposed on the working class through budget cuts on social and economic development imperatives. Neo-liberalism and its austerity budgeting compounds the tendency for capital to impose an additional social burden on women in working-class families, by cutting the budget allocated to social reproduction programmes and the social wage, among others.

Also, a monetary policy that hinges on interest rate hikes, producing a high-interest rate environment, is not good for women either. It increases household debt service costs, diverting funds away from essential goods and services towards paying these high interest rates.

A high interest regime is part and parcel of the cost-of-living crisis and countervails the much-needed industrial development and employment creation through high debt service costs. To address this problem, we need the decisive implementation of the ANC's May 2024 election manifesto commitment, which was drafted in consultation with Alliance partners, to establish a developmental macro-economic policy.

The stress under which our society finds itself under, given the impact of the crises of capitalism on our families, has led to unprecedented levels of inter-personal violence and murder. In particular, violence against women and femicide have reached exponentially high levels. The SACP recommits itself to the struggle for gender equality by, among others, purposefully aiming at achieving women’s emancipation as an apex priority. As part of the effort, the SACP will continue our work in organising our communities, uniting the working class in the fight to uproot the root causes of the scourge.

Notably, it is also women, in the majority, and children, who are impacted by the unequal, two-tiered healthcare system. To resolve this problem, we need NHI implementation as an immediate priority. The reaction by forces opposed to access to quality healthcare for all must not be allowed to divert attention away from the necessity to implement the NHI as an immediate priority.

As the SACP, we reiterate our support for a people’s front – the Friends of the NHI Campaign – for the defence and advancement of the cause of NHI implementation. In this campaign, we will work with the progressive trade union movement, women and youth organisations, progressive professionals and people’s health organisations, among others.

In addressing the crises faced by the working class today, we must challenge the very foundations of the capitalist-dominated and patriarchal society and in the quest to achieve gender equality and build the emancipatory socialist future in the here and now.

The SACP will continue to play its role in the building of a progressive women’s movement anchored in our effort to forge a popular left front and build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor. As part of this effort, we will work hard to strengthen class-conscious trade unions and their programmes, including targeted recruitment of women workers and an anti-patriarchal programme. It is crucial for the working, including trade unions, to tackle the multiple crises of capitalism on all fronts, towards ultimately replacing the system with a just and equal society in which the wealth of society will be used to meet the needs of all its members, as opposed to a privileged few.

Issued by the South African Communist Party,

Founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa.

Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID

Dr Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Central Committee Member

National Spokesperson & Political Bureau Secretary for Policy and Research

FOR INTERVIEW ARRANGEMENTS, MEDIA LIAISON & CIRCULATION SERVICES

Hlengiwe Nkonyane

Media Liaison Officer & Digital Platforms Manager

Mobile: +27 66 473 4819

OFFICE & OTHER CONTACT DETAILS

Office: +2711 339 3621/2

Website: www.sacp.org.za

Facebook Page: South African Communist Party

Twitter: SACP1921