Women still don't have equal share of SA's wealth and land: Ramaphosa – SABC News – Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa's news leader.

Seventy years after 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings against pass laws, which they felt restricted their freedom of movement, they still don’t have equal share of SA’s wealth, land, or its enterprises. That’s according to President Cyril Ramaphosa delivering his Women’s Day commemoration speech at the same venue of the 1956 march in Pretoria on Sunday afternoon.

“Women are more than half of our population, but they do not yet hold an equal share of our country’s wealth, its land or its enterprises,” says Ramaphosa.

“Too many women are without work. Too many earn less than men for doing the same work. Too many carry the burden of caring for families and households, labour that goes unrecognised and uncounted. This must change,” he adds.

Ramaphosa says the government is working to change the status quo, to ensure that women have equal opportunities.

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Speaking to thousands of people who were in attendance to mark the day, Ramaphosa highlighting some of the interventions the government is putting in place to remedy the situation, saying programs like Women Economic Assembly are designed to level the playing field.

“We are opening public procurement to women-owned businesses, so that what government spends helps to build women entrepreneurs. Through the Women Economic Assembly we have been drawing women-owned enterprises into the value chains of our major industries. We are widening access to finance, to credit and to markets,” he says.

He has noted that “more women than men” were enrolled in universities and colleges.

And we are ensuring that women hold title to the land they work.

“They excel in school. But too few of them enter engineering, science, technology, and the artisanal trades, where so many of the opportunities of tomorrow will lie. We must work to change that.”

The president says it is through the empowerment of women that women can be the drivers of their own destinies.

“A woman who is skilled, who earns her own income, and who enjoys good health is a woman able to determine the course of her own life. That is the freedom we are working towards.”

Meanwhile, with Malala Yousafzai among those in attendance, Ramaphosa has also used the occasion to condemn the exclusion of Afghan women and girls from education, employment, and public life.

He has praised Malala for her reliance in her for fight for women’s rights.

“You refused to be silenced. You became a steadfast global voice for the education, dignity and freedom of girls. We welcome you to South Africa and thank you for standing with us on this historic day,” he says.

“Through you, we extend our solidarity to the women and girls of Afghanistan, who are being systematically excluded from education, employment, and public life.

He says no culture, religion, government, or ideology can justify treating women as lesser human beings.

“South Africans know what it means when the law is used to determine where people may go, what they may learn, what work they may do and what place they may occupy in society. No culture, religion, government or ideology can justify reducing women to lesser human beings.”

Also in attendance was the last surviving leader of the 1956 march, Sophie De Bruyn, who was 18 years on the historic day, 70 years ago.

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