More Needs to be Done for Woman's Emancipation: Mbeki

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 09, 2003

More Needs to be Done for Woman's Emancipation: Mbeki

South African President Thabo Mbeki says everything necessary needs to be done to speedily advance the emancipation of South Africa's women, as well as those on the rest of the continent.

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South African President Thabo Mbeki says everything necessary needs to be done to speedily advance the emancipation of South Africa's women, as well as those on the rest of the continent.

Writing in the African National Congress' on-line publication, ANC Today, he said National Women's Day on Saturday again provided an opportunity to salute the country's women.

It was also an opportunity for recommitment to the constitutional obligation to transform South Africa into a non-sexist country.

According to Census 2001, there were more women in South Africathan men. They made up 52.2 percent of the 44 million population.

"This communicates the clear message that when we call for a better life for all, this means that what we do should have the larger impact on the women, who constitute the majority of our population," he said.

Three provinces -- Limpopo Province, the Eastern Cape Province and KwaZulu-Natal Province -- had an even higher proportion of women than the national average.

These were also the provinces with the highest rural populations, the lowest levels of development, and big concentrations of poor people.

Thus, the challenge of women's emancipation and empowerment wasmost urgent in these provinces.

Mbeki said the census also showed women accounted for 56 percent of people aged 20 or over with only primary school or no education at all. This was significantly above their proportion ofthe population as a whole.

Again, the figures were even higher in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal province.

"Interestingly, the figures at higher levels of education tell a different story," he said.

"The national statistics relating to the educational range Grade 12/Standard 10 and higher, say that women constitute 51.4 percent, just below their proportion of our population as a whole."

"These figures, relating to people with higher levels of education, also communicate the important message that perhaps themessage about women's emancipation and gender equality is getting through to the masses of our people."

"This is resulting in more of our women becoming relatively highly educated, rather than dropping out of the educational system to do domestic work or find a husband at an early age."

Nevertheless, gender inequality still showed itself in the occupation categories among employed people.

The figures showed educated and better-trained women were largely concentrated in such professions as teaching and nursing, as well as jobs requiring lower skills levels, Mbeki said.

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