'SA women should take advantage of empowerment'

Mlambo-Ngcuka says women need to take advantage of empowerment programmes

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says women in South Africa should take full advantage of their empowerment. Speaking at the Advancement of Women conference in Sandton, Mlambo-Ngcuka says the gap between men and women has not been breached, even though women empowerment and advancement is high on South Africa's agenda.

Mlambo-Ngcuka highlighted the many milestones that have been reached in advancing the course of women in the country, but conceded that a lot more still needs to be done. She says it is encouraging that the performance of girls in schools has improved and many of them are moving away from traditional subjects.

Mlambo-Ngcuka says there should be a focus on interventions that works for women, but she insisted that this should not be done to the detriment of the boy-child. She says women have not invested enough in the upbringing of men.

"We are not doing enough for the boy-children and I think there is a great danger that we are going to repeat the scenario of the archaic man the way they are today. We still have a chance … with some of the younger men and boys to actually make them take a greater responsibility for the running of the households," she says.

Mlambo-Ngcuka says in their interventions women need to ensure that they help in the eradication of poverty. She says government will conduct a situation analysis of poor families, and she is appealing to those families to have core responsibility in the fight.