The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation is calling on women to take a front seat in the post coronavirus pandemic recovery plan.
In a Women’s Day statement, the Foundation says COVID-19 has revealed some of the best human characteristics such as the courage and compassion of frontline healthcare workers and some of the worst, including systemic and fundamentally unfair inequality.
It quotes a 2020 World Economic Forum (WEF) report on the global gender gap. According to the Foundation, South Africa features a credible 17th out of 153 countries on the WEF’s global gender gap list.
The Foundation, however, added that South Africa also features in the fourth position on the World Health Organisation’s list of the highest rate of women murdered in the world.
According to the latest crime statistics, the KwaZulu-Natal province has the highest rate of murder and rape in the country. The province has seen an increase of 10.6% in the murder rate since last year.
In the video below, Minister Bheki Cele announces the crime statistics:
The Tutu Legacy Foundation is calling for a new generation of revolutionary voices and leaders to act. On 13 August, it will host a conversation, titled Gender-Based Violence: Doing the Difficult Work.
Women’s Day is commemorated annually in South Africa to remember the 1956 women’s march against the use of passbooks Approximately 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria and submitted a petition against the apartheid government’s law. -Reporting by Vicky Stark
