Hon Chairperson and hon delegates, the subject of today, which is rural women, is very close to my heart. The debate is important in the work of this House. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on the International Day of Rural Women and, specifically, it gives us an opportunity to share what we are doing together to empower and improve the lives of rural women. It is for this reason that we requested leaders of delegations to participate and highlight the measures, plans and programmes that their provinces are putting in place to empower rural women in order to improve their lives as well as to highlight the challenges that rural women are still facing and how to address them. I'm happy to see MECs from some of our very rural provinces here today.
In our draft strategic framework plan, to be considered by this House shortly, we have identified the initiation and implementation of programmes aimed at assisting vulnerable groups in society as one of our strategic objectives for the term. Women, especially rural women, form part of this category. It is therefore significant to have an understanding of what we are doing, especially as provinces, in ensuring that we empower rural women.
In trying to address challenges facing rural women, we need to first know where we come from, where we are now and where we are going. As a veteran, I regard myself as more qualified to give such a historical background.
We all know that rural women were subjected to oppression in many ways. They faced discrimination, forced removals and apartheid. There was the legacy of autocracy, nepotism and corruption in service provision and decision-making over development issues. Paternalism was entrenched. In order to provide for their families, rural women tilled the land and were also there as collectors of firewood and water. Yet, they were expected to eat after men who usually had the largest share of the family meal. They stayed at home looking after their families while their husbands were away as migrant labourers. The system deprived them of the opportunity to be with their husbands in the cities. If they tried, they were harassed and hounded by authorities back to their communes in the countryside. In short, they were treated as secondary citizens in their own country.
As if this was not enough, they were subjected to traditional laws that often undermined their rights as human beings. But, despite these difficulties, rural women were able to provide for their families, keeping the candle burning until they were temporarily united with their husbands. The enduring philosophy of ubuntu kept their families together. There was communal tilling of land, communal sharing of seeds and communal harvesting. The hungry were fed, and the homeless were given shelter.
The intergenerational scars borne by rural women were to be inherited by their children, especially the girl-child. To this day, we are still facing the greatest challenge of the emancipation of women, especially rural women. Until we address this, we are not going to be able to support rural entrepreneurship. Women in rural areas are at the centre of entrepreneurial activity despite being less literate. Some are extremely poor and can hardly eke out a living without some form of government support.
However, our new democratic order has provided hope for rural women. The rural woman has the freedom to participate in decision-making structures. She has the freedom to express her views of the kind of development she would like to see and act on. She has the freedom to assume leadership, although she is still not empowered to carry out such a responsibility. There are, of course, many opportunities for such empowerment. One such vehicle is in the form of co-operatives. But this requires training on basic business management skills and project implementation in order to be sustainable. Stokvels constitute a means of saving for rural women as well as a way of participating communally in the rural economy, but our financing system remains largely conservative.
Where are we going? As a country we have a vision enshrined in our Constitution which is to improve the quality of life of all citizens and to free the potential of each person. The attainment of this vision requires us to work together now to empower rural women to be able to free their potential. We need rural women to have the following: access to education and health care; access to control over land and other productive and financial resources; and access to the creation of income-generating activities, thus contributing to job creation.
I am going to shorten my presentation because I'm running out of time.
The report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the improvement of the situation of women in rural areas released at the end of July this year notes that the persistent inequalities and discrimination faced by rural women pose significant challenges to the achievement of the internationally agreed upon development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. This is a general observation by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He notes further in his report that, as member states, we need to ensure that the rights of older women in rural areas are taken into account. These include equal access to basic services, appropriate social protection measures and economic and financial resources.
One of the important recommendations contained in this report is that countries need to integrate the creation of nonagricultural employment opportunities for rural women into all national development strategies and poverty eradication strategies and increase women's access to financial resources, including credit. The report, however, is silent on South Africa's attempts in this regard. Could it be that we are not doing enough to provide rural women with finance and access to microcredit for development purposes?
Our strategies to empower and improve the lives of rural women will succeed only if they are well co-ordinated across the three spheres. The NCOP has great potential in promoting such co-ordination and co-operation, but we need to work together to empower those who were condemned to hewing firewood and fetching water for centuries. Rural women are the vanguard of our rural development vision. I thank you. [Applause.]