(NMMM) Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality Gender and Women Empowerment Policy Document

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality

                (NMMM)

   Gender and Women Empowerment

           Policy Document

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

     1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………3-4

     2. STATEMENT OF NEED
     2.1     Poverty & gender……………………………….4-5
     2.2     Lack of access to basic services……………….5
     2.3     Violence against women..………………………5-6
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    3. POLICY CONTEXT
           3.1 Constitution of the Republic of SA Act 108 of 1996…………7
           3.2 Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 ……………………………7
           3.3 Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination
           Act 4 of 2000…………………………………………………………7-8

     4. PRINCIPLES
             4.1 Equality between men and women…………………9
             4.2 Promotion of essential dignity………………………9.
             4.3 Recognition of difference and inequality among women and
                 men………………………………………………………9
             4.4 Women’s rights are human rights…..…………………9
             4.5 Public and private are not separate spheres…………10
             4.6 Focus on gender as opposed to women………………10
             4.7 Mainstreaming gender equality………………………….10
             4.8 Affirmative action programme for women……………...10

5 Vision.………………………………………………..………..10
6 Objectives……………………………………………………..11
7 Strategies….………………………………………………….11-12
8 Terminology………………………………………………….13-14
9 Acronyms………………………………………………….....15

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1. Introduction.

“It is vitally important that all the structures of Government, including the President
should understand fully that freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been
emancipated from all forms of oppression.”[President Nelson Mandela, opening
South Africa’s first democratically elected parliament on 24 May 1994].

Women make up more than half of the world’s population, yet they still face
gender, class, racial, and cultural discrimination. While there is a growing
awareness of women’s plight coupled with efforts made by the government,
women’s situation has worsened.

South Africa is perceived as one of the countries with a high incidence of
gender-based violence (GBV), in particular, the physical type. GBV has
reached epidemic levels in the country. According to research findings,
South Africa has the highest ratio of reported rape cases per 100 000
people in the world. It is also estimated that one in six women is in abusive
relationship and there is one woman who is killed by her partner every six
days (Bollen,1999).       Many young women report that men use violence
when initiating sex with them. In a study conducted by the Women's Health
Project, it was found that abuse by a partner or ex-partner increased by
more than 50% between 1998 and 1999; the range of abuse included
sexual, physical, economic and emotional (Jewks & Wood, 1998).

Violence in South African society had been inherited from apartheid regime
characterised by social and economic inequalities, where state sponsored
violence was used to maintain law and order (Human Rights Watch, 2001).
The picture painted above has subjected women and girls to various forms
of gender-based violence.

The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality (NMMM) has an estimated
population of 1.2 million of which 52% is women. Despite being the majority,
women continue to be underrepresented in decision-making structures in

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the NMMM, e.g. out of the eleven members of the Mayoral Committee, only
three are women. Local government has a social and political responsibility
to transform the status of women as the oppressed group and to bring them
into the main stream of all its affairs.

Therefore, the overall purpose of this policy document is to provide with a
framework that will serve as a guide for development and production of
gender responsive programmes, projects, policies, and procedures within
the NMMM. These will transform both the condition and position of women.

   2. Statement of need

   2.1     Poverty and gender

While there are some aspects of poverty and exploitation, which are
common between men and women, many aspects are different. Women
suffer various forms of discrimination and subordination based on social,
sexual and cultural beliefs and attitudes - all these make them poorer than
men. The effects of HIV/AIDS on women as mothers, carers and suffers
cannot be undermined. Without proper analysis and consideration of these
during any development intervention, it is unlikely that women’s situation
and condition would improve.

Women’s low levels of education and training decrease their employment
opportunities as a result the majority of them are locked in low paid jobs,
reproductive work-related jobs such as domestic work or in low managerial
positions. They are less likely to be in decision-making structures hence
their voices remain silent. As breadwinners, carers and nurtures of their
families the kind of salaries do not meet all their family needs. Poverty and
crime go hand-in hand, which put women and girls’ security at stake.

Even the NMMM policies that are meant to curb poverty, such as
procurement policy, have limited impact on women’s needs. Challenges
such as low literacy levels amongst some of the women, make it impossible

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to understand tendering processes resulting in a lack of access to business
opportunities. Women have less access to power, wealth and resources and
are less likely to own property that is normally required when applying for
business loans.

    2.2    Lack of access to basic services

Along with many SA citizens, the NMMM is most concerned about lack of
access to basic services such as health facilities e.g. reliable ambulance
service, health care centres with adequate medical treatment, etc. As
bearers of children, carers of the sick and aged, the above is perceived as a
threat to women’s security.

According to the research findings, 2 out of 3 HIV infected South Africans
are women, 1 out of 4 women are HIV infected. It is easy for women to
acquire HIV than it is for men due to their physiology. Due to their
vulnerability to rape and unprotected sex, women are more likely to be
infected by HIV as opposed to their male counterparts. The most critical
issue here is that women do not have access to prevention treatment such
as antiretroviral treatment, which can be given to raped victims, care and
resources. Because of their societal roles, as carers, mothers and nurturers,
HIV/AIDS impacts negatively on women’s socio-economic development, as,
for example, an HIV positive woman would sacrifice and spend her disability
grant to other family needs such as food. Women as mothers of AIDS
suffers, express frustration of poor or shortage of service in hospitals and
clinics.

There is a general feeling amongst the NMMM women that high rates, such
as service charges, water and electricity disadvantage poor women. Women
believe that ward committees do not effectively represent women’s interests
hence their needs are not taken care of.

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2.3    Violence against women [VAW].

It is factual that violence against women affects women directly and
indirectly. Equality and rights enshrined in our Constitution cannot be
enjoyed fully by women due to fear of violence, that is, at their homes and in
the public sphere. VAW is a key developmental challenge that affects all
aspects of life, it has a great potential of maintaining poverty cycle and
compromise poor women quality of life.

The government, civil society organs, and NGO's are very active in
attempting to prevent and or reduce this problem. It is well known that one
of the reasons women stay in abusive relationship is economic dependence
on the abuser. The majority of these women do not work outside the home,
the consequences of which are:


   The women's inability to visibly contribute economically. They, therefore,
    believe they cannot participate in decision-making in the home.

   When they question decisions made by their partners they are seen as
    questioning the authority of the partner, which often result in a beating.

   They are often forbidden to mix with other women, and if caught
    interacting with others they are often beaten.

   They are expected to be home when the partner returns from work. Their
    absence from home when the partner returns results in beating.

One of the challenges facing both government and development
organisations is to understand relevance of VAW to their core business.
NMMM has, amongst its development priority areas in its Integrated
Development Plan (IDP) document, is crime prevention but it does not have
strategy to curb VAW.

The above picture shows that, for any NMMM development initiative to be
gender-fair, change should be implemented in the economic, social, political

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and cultural spheres. For the NMMM, to beat poverty, energies should be
directed towards its causes including gender inequalities.

   3. Gender policy context

The SA government has progressive Legislation in place, which is meant to
prohibit and prevent all of the above. For example there is:

   3.1    The Constitution of the Republic of SA Act 108 of 1996 Cl.2:
          The Bill of Rights
Section 9 (5) states that no one may be unfairly discriminated against in
respect of race, gender amongst others. The Constitution is a supreme law
of the country and is instructive in preventing discrimination of women.

   3.2    Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998

The Act outlaws any discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, gender,
family responsibility, pregnancy, and HIV status. Its strategic trust lies on
eliminating unfair discrimination with the aim of achieving diversity at the
work place.

   3.3    Promotion      of    Equality    and    Prevention     of    Unfair
          Discrimination Act 4 of 2000.

The Act is an effort directed towards eradicating social and economic
inequalities especially those that are systematic in nature, which were
generated by colonialism, apartheid and patriarchy, which brought pain and
suffering to the great majority of SA people. The main aim of the Act is to
prevent and prohibit unfair discrimination and harassment; to promote
equality and eliminate unfair discrimination; to prevent and prohibit hate
speech.

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The prohibited grounds of discrimination include both gender and sex.
Section 8(a) makes reference to the gender-based violence scourge that
includes rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence, all based on a person’s
gender. Generally, this kind of violence discriminates against women, as
they are always victims and men perpetrators. Depending on its intensity,
women may be hindered to be involved or develop intellectually,
economically and physically because of the fear of violence. Reference is
also made to female genital mutilation, which might have long term health
effects such as struggling with child bearing and delivery, inability to enjoy
sex. Discrimination that arises from customary laws, although there has
been some kind of progress, it is still common to find women excluded from
inheriting assets.

Reference is made to the girl-children who are still discriminated in as far as
educational opportunities are concerned, they are the victims of
reproductive work, that is, they do all the household work unlike boys.

Being denied promotion and career advancement opportunities because of
one’s sexuality, for example, a woman who is from maternity leave or about
to go to maternity leave being excluded from senior positions is regarded as
unfair. Negative perceptions towards female staff members who are
perceived as people on transit who may not always be available due to
pregnancy, is another form of unfair discrimination.

Both Employment Equality Act and Promotion of Equality and Prevention of
Unfair Discrimination Act state categorically limiting access to social
services or benefits such as health and social security, systematic inequality
of access to opportunities by women as a result of gender division of labour
are all unlawful.

3.4 The Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998.

The above Act is informed by values underpinning SA Constitution, the
international obligations and commitments such as the right to equality and

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freedom and security. It is for those reasons that the Act provides for issuing
of protection orders with regard to domestic violence. It also provides for its
implementers with tools and measures that can enable them to be effective.
This Act covers actual or threatened physical, sexual, emotional, verbal,
psychological and economical abuse, as well as intimidation, harassment,
stalking, damage or destruction of property, or entry into your home without
your consent.

Despite all the tools in place intended to promote women’s empowerment
and elimination of gender discrimination, women still bear the brunt. It is
vital to understand that violence against women constitutes an infringement
of basic human rights, undermines women’s self-determination including
their ability to participate fully in and to benefit from development.

   4. Principles of the gender policy framework

   4.1    Equality between men and women
The NMMM would create an environment where men and women would be
able to participate equally, that would include removal of traditional barriers
hindering women’s active participation.

   4.2    Promotion of essential dignity
NMMM will work with both men and women in restoring women’s dignity as
humans. To achieve this, gender relations need to be transformed.

   4.3    Recognition of differences and inequalities among women
Women are not a homogenous group and their lives vary depending on the
place in which they live as well as their age, social class, ethnic origin and
religion. It is therefore crucial to consider the above in every step intended
to redress gender imbalances.

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4.4     Women’s rights are human rights
Women’s rights are part and parcel of human rights enshrined in SA’s Bill of
Rights, which is a cornerstone of SA’s democracy.

   4.5     Public and private are not separable spheres of life
Recognition of interrelatedness of private and public life, as many
discriminatory practices against women are enacted in a variety of settings.

   4.6     Focus on gender as opposed on women
Changing women’s status needs to be understood as the responsibility of
both sexes. It is understood that development affect men and women
differently and that it has an impact on relations between men and women.
A focus on gender is required to ensure that women’s needs (set in a
broader context of class, race, ethnicity and religion) do not continue to be
ignored.

   4.7     Mainstreaming gender equality
Women are poor due to their lack of access to material wealth, which is
compounded by lack of access to power and resources. Mainstreaming
gender into the core business of NMMM, would tackle the cause of women’s
poverty and injustice to the advantage of women as well as men. This
principle would therefore encourage NMMM to adopt a gender perspective
in transforming itself.

   4.8     Affirmative action programmes for women.

Corrective measures through programmes targeting women, should be
undertaken to redress gender imbalances and women’s subordination. This
means that, a plan, resources and benchmarks should be developed by the
NMMM.

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5. Vision

The NMMM community is free from male-dominated decision-making
structures and feminised poverty.

5. Objectives of the gender policy framework

The broad objectives of the NMMM gender policy are:

   a) To ensure that the rights of women and men are equally upheld and
      women are enabled to exercise their rights over their bodies and are
      protected from violence.
   b) To ensure that gender needs, priorities and differences are
      considered and institutionalised into the NMMM business, policies
      and practices including Integrated Development Plan (IDP).
   c) To confront the social and ideological barriers to women's participation
      and encourage initiatives to improve their status including basic rights.
   d) To develop positive action that will promote the full participation and
      empowerment of women in existing and future programmes so as to
      ensure that NMMM’s programmes and projects benefit men and
      women equally.
   e) To promote access by women to key resources (e.g. employment
      opportunities especially in decision-making positions and start-up
      capital for business), services and facilities.

   6. Strategies for achieving gender equality:

   Gender should be mainstreamed into the main business of the
   NMMM;

   A. To strengthen the issue of gender equality, the NMMM would
      establish   a    Women’s      Forum      (WF)     consisting   of   women
      representatives from various sectors, e.g. Civil Society Organisations

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(CSO’s), private sector, Trade Unions, Institutions of higher learning,
   political parties, Faith-based Organisations, NMMM Women Business
   Unit Managers,    etc. Amongst its roles, the WF will oversee and
   monitor implementation of gender and women empowerment
   initiatives, in the NMMM
B. Each Business Unit within the NMMM has a gender focal person
   [GFP] whose main function would be to lead and monitor
   mainstreaming of gender within the Unit.

 Over and above being accountable to the BUM, GFP’s would also be
   accountable to NMMM gender co-ordinator
    [a newly created post].

 The gender co-ordinator would be accountable to the NMMM
   Executive Mayor, therefore, her/his office will be based at the latter’s
   office.

 The IDP of the NMMM has clear gender objectives, outputs, inputs
   including resources, indicators and means of verification.

 The overall annual plan of each Business Unit has clear gender
   objectives, inputs including resources, outputs, activities and
   indicators.

 Amongst the NMMM programmes and projects there should be an
   on-going action research focusing on gender equality.

 There is clear plan of action and resources for empowering women
   official, women councillors and women ward committee members -
   the main aim is to strive for 50/50 gender representation in the
   council, decision –making structures such as mayoral committee and
   senior management and ward committees.

 Over and above women’s caucus, there should be a structure within
   the council that will continuously assess and identify women’s needs;
   monitor and assess performance of each Ward Councillor, portfolio
   Committee and Business Unit in as far its performance towards
   women’s and girl-children’s empowerment.

 There should be a structure within the NMMM (Women’s Forum –
   chaired by the gender co-ordinator)) that will look after women’s
   gender needs, e.g. monitor and assess impact of affirmative action

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programmes, women’s practical and strategic gender needs, etc. and
  make recommendations to the Gender Co-ordinator

 As a way of promoting gender sensitivity and awareness, there
  should be resources allocated, and programme for capacity building
  for all councillors, officials and ward committees.

 Gender sensitivity and equality should be included in the tool used
   to evaluate councillor’s, BUM’s and all other officials’ performance

 Each standing committee’s report should have clear gender key
   performance indicators.

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Appendix 1
7. Terminology:
7.1   Empowerment – Purpose to empower women through greater
      self-reliance. Women’s subordination not only seen as the
      problem of men but also of colonial and neo-colonial oppression.
      Emphasis in this approach is, while addressing immediate needs,
      long-term and structural needs should remain priority.
7.2   Gender – In this context, it refers to social roles allocated to men
      and women and their relationship. Such roles are conditioned by
      political, social, economical and cultural factors and characterised
      by unequal power relations.
7.3   Gender analysis- studying gender biases perpetuating gender
      inequalities in all sectors of society.
7.4   Gender awareness- in this context gender awareness refers to
      ability to have knowledge of the types of impact that development
      project would or have had on women; taking into consideration
      women’s roles.
7.5   Gender division of labour- distribution of roles and responsibility
      according gender with an aim of entrenching the existing unequal
      power relations between men and women and stereotypes about
      men and women.
7.6   Gender equality- in this situation it refers to a situation where
      men and women have equal conditions for realising their full
      human rights and potential. This entails the identification and
      removal of the underlying causes of discrimination in order to give
      women      and   men     equal    opportunities,   also,   taking   into
      consideration their differences.
7.7   Gender equity- transformation of existing gender relations in a
      more democratic direction by redistributing more evenly the
      division of resources, responsibilities and power between women
      and men.

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7.8    Gender mainstreaming-is a process towards achievement of the
       goal of gender equality. It involves incorporation of gender
       considerations into policies, programmes and practices, so that
       before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on
       women and men respectively. Gender mainstreaming includes
       the routine consideration of gender issues in strategic planning
       exercises, the reflection of these in business plans and routine
       reports.
7.9    Programme-a programme is a course of action to pursue an
       objective or objectives that are part of a policy. Usually a
       programme has a number of closely-related projects or activities
       in pursuance of a particular objective. For example a programme
       of curbing violence against women, can have separate project
       such as, baseline study on behavioural attitudes and beliefs,
       training of law implementers such as SAPS officials, shelter for
       abused women and public education.
7.10   Condition of women- an intervention that seeks to improve
       women’s immediate needs or practical gender needs such as
       provision of water, welfare and health care facilities.
7.11   Position of women-an intervention that seeks to transform
       unequal power relations between men and women, that is
       addressing strategic gender needs.

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APPENDIX II

Acronyms

AIDS-Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

DVA    - Domestic Violence Act

EEA- Employment Equality Act

GFP- Gender Focal Point

HIV-Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus

IDP –Integrated Development Plan

NMMM- Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality

PEPUDA- Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act

VAW- Violence Against Women

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