Not long before our August Women's Month, the movement, South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID), hosted a delegation of about 100 women from Burundi. This delegation was representative of the women of Burundi, including refugees and people displaced by the decade-old conflict in that country.
It came to our country to meet the women of South Africa and share experiences with them, focused on further intensifying the struggle for women's emancipation, gender equality and a better life for the women and ordinary people of our two countries and our continent as a whole. It therefore interacted with a similarly representative delegation of 200 South African women.
I had the privilege to meet the women of Burundi and listen to a presentation of "The Esselen Park Declaration" adopted by these women. Among other things, the Declaration "urged that women's rights and the entrenchment of gender equality for women be observed in the interim and final constitutions (of Burundi), and that all future deliberations regarding the future of Burundi guarantee proportional representation of Barundi women."
During my interaction with the delegation, I had occasion to listen to its leader, Mrs Juliette Kavabuha Icoyitungiye, a woman Minister in the Burundi Transitional Government, who said she wanted "to introduce the President of South Africa to the Burundi woman."
She said: "Everyday the Burundi woman feeds 7 million Barundi. She is the first to get up, and the last to go to bed. And yet her husband does not hesitate verbally to abuse her, shouting - you lazy one!
"The Burundi woman does arduous unpaid domestic work. She is a worker who is viewed as a milk cow. She never receives thanks for what she does.
"She owns nothing. The land belongs to her husband. Even when he dies, she cannot inherit this land. Her son inherits the land because he is a man.
"The Burundi woman is determined to change all these things. If the Barundi women were decision makers, they would have changed their lives. But men write the laws. The women are never consulted.
"But the hand of providence has brought us to South Africa. The Burundi woman sowed a new plant in South Africa. And now the Burundi woman will need to water this new plant." She then proceeded to read "The Esselen Park Declaration". Fortuitously, the Barundi women had already presented the Declaration to a group of Burundi political leaders, including the President of the Republic, Domicien Ndayizeye.
As the Barundi women met at Esselen Park, this political leadership was meeting in Tshwane, under the leadership of the Facilitator of the Burundi Peace Process, our Deputy President Jacob Zuma, negotiating a power-sharing agreement that would be incorporated into the final Constitution of Burundi.
These important political leaders decided that this Constitution would guarantee that at least 30% of the members of all legislative bodies in Burundi would be women. The male political leaders meeting in Tshwane had heard the voice of the Burundi woman, expressed through the Esselen Park Declaration!
The Speaker of the Pan African Parliament, Gertrude Mongela, was one of the delegates at the dialogue between the women of Burundi and South Africa. When she spoke, she called for the strengthening and activation of the Pan African Women's Organisation. The clarion call made by this outstanding African woman leader was simply this - women of Africa unite!
Ten days after the inspiring encounter with the Burundi woman, we were again privileged to meet another delegation of African women in Accra, Ghana. This was a much smaller delegation representing the women of the Cote d'Ivoire.
They had crossed the border into Ghana and Accra seeking to address an important meeting aimed at ending the conflict in the Cote d'Ivoire. The meeting was convened by the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, and the Chairperson of ECOWAS, Ghana President John Kuffuor, and met under their chairpersonship.
In addition, all the major political leaders of the Cote d'Ivoire, and 17 African delegations attended it. 14 of these were led by Heads of State and Government, as well as the Chairpersons of the AU and the African Commission, President Obasanjo and Alpha Omar Konare respectively.
The Ivorian women told us that they had come to Accra to make their own contribution to the search for a lasting peace in their own country. They said that first and foremost the Ivorian conflict affected women and children.
Like the women of Burundi, they too said despite this, nobody consulted them about the solution to this conflict. And yet they had concrete suggestions they wanted to make. And their ideas came across to us as most useful and constructive.
The Ivorian women have also said they also want to interact with their South African counterparts, again to discuss issues of peace and democracy, women' s emancipation, the achievement of a better life for the women and peoples of Africa, and building a united movement of the women of Africa.
If they come to South Africa, they will be the third delegation of African women to come to our country pursuing these goals. The first came from the Democratic Republic of Congo during 2003, with the women of the DRC having constituted themselves into the Caucus of Congolese Women.
Speaking to their South African comrades as well as the women and people of their own country, the Caucus of Congolese Women said:
"The Congolese negotiations have given women the opportunity to redefine themselves and to define their role with regard to the State and civil society. Women's associations became strengthened and played a significant role in change and development, thus contributing to the emergence of women' s skills and constituting a true arena for apprenticeship to citizenship.
"The question of political participation by women is henceforth on the table, having long been marginalised while society was preoccupied with other important issues. The women of Congo realised that they have the potential to change society, provided they are organised and united. The activities that women undertook in the peace process revitalised and mobilised them to overcome obstacles and attain a common goal.
"Over and above any divergence on the role and place of women in society, there is now a unanimous acknowledgement of the need for their inclusion in the political arena.
"The establishment of the Caucus marks a new turning point in the struggle of women.The activities of the Caucus have made it possible for the women of Congo to awaken, and has awakened society as a whole to a new mind-set. The path of the women of Congo towards peace has made it possible to revitalise relations between the grass roots level and the leaders.
"The struggle of women for recognition of their rights has become a fight for social justice because there are many men who share their views. One may note in particular that men are now also speaking of the participation of women in decision making."
The views expressed by the Caucus of Congolese Women are relevant both to the women of Africa and the African progressive forces as a whole. They point to the importance of drawing women into active struggle for gender equality and the fundamental social transformation of our continent.
Over the last few years Africa has taken new bold steps to organise itself for its renaissance. This has given birth to the African Union and its development programme, NEPAD. Necessarily these processes have been led and involved governments. But repeatedly, other leaders of the masses of the African people have correctly demanded that these masses should also act as their own liberators from war, oppression, poverty and marginalisation.
Indeed, the veritable revolution implied by the shared African vision of an African renaissance means that the people themselves must be involved as conscious agents of change. As part of this, and as the Congolese women said, we are faced with the imperative "to revitalise relations between the grass roots level and the leaders."
The Congolese women also said, "The women of Congo realised that they have the potential to change society, provided they are organised and united." To this we should add that they have the potential to change Africa, provided they are organised and united.
All indications point to the emergence of the women of Africa as such a mass force for the renewal of our continent. They point to the growing recognition of the fundamental perspective that the emancipation of women must be an inherent part of that process of renewal.
They signal that for this to be achieved, the women themselves must be organised and activated. But they also signal that the struggle for the emancipation of women is not the responsibility of women alone, but is a strategic task that faces men as well, as well as the progressive forces that are engaged in struggle to transform our countries and continent.
The work that has engaged the women of South Africa, the DRC and Burundi has given directions as to what needs to be done and can be done to achieve all these objectives. These activities have both confirmed the correctness and urgency of the call made by the Speaker of the Pan African Parliament -women of Africa unite! - and provided a practical example of the concrete steps that can and should be undertaken to translate this into reality.
This year we will celebrate our National Women's Day in the company of three women from the Caribbean. These are Lucie Tondreau, Myrtha Desulme and Verene Shepherd. They have come to our country to speak to all of us about Haiti, and encourage us to join an international movement of solidarity with the people of Haiti. Their presence among us emphasises the point that the struggles of the women of Africa must be for the victory of an African Renaissance that encompasses the African Diaspora.
In one of her lectures "The Black Odyssey", Myrta Desulme quotes the Caribbean poet H.D. Carberry, thus:
"There shall come a time
When these children in rags
Who litter the streets?
Who know the crushing mastery of poverty?
And the curses of dirt and slovenliness
Shall walk with heads erect
Proud owners of a new world
Masters of themselves
Admitting no inequality
Feeling no inferiority
Only a great humility and wonder
For the destiny that shall be theirs.
Together, we can make it happen."
This vision, shared by the women who marched on the Union Buildings on August 9, 1956 is coming to its fruition. In Haiti and the Cote d'Ivoire, in the DRC and Burundi and South Africa, and elsewhere on our common globe, the women of the world are rising to claim their place as the makers of history.
By their actions, they are helping to create the conditions for the ordinary people of Africa, the Caribbean and the rest of the world to become "proud owners of a new world".
The task we must set ourselves as we celebrate Woman's Day and Woman's Month must be for all of us to say - acting together with them, we can make it happen. A happy Woman's Day to the women of our country, Africa, the African Diaspora and the world!
