Hillary speaks out for women on South Africa's National Women's Day

In its first 200 days, the Obama administration has taken some good, concrete steps towards women's rights and sexual equality.

The first piece of legislation that President Obama signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which removed a ridiculous loophole that allowed employers to pay women less than their male counterparts for equal work and get away with it.

A few days prior, Obama had issued an executive order repealing the Global Gag Rule, which had withheld federal funds from nongovernmental health and family planning organizations that provided abortion information or referrals.

Then, in March, Obama established a White House Council on Women and Girls to address "issues that particularly impact the lives of women and girls and to ensure that Federal programs and policies address and take into account the distinctive concerns of women and girls, including women of color and those with disabilities."

And now, on her current diplomatic tour of Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken out for women's rights in South Africa and throughout the continent, in observance of National Women's Day, which falls on August 9 of each year. National Women's Day honors the 20,000 South African women who marched for racial justice on that date in 1956.

Secretary Clinton's comments were published as an op-ed in the August 8 edition of the City Press of South Africa. The extremely cool title and theme: "Women are drivers of positive change"

Some excerpts:

[When] I first visited the Victoria Mxenge co-operative in Cape Town in 1997, I met homeless women working to transform an empty patch of land into a new community.

They pooled their savings and microloans, bought shovels, poured concrete and built new homes for themselves and their children. In 1997 there were just 18 homes. I returned a year later and saw 104. Yesterday I found a village of thousands of homes where once there had been only dust and despair.

The determination and entrepreneurial spirit of the women of Victoria Mxenge underscore a basic truth: empowering women is key to global progress and prosperity. This is not just a moral imperative - it is an economic one as well. When women are accorded their rights and afforded equal opportunities in education, health care and gainful employment, they drive social and economic progress. When they are marginalised and mistreated, as is the case in too many places in Africa today, prosperity is impossible.

[...]

South Africans have many reasons to be proud on this National Women’s Day. President Jacob Zuma recently appointed Gill Marcus as governor of the South African Reserve Bank. Across the country, women are leading small and medium-sized businesses that are the foundation of economic progress.

[...]

The women of South Africa have helped to make the country an economic anchor for the continent. They are an example of what can be accomplished through civic responsibility, commitment to the rule of law and a diversified and inclusive economy.

Across Africa, women are driving positive change. Kenya’s Wangari Maathai has launched an international movement on behalf of environmental stewardship. Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has taken the reins of a nation once gripped by civil war and proven that women can lead at the highest levels.

But in many parts of Africa, and indeed around the world, the picture is not so encouraging. Laws deny women the right to own property, access credit or make their own choices within their marriage.

Women comprise the majority of the world’s poor, unfed and unschooled. They are subjected to rape as a tactic of war, so-called “honour” killings, maiming, trafficking, child marriages, genital mutilation and other violent, degrading practices.

This week I will visit survivors of sexual and gender-based violence used as a tool of conflict in eastern Congo, where women have been victimised on an unimaginable scale. Some 1 100 rapes are reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day.

In the face of such depravity the world must speak with one clear voice: this violence must end.

[...]

National Women’s Day commemorates the 20 000 South African women who marched for justice on August 9 1956. Fearless, they sang an anthem that has become a rallying cry: “Wathint’a bafazi, Wathint’ imbokodo” (You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock). Women can be the rock on which a freer, safer and more prosperous Africa is built.

They just need the opportunity.

Well said.

>> Read the full op-ed.