National Women's Day (South Africa)

National Women's Day (South Africa)

August 9 of every year is a public holiday in the nation of South Africa. It honors the events of August 9, 1956, when South African women marched to protest the extension to women of the repressive pass laws, which compelled Africans to carry special documentation in order to travel within the country and imposed various penalties for entering what were deemed “restricted” (whites-only) areas.

South Africa is a large country originally established by Dutch and British settlers, who imposed a European-dominated government on the indigenous African population from the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. As of 2020, South Africa had a population of over fifty-six million, approximately four million of whom lived in the legislative capital and largest city of Cape Town. The South African government had instituted the oppressive system of apartheid in order to keep black South Africans separate from white South Africans, and the pass laws were an instrument of that system. On August 9, 1956, twenty thousand women of all races from various parts of the country marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, led by activists who included Cdes Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, and Dora Tamana. Their purpose was to present the prime minister with petitions signed by thousands of women throughout the country calling for an end to the pass laws. These petitions were ignored by the government, but the legacy of that march was remembered each year unofficially until 1994, when the end of apartheid enabled the anniversary of the event to be designated a public holiday. As celebration of the holiday continued into the twenty-first century, in 2018 women in South Africa used the holiday to highlight issues still facing women in the country at that time, focusing specifically on gender-based violence.

Bibliography

"Do You Know Why We Celebrate National Women's Day?" Alberton Record, 5 Aug. 2019, albertonrecord.co.za/221034/do-you-know-why-we-celebrate-national-womens-day/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2020.

Odufuwa, Damilola. "Women in South Africa Are Marching against Gender Violence with #TotalShutdown Protest." CNN, 2 Aug. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/08/01/africa/south-africa-women-protest/index.html. Accessed 10 Apr. 2020.

"South Africa." The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 6 Apr. 2020, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sf.html. Accessed 10 Apr. 2020.

"South Africa Celebrates the First National Women's Day." South African History Online, www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/south-africa-celebrates-first-national-womens-day. Accessed 10 Apr. 2020.