The 2024 International Women’s Day (IWD) comes as advances are made in the international labour organisation, with 2 new signatories to Convention 190 (violence and harassment convention) and 11 more countries in which the convention will be in force this year. This represents advancement arising from the relentless pursuit to change the legal and institutional framework to make the world of work more hospitable and protective to workers.
Equally, this IWD comes from the background of women, men, and children who have been bombarded in Gaza by the racist Zionist regime. The growing conflicts in Africa ยพ, Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique, DR Congo, etc. ยพ, have put women in danger of murder and sexual violations.
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The growing insurgent attacks in Mozambique and the inability of the Mozambican government to crush the extremists have reportedly led to the widespread rape of women in the conflict-ridden regions. Even worse, there have been reported allegations that soldiers belonging to the government were involved in rape and sexual assault of women in these areas in 2021.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the escalation of the battle between the M23 rebel group and the government forces would undoubtedly see a spike in sexual assault, rape and murder. In 2011 alone, it was reported that there were about 400 000 rapes. Escalation of conflict always has an upward impact on the number of atrocities committed.
In Gaza, more than 30,000 have been killed in the genocidal campaign by apartheid Israel. Men, women and children have been killed, and more than 70,000 have been injured. This full-scale war on Gaza includes a blockade of aid to Gaza, whilst essential social service facilities have been destroyed, such as hospitals. This has left more 50 000 pregnant women who are seeking medical treatment unable to get it.
These conflicts are not the only ongoing conflicts in the world today. Every continent is gripped by disputes, except for North America, where the most significant imperialist aggressor resides. The common denominator of conflicts is murder, rape, and displacement of families. Reports have shown that in such war areas, women have been victims of rape, enslavement, murder and brutal violence. This includes women in Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Ethiopia, Mozambique and many other countries that have been ravaged by wars in recent times.
๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฎ ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฝ๐น๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฒ
Convention 190, which seeks to protect “workers and other persons in the world of work” from harassment and violence, represents the latest advancement in the struggle to eliminate sexual harassment and violence at workplaces, whose disproportionate victims are arguably women.
Due to the historical and structural makeup of our society, the scourge of gender-based violence and harassment is stubborn and requires social, legal, political, and economic intervention to be transformed.
In the post-Second World War, the capitalist countries joined the Soviet Union in improving the legal framework for women and to eliminate gender-based violence, which began this transformation from 1917 after the revolution. Since 1994, our democratic state has made efforts, and the enactment of the Domestic Violence Act in 1998 bears witness to this. The continual review and amendment of this act, and other related acts such as the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Act and the Criminal and Related Matters Act, loudly shows the commitment of the democratic state to establish a sound framework to tackle this scourge. The continued review of these legal frameworks to help tackle gender-based violence, sexual violence, and harassment is not voluntary by our governments. It’s due to lobbying of the civil society organisations and the trade union movement.
But Gender-Based Violence and Harassment is not only a domestic matter. It is as much a workplace matter as a domestic worker. In 2012, Pinky Mosiane, who was a female mineworker, was raped and murdered while on shift underground. Despite in-roads made since then, including the conviction and sentencing of Tutu Rooi Oliphant for the murder and rape of Pinky Mosiane, SAFTU and Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s research conducted in 2021 in the mining towns of Welkom, Witbank, and Rustenburg still shows that gender-based harassment is still a big issue in the mining sector.
In 2020, a year after the adoption of Convention 190, the Labour Research Service and Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) developed a practically based and gender-based approach to collective bargaining, tubulating things to consider in centring gender equity as part of the bargaining. Beyond violence and harassment, the booklet highlights how socio-economic consideration of paid leaves, transport, affordable care, and equal pay are essential to our efforts to make decent working conditions for women and everyone in the workplace.
For instance, travelling late or in the morning in an unreliable taxi transport to a violent community from or to work may itself not be violent and harassing but act as a conduit to violence. There are many examples of this. In 2023, a young woman nurse in Tzaneen Limpopo was kidnapped, raped, and robbed on her way to work because a taxi dropped her distance away from the hospital. In Taung Northwest, another Nurse was raped on her to work. Therefore, this shows that our efforts to protect women from gender-based violence should not be limited to building the legal framework but must go into collective bargaining and changing the socio-economy.
Ultimately, this is tied to our struggle to change the mode of production that concentrates wealth in the hands of the few whilst depriving the overwhelming majority. Capitalism is the root cause of the continued deprivation of a great majority, perpetuating growing unemployment, inequality, poverty, crime, and violence. In a neoliberal capitalist state like South Africa, these conditions created structurally by capitalism even worsen as crucial services such as healthcare, policing and prosecution are underfunded, leading to women not being adequately helped when they seek help from abusers.
The same conflicts in Mozambique, Congo, and many other African states have been perpetuated by imperial capitalism. As it seeks to subdue governments to make conditions favourable for them to extract raw materials, they have sponsored rebel groups to wage violence and war against their governments. This began in the transition from colonialism, where CIA sponsored factions in the ruling parties or opposition parties of the liberation movements to wage armed conflicts.
Though the struggle for reforms is important and necessary, SAFTU ๐๐ฟ๐ด๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฐ๐น๐ฎ๐๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ ๐ฎ ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐๐๐น๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ผ๐น๐ถ๐๐ต ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ถ๐๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐๐บ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฝ๐ฎ๐๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฐ๐ต๐. The struggle against patriarchy is not a struggle for women, instead, it is a struggle for the whole of society, just like fighting imperialism and capitalist exploitation.
