South African women resist apartheid's triple oppression women suffer special discrimination.
They are denied even the limited legal rights of South African men. The South African Bantu Administration Act No 38, of 1927, as amended, reads: "...a Bantu (South African Black) woman who is a partner in a customary union and who is living with a husband, shall be
The recent wave of arrests in South Africa, beginning on February 16, are clearly aimed at dismantling the leadership apparatus of the United Democratic Front (UDF) which is growing in strength and influence.
the 18 leading members arrested, six will be charged with high treason ( an offence punishatie by the death penalty). One of the six is Ms Albertina
Sisulu, one of three chairpersons of the UDF.
of the African National Congress (ANC) currently serving life imprisonment.
The role of Ms Sisulu and other women like her shows the growing participation of women within the fight against apartheid and the especially difficult conditions under which, for them as women, this is conducted.
Nancy GRUBER
Thandi Modise has been in prison in
South Africa since October 1979.
21-year-old guerilla fighter was accused of propagating the aims of a banned organization, the African National Congress (ANC); of possessing a machine gun and explosives; and of conspiring to commit arson and sabotage. She was sentenced to an eight year term under the Terrorism Act.
Thandi five months pregnant was when she was arrested. During detention repeatedly beaten, denied preshe was natal care, and kept in solitary confine-
At the time of her sentencing ment.
in November 1980, her baby daughter
Mamphela Ramphele was placed under a banning order in April 1977, after having been arrested and detained for 139 days under the Internal Security Act. Dr
Ramphele, at the age of 27, was a leader in the development of medical facilities alternative to those available under apart-
At the time of her arrest she was superintendent of the Zanempilo Health
Centre near King Williams Town.
established to provide
Ms Sisulu's husband is a
Under the pernicious apartheid plan, the huge majority of South Africans must live in these areas that comprise only 13% of the land surface or the country, while the remaining 87% is controlled by the 4.6 million whites.
Apartheid has been constructed on a series of laws enacted by the Nationalist government since 1950. First came the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, followed by the Immorality Act, which made any sexual contact between two people of different races a felony. The Bantu Education Act ended Black access to white universities. The Population Registration Act required the registration of all South Africans by race.
Finally, the Group Areas Act and the Urban Areas Act, by eliminating the right of any but whites to own property, by dictating that people of each racial group must live in separate communities, and by prohibiting most Blacks from living in areas, created the vicious circle in which Black South Africans are trapped today.
deemed to be a minor and her husband shall be deemed to be her guardian."
Under the Urban Areas Act, the only people permitted to live in the urban areas are those who can prove either that they were born there, that they have lived there for 15 years, or that they have worked for the same employer for ten years. The cruelest effect of this act has been the near-total destruction of family life in South Africa.
Most women cannot live or work in the urban areas where their husbands are employed. Either they are exiled in the "homelands" , where they bear the complete responsibility for bringing up the children and see their husbands only once a year. Or, since families cannot survive on the wages paid to male workers, the women must go to work in the most menial and worst-paying jobs. With no childcare available, children must be sent to live with friends or relatives in the bantustans. And the separation of the family is complete.
Most Black women can find jobs only in domestic service or agriculture, although the number of women in industry has grown in recent years as they are being used to replace men at lower wages. Of the 175,000 (1981 statistics) female members of the Trade Union Congress of South Africa, the vast majority work in the garment industry, where in 1979, they were paid one-fifth less than the minimum wage.
The Garment Workers' Union, however, which is female dominated and led,
Life in Soweto (D.R.) essential health services to rural areas of
Mamphela worked with the Zimele
Said released political prisoners with Steve Biko, the young Black nationalist who was killed in detention in September 1977. This, in addition to her humanitarian work in the clinic itself, brought down the wrath of the South African government.
In April 1977 she was banished to Lenyenye township, a remote over 600 miles from King Williams Town. Under her banning order she may not leave it even to visit two medical stations in the countryside or to take patients to the hospital in nearby Tzaneen.
Yet she continues with her medical work among the most oppressed of the been forcibly transported to the bantu-
"homelands" 21 million Blacks. 24
International Viewpoint 25 March 1985
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