Women Under Apartheid

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Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 9/71 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid Publisher Department of Political and Security Council Affairs Date 1971-03-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1971 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description WHO CARES? HELEN JOSEPH STILL UNDER HOUSE ARREST. BREAK-UP OF AFRICAN FAMILIES: THE CASE OF THE MSINIS. SOUTH AFRICA'S WOMEN WORKERS. BLACK SASH PETITIONS FOR CHARTER OF WOMENTS RIGHTS. Format extent 13 page(s) (length/size)

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http://www.aluka.org 'UNIT ON APARTHEID

'UNIT ON APARTHEID DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL AND SECURITY COUNCIL AFFAIRS NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* March 1971 WOMEN UN~DER A PA.RTEZID - I, WIHO CARES? 1 HELEN JOSEPH STILL UNDER HOUSE ARREST 3 BREAPK-UP OF AFRICAN FAMILIES: THE CASE OF THE MSINIS 5 SOUTH AFRICA'S WOMEN WORKERS 7 BLACK SASH PETITIONS FOR CHARTER OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS 11 No. 9/71 *All material In these notes and documents may be freely reprinted. Acknowledgement, together with a copy of the publication containing the reprint, would be appreciated.

WHO CARES? "If you never in your whole life enjoyed any security, such as freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom to live with your husband in the place where he works, freedom to have your children living with you, freedom to have what should be yours by right, wouldn't you care?" The above paragraph is from the preface to a booklet, "Who Cares?", published by the Black Sash, a liberal women's organization, in November 1970, on the plight of millions of African women in South Africa. Consisting of articles by four leaders of the organization, it deals with the difficulties facing single working women, mothers and old-age pensioners. Sheena Duncan, editor of the Black Sash magazine, writes: "In South Africa no African woman has the right to live with her husband if he works in a White area (i.e. area outside the African reserves. It covers 88 per cent. of the country where the majority of the African people live and where they constitute a majority of the population - Editor). She must seek permission and for many, this permission is refused. "All women who cannot meet the requirements of the law have to live in the homelands or rural areas, waiting for their husbands to visit them during their annual leave, or, if they are lucky, for occasional week-ends." Joyce Harris points out that most African women live in dire poverty and have no security whatsoever. An African woman must be extremely careful whom she marries. If she finds a man who is not "qualified" to live in a White area (i.e. born in the area or possessing proof of having worked there continuously for ten or fifteen years), she would find herself "endorsed out" (expelled) to the so-called homelands. "She is better off living in sin." She writes: "1hat a commentary it is on the society in which we live, that men and women must choose their life companions not because they love each other, not because they are compatible, not because they share interests, but because they share legal rights in an area where the law allows them to live together?" Roberta Johnston, national secretary, writes of the misery in the "homelands" (African reserves) where children are often under-nourished and women have to travel long distances to find water. -04412

- 2 Anna Marais, vice-president, describes the hostel accommodation for African "bachelor" workers whose wives have been refused permission to live with them. She points out that stable family life will never be a reality until the apartheid policies are changed. Commenting on this booklet, Rand Daily Mail wrote in an editorial on November 26, 1970: "Of our non-white groups, it is the Africans who get the worst of apartheid. And of the Africans, it is the women who suffer most of all... "It (the booklet) makes shocking reading that should raise the indignation of all women and make every white South African feel ashamed."

HELEN JOSEPH STILL UNDER HOUSE ARREST Mrs. Helen Joseph, the first person to be placed under "house arrest" in South Africa, is still under restriction - more than eight years after the banning orders were served on her*.., Mrs. Joseph, a prominent social worker and leader of the women's movement, was arrested in June 1956, along with over 150 leaders of the African people and other opponents of apartheid, on the charge of treason. All were acquitted in 1961. In November 1962, she was served with banning orders placing her under house arrest every night and week-end. She has not been convicted of any charge. The notorious Suppression of Communism Act enables the Minister of Tustice to restrict anyone without trial. Mrs. Joseph was first served with banning orders by Mr. Vorster (the present Prime Minister) who was then Minister of Justice. There has never been an allegation that she is a communist. She has been punished for joining with African women in the struggle against apartheid. Mrs. Joseph has not succumbed to persecution and remains a symbol of the courage and non-racialism of the liberation movement. Mrs. Helen Suzman, Progressive Party Member of Parliament, told the press recently: "She has borne her house arrest order with the utmost fortitude. I make a point of seeing her once or twice a year, and I am amazed at the calm resolution she has shown throughout this long period of enforced loneliness." (Rand Daily Mail, Johannesburg, 5 January 1971.) As Rev. C.F. Beyers Naud6, director of the Christian Institute, said on January 3: "The treatment of Mrs. Joseph remains a blot on our country and upon our claim that we have a fair legal system." (.Ibid., 4 January 1971.) An editorial of the Johannesburg Rand Daily Mail stated on January 9: "Today she is in her ninth year of an administrative punishment which has been called civil death. She may not leave her house from sunset to dawn. She has to report to the police each weekday. She has not had a holiday or seen *For biography of Mrs. Helen Joseph, see "Notes and Documents", No. 15/1969.

- 4 the city lights since the order was made. Only a doctor is entitled to visit her... "The years of house arrest have been cruel. She went to jail once because she forgot to report to the police in the rush o' work. Anonymous enemies have threatened her life and made her the butt of practical jokes. Security policemen have lurked in her garden and visited her office. She was driven out of one job by a variation in her banning order. She completed one full term of house arrest, only to find the order re!peated. Her request for home visits from a priest was turned down. (If you need a priest, the Minister decreed, apply to the Chief Magistrate.) "Mrs. Joseph is sixty-five years old. "She is not the only one under house arrest, or deprived arbitrarily of human rights. But, somehow, her case typifies all that is evil in our society. How old does she have to be before the State feels safe enough to stop persecuting her in the name of security?"

- 5 BREAK-UP OF AFRICAN FAMILIES: THE CASE OF THE MSINIS Mr. Harlan Msini, 49, a crippled African factory worker in Paarl, near Cape Town, his wife and four children cannot live together under apartheid laws. Mrs. Lena Msini was sent out of the Paarl area in 1966 as she was the wife of a "disqualified" person - a person who had not earned the right of permanent residence by serving ten years in continuous employment to the same employer. Told that she could return when her husband qualified, she went to the Dordrecht location in eastern Cape where she had been born. In July 1970, when Mr. Msini "qualified", the headman at Dordrecht sent her to live with her husband in Paarl: she thereby forfeited her right to live in Dordrecht. But in Paarl she received only a temporary permit and it was not renewed despite appeals by Mr. Msini' employers and social workers. In November 1970, she was fined "42 (or six weeks' imprisonment) for being illegally in the area. Mrs. Msini became "displaced" with no place where she can legally live. The case received publicity in the press and appeals were made by two professors of theology at the Stellenbosch University. As a result she was given a temporary permit to live in Dordrecht. Mrs. Anna Pearce, a social worker in Paarl, told the press: "Many people tend to think that cases like these are exceptional; but I can assure them they are not. There are many Africans in the position in which the Msinis find themselves today - and no one can tell us what the answer is to this problem." The Cape Times (November 16, 1970) wrote: "It is ironic that in an age when so many people are spending good money on being separated, Mr. and Mrs. Msini spend theirs in a vain bid to stay wed". The fact that Mrs. Msini was made "a human shuttlecock, without a place to live legally", it said, "is presumably a trifling anomaly in the vast system designed to save 3.8 million White skins at the tip of Africa!"

- 6 "The operation by this Government of influx control and the steady stripping of Africans' rights and security in urban areas has been a blot on the history of this country. It has caused untold misery and hurt to untold numbers of ordinary, law-abiding human beings. Assurances that petty or ru-apartheid will one day wither away are limp when seen against the background of smashed marriages, overflowing gaols and vast, enforced movements of population." The Rand Daily Mail (December 3 1970) roted: "It is a shocking story, but a quite unexceptional one. This kind of thing is going on all the time. There are 2,000 arrests every day under the pass laws and influx control regulations, and there are more than 300,000 'displaced persons' altogether." Replying to the protests, Dr. Koornhof, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, explained that it was Government policy to clear the WTestern Cape of as many Africans as possible. If African men were allowed to contract marriages freely with women not qualified to be in the area, the number of Africans would increase. As the Rand Dailv Mail commented: "You have to pause a while to realize that it is human beings he is talking about. But then compassion cannot coexist with the hard necessities of applying apartheid." Mrs. Msini and the younger children were ordered out of the Paarl district on February 14, 1971, and moved to the Illingi location where her relatives resided. Mr. Msini decided to remain in Wellington to retain his job. He was reported to have said: "It is the Government. What can you do?"

- 7 SOUTH AFRICA'S WOMEN WORKERS* The percentage of economically active women in South Africa according to the GovernmentTs designation of racial groups - was as follows in the 1960 census: Vhites 18.8 Coloured people 23.6 Asians 5.6 Africans 15.2 In the age group 15-60 inclusive, that is, the potential working force, the percentages were: Whites 39 Coloured people 47 Asians 10 Africans 38 The differences in these percentages are determined largely by economic necessity, and the opportunity of employment. More white women could work if they wanted to, for no job is barred to them. African women, who want to work, on the other hand, are denied access to employment because of the lack of education, lack of training facilities, job reservation laws and the laws regulating "influx control". White women have ten years of compulsory primary and secondary education. Many then proceed on to university or technical college. and then enter the professions or take white-collar jobs. The largest working group is employed as clerks in government service. White women marry young, have one of the highest divorce rates anywhere, live a life of material ease, with servants, cars and annual holidays. All have the vote at the age of 18, and there are three women in the all-white Parliament. But politically most are apathetic and have for the most part accepted the policies of apartheid and the suppression of their brown and black sisters without protest. There are some outstanding exceptions of course: members of the Black Sash, a number of students of the Englishspeaking universities, and members of former multi-racial organizations which are now banned. Women like Mrs. Violet Weinberg and Mrs. Leslie Schermbrucker have served long prison sentences for political activities, and Mrs. Helen Joseph has been house-arrested for many years for aligning herself with the struggle for African liberation. Sixty per cent of Coloured women live in urban areas and ninety per cent of these live in the Cape Province. A very small number of *Prepared for the Unit on Apar:theid by Miss Teresa Maimane and Mr. John Gaetsewe.

- 8 the economically active women are in the professional class, and they are mostly nurses and teachers. But the Government refuses to grant equal pay for equal work, even for the same professional services and the low wages have forced many teachers to emigrate and many nurses to look for other jobs. In the nursing profession, for example, the salary scales are as follows: White sisters R2,040-R5,000 ($2,856-$4,200) Coloured and Asian sisters R 900-R,500 ($1,260-,2,100) African sisters R 840-Rl,200 (",51,176-$1,680) _/ The training and qualifications are the same. Similar wage discrimination is found in the teaching profession. The majority of Coloured women workers are employed in domestic service and allied services such as hotels, boarding houses, laundry and dry- cleaning establishments, and in industry. The large clothing industry in the Cape is dominated by Coloured women labour. Since the Government's withdrawal of a ban on night shift work for women, Coloured women are now employed in large numbers in textile mills. Many work in the food and canning industry in the Western Cape. !Tages are about R6 ($8.40) a week. Nearly ten per cent of the economically active Asians are in the professional class, especially in the teaching and medical professions. The largest group is employed in industry, followed by sales workers, including shop assistants. Asian and Coloured women have played an active part in the trade union movement. Many of their more militant leaders are now under restriction orders, prohibited from trade union activity, prohibited. from working at a factory or in fact at continuing any work where they could influence others. Coloured women workers like Mrs. Frances Baard and the late Mrs. Florence Motomela have also served long prison sentences for political activity. Of the 800,000 African women classified in 1960 as economically active, more than half of them were employed in domestic service, and a quarter were employed on farms owned by whites, either in the fields or in the farmers' kitchens. There were 25,000 professional African women, mostly again, teachers and nurses. The African domestic servant has a hard life, and very low remuneration. She must live outside the town, in a residential area set aside for Africans. Transport to and from her work is expensive, and fares are constantly rising, for the Government places the heaviest 1' House of Assembly Debates (Hansard), 24 July 1970, cols. 359-361.

- 9 burden of transport costs on those who can least afford it. The South African Railways, for example, earn most of their passenger revenue from third-class passengers, that is from Africans. In 1954-1955, Africans living in Alexandria township, and working in Johannesburg, boycotted the bus services when fares were increased by two pennies a day. For six weeks, about 15,000 Africans walked nine miles to work and back each day. The boycott was successful, and the fare increase was cancelled. Today, however, anyone thinking of organizing a boycott is likely to be placed in detention. The African woman servant must leave her own children with neighbours, or leave them roaming the streets, while she is at work from early dawn to late in the evening. Sunday afternoon is the only time she can enjoy being with her own family. The average cash wage paid to African domestic servants in Cape Town in 1967 was R18.49 ($25.88) per month, and R15.70 ($21.98) per month in Johannesburg.2 African families live on farms as "tenant farmers" or "squatters". They render labour to the white farmer and in return have a hut to live in, can grow their own food in their spare time, and own a few livestock. The women usually work for the farmer's wife in the house. But Government policy now is to limit strictly the number of families any white farmer may have on his land, to insist that the men become day labourers, paid in cash, and that the family return to the "homelands". Many families who formerly lived on white-owned farms are now being sent to resettlement camps , like Limehill and Meran,where there is no adequate housing or water or sanitation facilities and only the poorest educational and health facilities. !orst of all, employment opportunities are extremely scarce. Even those African women, who against tremendous odds have climbed the ladder to enter a profession, find that they are grossly discriminated against in salary and status. The majority of these, as was mentioned above, are in the nursing profession. The African staff nurse is paid R660-R900 ($924- $l,260) and the African sister R84o-Rl,200 ($1,176-$1,68o)3/. The white sister, as previously stated is paid more than twice as much. Yet the educational standards which the African has struggled to attain (there is no compulsory primary and higher education for African girls as in the case of whites), the nursing examinations and the responsibilities are the same. In fact, many African nurses carry much greater responsibilities then their white sisters, for they are often alone in charge of clinics in rural areas where the nearest doctor may be a hundred miles away. 2j Department of Statistics, quoted in The Star, daily, 18 September 1969. 3/ House of Assembly Debates (Hansard), 14 August 1970, cols. 1737-1742.

- 10 African teachers also receive far less remuneration than their white counterparts. The lowest salary for a white assistant woman teacher commences at R3,000 ($4,200) and increases to R4,260 ($5,964) after about 7 years. The highest salary for the most qualified African woman teacher starts at R1,380 (1,-1,932) and rises to R2,520 ($3,528) after about 15 years. Not only do African teachers suffer this extremely unfair discrimination in their salary scales, but they have no status such as is enjoyed by teachers of other racial groups. Bantu education is completely controlled by the Government. A regulation applicable only to African teachers reads: "A teacher shall be guilty of misconduct if he identifies himself with a political party of body or actively participates in political affairs." In 1960 there were slightly fewer African women in industry, as factory operatives, then in the professions. Today, as a result of development in "border areas" there are probably more. They are not allowed to become members of registered trade unions and are prohibited from striking. They are endorsed out of industrial areas when unemployed and are forcibly removed to rural areas where there is no opportunity for factory work. It is not surprising, therefore, that they have not played a great part in the trade union movement. African women, however, have played a notable role in the political struggle. In 1955, 22,000 African women from every part of South Africa converged on Pretoria to protest against the carrying of passes - the hated badge of slavery. For months beforehand they had collected pennies to cover the cost of fares, made arrangements for the care of the children during their absence, and held meetings to elect the delegates. This protest by African women was one of the biggest demonstrations ever in South Africa. Today, meetings, demonstrations, protests and the like are forbidden except with the permission of the police. Many African women are among thosE subjected to bans, banishment and house arrest orders and hundreds of Africans are serving prison sentences for their political activities in the past.

- 11 BLACK SASH PETITIONS FOR CHARTER OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS "A Black Sash petition containing a 'Charter of Women's Rights' and asking that these rights be extended to all African women - was handed in to the House of Assembly by the Progressive M.P., Mrs. Helen Suzman,on 18 February. "The petition is in the name of the Sash's national president, Mrs. Jean Sinclair, and is signed by.all the delegates to the movement's national conference in Cape Town. "It outlines in detail the rights which the Sash believes every woman should have, and some of the legal disabilities of African women. "It then petitions Parliament to: * Remove all legal barriers which prevent the freedom of movement of African women. * Allow all African women to live with their husbands wherever the men are working, to have their children of whatever age to live with them, and to move freely with them 'at the dictates of family and economic pressures' * Allow all African women to seek and accept employment. * Allow African women to be in possession of identity cards on the same basis as White, Coloured and Asiatic women, instead of forcing them to carry a reference book. "The petition says that the Sash believes every woman has the right to choose her marriage partner and to live with her husband throughout her married life. Every woman, it says, has the right to live with her children and to have free education for them. "Its 'Charter of Rights' also includes the right of a woman to own or rent property in her own name, to freedom of movement and residence, and to free choice of employment and just conditions of work. 'Every woman is entitled to these fundamental rights and freedoms, which shall not be violated by any law or administrative action,' proclaims the charter in the petition. "The petition says African women in South Africa have suffered untold hardship since they became subject to the provisions of the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act.

- 12 - "Before this Act was applied to African women, they were not subject to the restrictions of influx control or obliged to have reference books. "Now there was a total embargo on the entry of African women into most prescribed areas (all White' areas) for work or residential purposes and they were separated from husbands working in urban areas for the greater part of their married lives. "Because the onus of proof of lawful entry into, and residence in, a prescribed area rested on the African woman, thousands were unable to establish their right to remain in these areas to work, live with their husbands or live with their parents. "The petition also says the rigid application of influx control separates women from their children. "Women breadwinners in homelands and rural areas were prevented by law from seeking employment in most urban areas, and hundreds of women living illegally in towns were unable to work because they could not be registered in their employment. "The petition points out that thousands of African women can never have a home of their own in urban areas in which to rear their children or live with their husbands 'in decency and security' - and that widows, divorced, deserted or unmarried women are rarely permitted to rent a house, irrespective of whether or not they are capable of paying rent. "The Black Sash says it petitions Parliament 'because we believe the deliberate destruction of family life by legislation is evil' and that present policy will have disastrous consequences for South Africa." Rand DailyMail, Johannesburg, February 19, 1971.