Women and Children: Repression and Resistance to Apartheid in South Africa http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1987_09 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Women and Children: Repression and Resistance to Apartheid in South Africa Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 8/87 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid; Pierson-Mathy, Paulette Publisher United Nations, New York Date 1987-06-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1987 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description This issue, which is being published at the request of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid, contains the text of a paper presented to a seminar held at Brussels (Belgium) on 16 December 1986 in solidarity with women struggling against apartheid in South Africa. Ms. Pierson-Mathy is an Assistant Lecturer at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Chairperson of the Comite contre le Colonialisme et l'Apartheid (Belgium). Format extent 15 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1987_09 http://www.aluka.org NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* June 1987 AUG 2 8 1987 WOMEN AND CHILDREN: REPRESSION AND RESISTANCE TO APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA by Paulette Pierson-Mathy [Note: This issue, which is being published at the request of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid, contains the text of a paper presented to a seminar held at Brussels (Belgium) on 16 December 1986 in solidarity with women struggling against apartheid in South Africa. Ms Pierson-Mathy is an Assistant Lecturer at the Universiti Libre de Bruxelles and Chairperson of the Comit4 contre le Colonialisme et l'Apartheio (Belgium). The views expressed in this paper are those of the author.] UNITED NATIONS CENTRE AGAINST APARTHEID 8/87 A11 material in them Notes and Documents may be freely reprinted. *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. 8T-15422 2586c (E United NatiornLNew York 10017 ... INTRODUCTION Since the May 1982 International Conference on Women and Apartheid, the situation of women and children in South Africa, Namibia and several other southern African countries has deteriorated considerably. We have seen an escalation of repressive violence and the growing use of armed force by the apartheid r6gime in an attempt not only to remain in power in South Africa and pursue its illegal occupation of Namibia but also, by a systematic policy of destabilization and aggression, to maintain its hegemony in southern Africa. Throughout southern Africa, women and children are the direct victims of this racist system of repression, terror and war. This situation will change only when the apartheid r6gime is abolished, a democratic, non-racial society is established in South Africa and Namibia is liberated from.th-e illegal occupation of the apartheid r6gime, in accordance with Security Council resolutions. l/ The struggle waged by the South African people on many fronts to exercise their most elementary rights and assume power entered a new phase in October 1984 in terms of both its extent and its radicalism and strength. This struggle is now irreversible. International solidarity with this struggle has also expanded and grown stronger, including in countries which are South Africa's allies and traditional partners. In the United States of America, for instance, the anti-apartheid movement has already scored significant victories, forcing the Reagan Administration to change its policy of constructive engagement and take certain steps to pressure the apartheid r6gime. In Western Europe, the Nordic countries, including Denmark, a member of the European Communities, are resolutely embarked on a policy of isolating the apartheid r6gime economically and supporting the ANC and SWAPO liberation forces and other democratic movements in South Africa and Namibia. While in the other EEC member States, with the possible exception of the Netherlands, all progressive forces have now rallied to the anti-apartheid struggle, the latter is still confronted with major obstacles. The close historical ties between many European countries and South Africa, the presence in that country of a large European immigrant population who in many cases have retained their nationality of origin while acquiring that of the host country and the important economic and strategic interests at stake on a continent where Western Europe has always played a dominant role explain the obstacles still encountered by the anti-apartheid movements in most EEC countries, including Belgium, in trying to persuade their Governments to break off relations with this criminal r6gime and support the forces of resistance and liberation. By publicizing here today the crimes perpetrated by the apartheid r6gime against the women and children of South Africa, Namibia and other southern African countries, we hope to convince still more organizations and individuals to I... themselves adopt a policy of isolating the apartheid regime and supporting the forces struggling to put an end to this r4gime, while putting pressure on their Governments and the European Communities to take the necessary economic measures to press for an end to the apartheid rigime's reign of terror in South Africa, its colonial war in Namibia and its campaign of aggression and destabilization against the Front-line States, particularly Angola and Mozambique. SOUTH AFRICA A. CHILDREN - DELIBERATE TARGETS OF STATE VIOLENCE Since October 1984, when the popular uprising against the apartheid r6gime began, not a day has passed without State violence being unleashed on the South African population. Women and young people are the main targets of this armed police repression. Over 2,200 people, most of them Africans, have been killed since the uprising of the black townships began in September 1984. 2/ (a) The thousands of people killed by the apartheid rigime's repressive forces include many children The dead include hundreds of children. According to South African parliamentary sources, 209 children were killed by the security forces between 1 January 1985 and 10 February 1986 and a further 703 young people were wounded. 3/ In June 1986, the University of Cape Town revealed that over half of those killed in the black townships in 1985 were shot in the back and that one in every eight victims was aged under 15. 4/ In Soweto, on 16 June 1976 and during the disturbances which followed, nearly a thousand children and adolescents were shot by the apartheid r6gime's security forces. (b) Of the 8,000 children imprisoned by the apartheid regime, 4,000 are still detained today According to recent figures published by the Detainees' Parents Support Committee (DPSC), 5/ some 22,000 people, 8,200 of them children, have been arrested and detained by the apartheid r6gime since the state of emergency was declared throughout the country on 12 June 1986. 6/ These children have been thrown into prison without charge or trial at a rate of some 250 a week since 12 June 1986. Four thousand of them are apparently still in detention. According to the same source, of the 415 children still detained in Witwatersrand, 57 per cent are under 16 years of age and 15 per cent are aged 14 and under. A little girl of 11, Fannie Guduka, was detained without trial for 57 days. 7/ According to the same source, 27 per cent of these children had been detained for nearly five months and I... 19 per cent had been in detention for four months. These statistics were put together by the DPSC in the very difficult circumstances of the state of emergency, under which the security forces can, inter alia, make secret arrests. 8/ The Detainees' Parents Support Committee views this situation as unprecedented and describes it as a war on children. In February 1986, the Minister of Law and Order, Louis La Grange, replying to a parliamentary question, admitted that 2,016 children under 16 years of age were being detained. La Grange also confirmed that 71 per cent of the people arrested in 1985 for offences relating to the disturbances - 13,556 out of a total of 18,966 - had been under 20 years of age. 2/ On 7 December 1986, for the first time since 12 June 1986, Major-General Johann P. Coetze, Chief of Police, released information on children aged under 16 detained under the state of emergency. The figures he gave are far lower than the estimates made by the DPSC or the Black Sash and have since been challenged by these organizations. Even so, they are damning for the r6gime: One child aged 11 years; Six children aged 12 years; 21 children aged 13 years; 88 children aged 14 years; 140 children aged 15 years.