Mayor Urges City Women to Join Hands and Face Challenges Together

Executive Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo today urged the women who work for the City of Cape Town to hold hands across racial barriers and raise their voices to ensure that women-friendly policies were implemented in the City. Thousands of women gathered at the Good Hope Centre today as part of the City's multi-faceted programme to celebrate Women's Month.

The first part of the programme was a "dialogue session" during which participants took stock of the professional advances made by women in the City, and looked ahead at ways to ensure more effective implementation of policies that seek to address gender imbalances in the organisation.

Delivering the key-note address at the function Mayor Mfeketo said: "It is well and good to say we have in place all these marvellous policies that are gender-friendly, but what is really important is the actual day-to-day experience of women at an operational level in our organisation. "We do not want policies that are good to have. We want policies that actually change people's experiences at the workplace."

Mayor Mfeketo also alluded to the march by women to the Union Buildings in 1956 to protest against pass laws, and said the highlight of that march was the fact that women of all races had travelled to Pretoria to take part.

"One would have thought that today, nearly 50 years after that march, non-racial solidarity would be something women in this country would take for granted.

"The reality of course is that today, more than ever, racial barriers still remain some of the obstacles preventing women from attaining their goals. "Now more than ever we need to hold hands across these artificial barriers to fight common challenges that confront us as women," the Mayor said.

Issued by: Lisle Brown
Media Liaison Officer - City of Cape Town
E-Mail: media@capetown.gov.za

Media queries: Gert Bam
Director: Social Development - City of Cape Town
Tel: 400 5090