REPORT: South Africa celebrates Women's Month, furthering equal rights

                 
South Africa vows to further strive for women's rights and gender equality as the country is celebrating its annual Women's Month.          

The country celebrates Women's Month in August as a tribute to the more than 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on Aug. 9, 1956, in protest against the extension of the Pass Laws to women.            

The Government of South Africa declared August Women's Month while Aug. 9 is celebrated annually as Women's Day.            

Both the governmental departments and non-governmental organizations hold a variety of events throughout August to look back and summarize the new progress made the previous year on the path of discrimination elimination and gender equality.                    

Naledi Pandor, Minister of Home Affairs said the country is going to work on more improvements of women's social status.

"Since 1994, 40 percent of our executives in government are women, 33 percent of our parliament are female. We're among the most representative parliaments of the world, and we'll continue to work to improve the status of women," said the minister after hosting a seminar on women's rights recently.              

However, the South African women are still subject to all kinds of mistreatment in the country, such as sexual assault, gender discrimination as well as domestic violence.                  

Many women believe that the realization of gender equality also depends on the joint efforts from the men.


AP


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