City of Ekurhuleni council speaker and EFF leader Nthabiseng Tshivhenga believes that South Africa has a lot to learn from how its BRICS partners have advanced women’s emancipation over the years.
Tshivenga was speaking at a SA-China Women’s Forum organized by the Chinese Consulate in Joburg.
She believes that South Africa’s decision to join BRICS was not only a politically and economically sound decision but was also strategic for social issues.
According to her, the four countries SA is married to through BRICS have unique and tangible ways in which they have taken their women out of the doldrums of exclusion.
And theirs was achieved through the women of Brazil, Russia, India and China organising themselves against anything unjust against them as a group.
She said South Africa has unfortunately missed out on an opportunity to share notes with its progressive partners in the upcoming BRICS Summit which has been muddied by the ICC arrest warrant on president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin who will not skip the gathering.
“We are keen to learn how the women of the People’s Republic of China has achieved universal coverage of maternal healthcare for women over the last few decades, a feature that could help our own nation achieve women’s health,” said Tshivhenga.
“We are also keen to learn from the People’s Republic of China how they have managed to reverse the gender education gap where they drastically reduced the illiteracy level of women to a point where women now in China dominate the tertiary education sector.
“We look forward to the inside of how India has progressed in terms of the traditional roles women have occupied in that society and how now they have placed education as a central pillar to bring about modernity and accepting that women can be key role players in industry and development.”
Tshivhenga said Russia can teach SA a thing or two in how it became among leading pioneers of women employment across the world despite relentless US propaganda.
As for Brazil, added Tshivhenga, South African must take notes on how they have been able to build a strong and formidable women’s movement at a grassroot level not only in their country but across Latin America.
“It is therefore unfortunate, in the view of the EFF, that this critical body of BrICS has through one of its partners (SA) allowed interference in its affairs by the ICC and the Nato that has led to one of our leaders being unable to attend the 15th BRICS Summit.
“We reiterate the call made by the president of the EFF Julius Malema who hass called for all member states of BRICS to boycott the Summit in solidarity to the President and people of Russia who have been unfairly characterized by the West as the biggest war criminal that the world has seen.”
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