Women's Parliament Demands Delivery: Seven Decades Later, South Africa Assesses Real Progr

More than 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 to protest apartheid pass laws. Seventy years later, the Women’s Parliament convened in Kimberley at Sol Plaatje University’s Great Hall to ask a harder question: what, exactly, has changed?

The gathering, held on 13 and 14 August, drew women from civil society, traditional leadership, faith-based organisations, labour, academia, youth formations and communities across South Africa. Its full title, “Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo: 70 Years of Resistance, 72 Years of Vision: Advancing Gender Justice, Equality and Resilient Economies for All,” carries the weight of two foundational moments. The Women’s Charter of 1954 imagined a nation where women would stand as equal citizens. The 1956 march gave that vision its most visible expression. This year’s Parliament marks 70 years since the march and 72 years since the charter’s vision was first set down.

Speaker of the National Assembly Thoko Didiza joined women parliamentarians and participants from every walk of life in the Great Hall. Those who entered wore doeks, dresses, uniforms, union T-shirts and traditional regalia, moving to songs that have travelled through generations. Organisers described Kimberley, the historic diamond city, as a living chamber of memory, courage and expectation.

The substance of the Women’s Parliament, though, extends well beyond commemoration.

The event is structured around difficult accountability questions that cut to the heart of whether institutional and legal commitments have produced real change. Have laws and institutions translated into safety for women in villages, townships, farms and cities? Have gender equality programmes altered the daily realities of women entrepreneurs struggling for access to markets, women workers seeking fair wages, young women fighting for education and job opportunities, and survivors of violence demanding justice? Has Parliament’s oversight capacity been sufficient to ensure that resolutions do not gather dust?

Participants are measuring past promises against multiple frameworks simultaneously: the Women’s Charter of 1954, the democratic commitments made after 1994, and the renewed aspirations of the 2021 Women’s Charter. The event also tests those historical commitments against the National Development Plan 2030 and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. In this sense, Kimberley functions as a site of accountability where constitutional principles of women’s equality meet the lived experience of women across the country. The Parliament’s task is simultaneously commemorative and reflective, celebratory and analytical: to honour the women of 1956 while asking why, seven decades later, many women still face poverty, unemployment, exclusion from decision-making, gender-based violence and limited access to economic opportunity.

The phrase Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo carries multiple meanings. It functions as a political slogan, a melody and a clarion call, but also as a warning and an expression of optimism rooted in decades of struggle. The call continues to remind South Africa that women have never been passive recipients of freedom. They have organised, marched, negotiated, resisted and advanced its cause. The metaphorical rock referenced in the anthem has not been cracked; it remains solid and now serves as a bedrock upon which to advance women’s equality and social justice.

By contrast to gatherings that end with resolutions filed away, the success of this Women’s Parliament, according to organisers, will be measured by whether it sharpens the national demand for implementation, budgets, monitoring and consequences. Empowerment, the gathering insists, must become visible in boardrooms, council chambers, classrooms, police stations, courts, businesses and homes. More information about the Parliament’s proceedings and commitments is available at https://www.parliament.gov.za/news/when-women-speak-south-africa-must-listen.

As women gathered beneath the Northern Cape sky, the spirit of 1956 was not simply being remembered. It was being summoned. The question the Parliament leaves open is whether, this time, the country will respond with action rather than acknowledgement.