Rural women marching out for land

Cape Town. 21.03.15. Rural women from surrounding towns in the Western Cape gathered at an open field in District 6 to take part in the rural women's assembly march to the Western Cape provincial legislature to demand land. Picture Ian Landsberg

Cape Town. 21.03.15. Rural women from surrounding towns in the Western Cape gathered at an open field in District 6 to take part in the rural women's assembly march to the Western Cape provincial legislature to demand land. Picture Ian Landsberg

Published Mar 22, 2015

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CApe Town - Hundreds of women who work in the agricultural, forestry and fishing sectors, including those illegally evicted from farms, on Saturday launched a campaign calling for more land ownership.

The Long March campaign, spearheaded by the Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA), gathered close to 500 women from across the country, dressed in black and green T-shirts emblazoned with the words, “Women, guardians of seed, life and earth”. They formed a circle on a field in Keizersgracht Street and loudly chanted: “We want land now!”

The campaign launch marked Human Rights Day on Saturday. Its supporters marched to the Western Cape provincial legislature offices to hand over a memorandum with their demands for more land rights and access to other productive resources to address food security.

The RWA campaign will culminate in a mass march in Pretoria in August, in celebration of national women’s month.

A postcard distributed to the women had space for them to write down their grievances. This is to be handed to rural development and land reform minister Gugile Nkwinti at the August march.

RWA’s North West co-ordinator Nombulelo Mbandezi told the crowd they were “tired of starving”.

“We demand one hectare a woman as they work hard to provide for their children,” she said.

Gertruida Baartman, 47, from Ceres was also at Saturday’s campaign launch. Baartman has been a seasonal farm worker since she was 15. She has endured many of the inequalities that women in the agriculture sector face.

Walking with a crutch, the mother of two said the rights of women on farms were often overlooked.

“In the past, no matter if you were pregnant, you had to work the crops, which were laden with poisonous pesticides that had a negative impact on the health of many farmworkers, who got sick,” said Baartman.

Other issues she cited included a lack of proper healthcare facilities, unequal pay, as men often earned more than women for the same job and working hours, and escalating evictions from farms. Statistics from the Women on Farms project show that only one out of every 100 farm evictions is legal.

From Citrusdal, farmworker Lien Maton, 40, said together with her husband, they fought a four-year court battle in their attempt to prevent her employer from evicting them from the farm.

“While we waited for a court date, the (farmer) cut our water and electricity and eventually kicked us out with our two kids. The law doesn’t protect us as women at all,” said an outraged Maton.

In a statement, the RWA reported that with the slow rate of progress, it would take 77 years for women to achieve equality in pay, and 123 years for rural women to gain labour equality.

The association said new legislation has promised an end to the practice of “willing buyer, willing seller” and it called out the ruling ANC for taking 20 years – since the start of democracy – to admit that “land reform is failing”.

As the group of protesters reached the provincial legislature buildings in Wale Street, they started chanting for Western Cape Premier Helen Zille to come out and receive their memorandum.

Among their list of demands include the fast-tracking of land reform that benefits women; housing contracts that stipulate women farm workers as home owners; preferential access and rights for artisanal and subsistence fishers; the right to use forestry plantation to generate income; and farmers who are guilty of illegal evictions to face prosecution.

With the appearance of the premier’s spokesman Michael Mpofu, the crowd grew angry shouting “No Zille, No Vote!”

An RWA representative told the protesters they were being “disrespected once again” by a provincial government which claims “to defend their human rights”. They proceeded to read the memorandum, which Mpofu signed, accepted and promised to “bring it to the attention of the premier”.

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Weekend Argus

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