Cape Town - In a landmark victory for poor and working-class women across Cape Town, the Western Cape High Court sitting as the Equality Court declared the City’s historical housing policy – known as the “Housing Scheme Constructed by the Local Authority” – to be unconstitutional and discriminatory against women.
An interim order was granted last week in which the court ordered the sale agreements under this housing policy “be amended and rectified to reflect both the married male beneficiaries and their female spouses (as at the date of allocation) as co-purchasers in equal shares of the housing units”.
The application was brought by Gadijah Abdullah, with the support of the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC) Trust.
WLC director Sehaam Samaai said the matter was not confined to Muslim marriages but any union where the rights of working-class women to benefit from property ownership were historically not recognised. She said Abdullah was one of many who were unable to get support from housing because she was not listed as a beneficiary.
“We are saying that is unconstitutional because why is the City promoting a policy that gives unequal rights to parties who are cohabiting or are married. The consequence of this is, she can’t get a subsidy again, even though her name is not there, it’s not her house but they allocated her name towards the subsidy,” Samaai said.
The City has since, in agreement with the WLC, recognised that over 12 000 women may be affected by this measure of “historical” discrimination, placing the error at the feet of national government.
The City’s Malusi Booi said: “The City has its own housing allocation policy and it is separate to the now-repealed national government housing allocation policy. The national policy was implemented by erstwhile local authorities prior to the establishment of the City of Cape Town Municipality in September 2000.
“Since 2002, the City has implemented a directive that ensures when ownership of these properties is transferred, it is transferred jointly to both spouses, and title is registered in both names, regardless of only the male spouse being the contracting party to the agreement originally. This directive intervention has ensured equality when title deed transfer is completed.”
Samaai described the City’s action as “disingenuous” owing to their counter-claim filed three days before the hearing, being in agreement with the WLC.
She further noted the women affected by this were located in predominantly low-income areas.
The City was further interdicted against the transfer of these housing units to men as sole beneficiaries until the final order is granted.