Focus on plight of rural women
International Rural Women's Day should highlight the difficult work and living conditions of women in rural areas.
|||Cape Town - International Rural Women’s Day on Thursday should highlight the difficult work and living conditions of women in rural areas.
This is the view of Sikhula Sonke farmworkers’ trade union general secretary Henriette Abrahams.
“I want this day to bring the plight of rural women under the microscope, so that all (farming) stakeholders can get to the table to work on solutions that will ensure decent work and decent lives for our rural women,” Abrahams said.
She was referring to the women’s grievances about an inadequate national minimum wage for farmworkers, their lack of access to adequate health and education facilities and safety and rehabilitation centres for women and children, as well as the unresolved issue of land ownership for farmworkers.
“We want government and business to take responsibility for providing places of safety for women and children who are affected by violence and abuse (in households and workplaces),” she added.
She complained that rural women had work for only about four to five months of the year during the harvest season, “and what happens to them (concerning income) for the rest of the year?”
Such women also lacked housing security, as a farmer forced them and their families to vacate his house once the women or their spouses left his employ, sometimes after a lifetime of labour.
Abrahams explained that the R120 minimum wage women earned a day on a farm was inadequate after deductions by a farmer – for rent, electricity, transport and other expenses.
“It is a slavery type of situation where you are caught up in a cycle of debt. In addition to that there is also the issue of social protection involving pension, provident or retirement funds, or medical aid.
Sara Claasen, 52, has been working on Stellenbosch farms since the age of 19.
“We have been underpaid for a very long time. Government had put in place a minimum wage, but that is not enough.”
She lamented that some farmers sometimes refused to implement relevant legislation, and said International Rural Women’s Day should be used to express freedom for the rights of rural women, and for the government and the world to ensure that women were treated with dignity and respect.
Women on Farms Project programme co-ordinator Carmen Louw said they regularly celebrated International Rural Women’s Day and rural women and their contribution towards food security.
“We also use the time to highlight the challenges that rural women face on a daily basis,” added Louw.
raphael.wolf@inl.co.za
Cape Times