The women’s march of 1956 must inspire equality in our society

The women’s march of 1956 must inspire equality in our society

Solomzi Tshona  Yolokazi Mfuto 27 Jul 2022

The win by South Africa’s Football team – Banyana Banyana in the Women’ Africa Cup of Nations -
WAFCON 2022 is a perfect timing as we draw close to the commemoration of Women’s month. It is
prudent that we constantly remember the contribution that women made in the advent of our
constitutional democracy as ratified 26 years ago.

The historical march of 9th August 1956 was not only to protest the gruesome pass laws, but a struggle
waged against a patriarchal, classist and racist society brought to South Africa by colonialists as
presented in the Apartheid governance system. The march led by the Federation of Women in South
Africa including the African National Congress Women’s league brought together more than 20 000
women across the country matching to the Union Buildings. The solidarity exhibited by these women
was one of the remarkable occurrences during the apartheid regime and it triumphed by destabilizing
the system. The women of 1956 categorically clear posited that the effects of the pass laws will not
only affect their movement, but it would yield humiliation and the arrest of women will destroy their
already wrecked families. These pass laws were internal passports that restricted black people’s
movement and advances for new employment and limitation for urbanisation. Click here to read full article.