Sizani Ngubane

Sizani Ngubane (24 November 1946 - 23 December 2020) was a South African activist who worked for rural women's rights. She was the founder of the Rural Women's Movement (RWM) which originated in her peace-building efforts in the final years of minority-rule wherein she brought women together across partisan lines to end political violence. RWM was formally registered in 1998. Working on issues central to its constituency, rural women and girls, RWM would come to number over 50,000 members across KwaZulu-Natal. The movement works both at the grassroots and policy levels on issues including women's access to land rights, ending gender-based violence, promoting food sovereignty and fostering healthy, democratic rural communities. Sizani Ngubane was recognized for her work as the 2018 NGO CSW Woman of Distinction and as a 2020 finalist for the Martin Ennals award. Quotes I am sending you this message with very deep sadness. Our government passed the Traditional Courts Bill. We started fighting against this bill in 1998 before it was introduced to national parliament – at a time when the South African Law Reform Commission was conducting research on the Role and Functions of traditional leaders in a new democratic South Africa. I convened a workshop on November 18 1998 for 250 rural women under the banner of Rural Women’s Movement to tackle the discussion paper circulated by the South African Law Reform Commission about the Roles and Functions of Traditional Leaders in a new democratic SA. The women from both the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party were able to work together that weekend while their men from these two biggest parties were at each others’ throats and while Inkatha in partnership with the apartheid regime were slaughtering ANC people like anything. But as women who were like the south and north in terms of politics we were able to finish the workshop without having serious problems although there were times when I was asking myself why did I invite the women from Inkatha Freedom party. But we couldn’t have ignored their voice we needed their input because we didn’t know much about traditional leaders – the majority of traditional leaders were members of Inkatha – those who were members of the African National Congress were in hiding. Message from Sizani Ngubane I got drawn into the world of women/girls’ land, property and inheritance rights after witnessing my mother’s forced eviction from her marital home by her brother in-law. My father was away working in Johannesburg. After being forcibly evicted from her marital home she was not able to take her own household goods – because our lives were at high risk of being assaulted. He came home all the way from Johannesburg and the traditional leader allocated/registered a piece in his name. I knew this was unfair and promised myself that when I grow up, I would do something to help stop this harmful cultural practice. My biggest challenges started in 1980 when we had to run away from KwaMpumuza where our lives were at high risk of being attacked for being suspected of being members of the ANC: the whole family moved to Ngwelezane Township in Empangeni in northern Natal. In 1993 while I was working in Empangeni as an ANCWL Organizer my brother... was gunned down at bright day-light two weeks before his birthday and we had to run away from home – the whole extended family was scattered all over KwaZulu-Natal and I landed in Durban. The Rural Women’s Movement was initiated in 1990 and officially launched in November 1998 by 250 women and some girls. The Commission on Gender Equality, Commission on Human Rights and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies based within the Wits University were represented. RWM is made up of a coalition of 501 community-based organisations and some groups of orphaned and vulnerable girls and some boys – with a membership of approximately 50,000. RWM demonstrates integrity and commitment in defence of Human Rights enshrined in International Human Rights Law.” The RWM envisions a democratic country where all indigenous women/girls become self-sustaining and remain well-recognised in their respective communities, well respected and truly empowered… The main girls and women’s rights issues that RWM works on are Gender-Based Violence, climate change/environmental justice, women/girls land, property/inheritance rights and influencing and effectively participating in the country’s policy-making processes both at provincial and at national levels. The domestic legislations and laws passed at provincial and national levels are, at best, not implemented, when not openly discriminatory towards women and girls’ independent rights. As one of the RWM leaders I have been given a name by some traditional leaders – who call me ‘a woman who hates traditional leaders’ – which is not true – I don’t hate the traditional leaders, I hate how most of them discriminate against women/girls… we are seen by some men as a group of unruly women who don’t know or respect their culture. Taking into consideration the heart of the RWM human rights work, RWM sees both these pieces of legislation as repressive and that it will give the traditional leaders more power to discriminate against women/girls and treat the rural communities and individual families with an iron fist. RWM finds it hard to figure out the difference between these two pieces of legislation and the apartheid laws – both will affect the lives of millions of people residing in the marginalised and isolated rural areas. She spoke about the Rural Women's Movement A large percentage of South African arable land is still in the hands of white people, even though they are a small minority in this country. How equal is that? How constitutional is that? But the problem now is that our government is not really doing anything about it. They promised us in the 1990s that by 2014 they would have redistributed 30% of land into hands of original users. I say users and not owners because in our culture land is not owned. Mother Nature was not a commodity that could be bought and sold. But only about 10% of that land has been returned to date. So I think those promises were politically motivated to get people to come out and vote in elections. I don’t see real transformation of the land situation happening anytime soon. In an interview When you begin to give land to women, a lot of abuses in society are eliminated. They can feed their own families without fear of being evicted. They can inherit land when their male relatives die. And most importantly, they are not so controlled by the men in their lives. Because when land is the main value of a society and women cannot own land, we are nothing. We are not 100% human beings. It is easy to abuse and abandon us. So the land is the only way out for us. The important of land to South Africa women The thing I’m most proud of isn’t necessarily any legal battle we’ve won. It’s the fact that before we started this movement women in many rural communities were not empowered to speak. Now we see our women speaking up for their rights, even at national and international levels. And no one tells them to shut up, because we have taught them that this is our constitutional right. [The men] know they must listen. She spoke about one of the accomplishment she is proud of It comes from my heart. From when I was 6 years old I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life. Don’t ask me how exactly I knew there was a world outside that rural community where I grew up. The only other place I had ever seen was the city of Pietermaritzburg [10 miles away], where I went once a year with my mother to buy school shoes. But somehow I knew even then I was going to grow up to see the world, and learn from it. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. External links Category:Women activists from South Africa Category:Women's rights activists Category:1946 births Category:2020 deaths Category:Women born in the 1940s