National Women's Day
National Women's Day ( English for "National Women's Day") is a public holiday in South Africa that takes place on August 9th each year. It is intended to commemorate the protest march by numerous women that took place on August 9, 1956. They demonstrated against apartheid laws, according to which until then the men had been provided with proof of work under regional restrictions and with severe sanctions in the event of violations. Later, a law from 1952 made these personal documents mandatory, for male black Africans since February 1, 1958 - and from 1963 also for women. The reference book was always to be carried with you.
On August 9, 1956, 20,000 women led a protest march to the Union Buildings government seat in Pretoria to demonstrate against proposed changes to provisions resulting from the Native Urban Areas Act of 1923 and other laws. These laws are called pass laws . The demonstrating women left packages with over 100,000 signatures on the door of Prime Minister Strijdom's office .
The protesters stood in front of the building in silence for 30 minutes. Many of the women had their children with them. Many women who worked as nannies for whites brought their charges with them. The women sang a protest song that had been written for the occasion: Wathint 'abafazi, wathint' imbokodo! Uzokufa! ( isiZulu for "You touched women, you hit a rock! You will die!"). Since then, this sentence in the form You strike a woman, you strike a rock (English for "If you strike a woman, you strike a rock ") stands for courage and strength of women in South Africa.
The protest march was led by Lilian Ngoyi , Helen Joseph , Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn . Even Frances Baard took part in the demonstration.
Since August 9, 1994, this memorial day has been celebrated annually in South Africa as Women's Day . The protest march was repeated on the 50th anniversary. Many of the participants in the original demonstration were there again.
See also
- International Women's Day on March 8th
- Holidays in South Africa
Web links
- Women's Day March - August 9, 1956
- Information on holiday (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ ANC website for the 100th anniversary ( memento of the original from January 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed January 8, 2012
- ↑ Christoph Sodemann: The laws of apartheid . Bonn 1986, p. 31
