Report on Government's Implementation of Cedaw

Meeting report

JOINT COMMITTEE ON QUALITY OF LIFE AND STATUS OF WOMEN
2 November 1998
REPORT ON GOVERNMENT'S IMPLEMENTATION OF CEDAW

Document handed out:
Report of the Joint Standing Committee on the Improvement of the Quality of Life and Status of Women on Government's Implementation of CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action

SUMMARY
The Report of the Joint Standing Committee on the Improvement of the Quality of Life and Status of Women on Government's Implementation of CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action was presented to the committee.  Discussion followed.  The committee felt that there were gaps in the information about progress, and decided to regard this as an interim report until more research could be done in 1999.

DETAILED MINUTES
The document was introduced by researcher, Ms C de Villiers, who explained how, over 3 months she had examined and collated all Government white papers, bills, annual reports, budget reviews, staff composition etc, and tried to assess how the departments are performing against CEDAW requirements.  It was difficult to measure implementation and she needed more benchmarks to do this, and because several bills had yet to be passed, a final report would be drafted next week.

Discussion followed about whether this draft report should be adopted (there were less than 7 present at that stage, and a quorum is 7 or more) but the chairperson hoped that if it were adopted it could be tabled on 5/11/98.  She also suggested that the departmental reports should be in clusters, making for easier reading.

Most members present were unhappy about the report, because it lacked detail on how far implementation had progressed, for example, an ANC committee member felt that there was a lack of information on how women could access longer loans from SMME, and that the Department of Trade and Industry must be responsible for disseminating this information.
On Education she felt very little progress had been made on the sexual harassment issue in schools, apart from making generalised recommendations.  Another ANC member was concerned about women and Health and especially AIDS education, fostering of orphans, maintenance etc, and Ms Vos (IFP ) was particularly concerned about rural KwaZulu Natal, where the problem is enormous.  Another ANC member showed concern about the White Paper on Land Affairs, which does not reflect the position of women who have tremendous problems getting access to land tenure, despite the Land Tenure Act.

Ms de Beer (NP) was concerned about the function of this report – is it to act as a watchdog, or is it to collect information and ask more questions.  It was agreed that it should do both.  The chairperson Ms Fester, later summarised the situation, mentioning two issues:
The process of how the document has been drawn up, and what further steps need to be taken?
That in fact there were many problems facing women, who are still suffering enormously, largely due to unsatisfactory bureaucracy.

The researcher explained that implementation of laws needs time, and further, measuring implementation is extremely difficult and needs clear methodology.

Discussion followed as to whether the report should be published or tabled or amended.  Some felt that this should be regarded as phase 1, that it was an invaluable tool, and that all legislation should be scrutinized under a gender law.  A further suggestion was that  the committee’s views should be highlighted in “boxes” to show the gaps.  The chairperson then asked if each member could research his/her own specialization and come forward with more detailed information.  However D Smuts (DP ) felt that every member was so stretched that this was unlikely given the fact that it was difficult to get a quorum.  Although the ANC members wanted a great deal more research done, the researcher pointed out that there were budgetary constraints and no possibility to do anything beyond what was available at Parliament.  She asked the members to try to find our from their constituencies what progress had been made in any of the areas of interest, and perhaps ask NGOs too, though selection of the right NGO was difficult.  She would not produce another report before February/March.

The chairperson was profuse in her appreciation for all the work done by the researcher.  It was agreed that the report would be regarded as an interim report, that there were gaps which would hopefully be plugged, and that Ms Govender would add to the introduction to explain the above, and the lack of resources available to do more research.