Thanks to Phumzile, the UN have been able to establish their very well-received ‘HeForShe’ campaign, which gets men and boys fighting on the same side as women for equal gender rights and has been championed by actress Emma Watson.
Clearly impressed with her first term, UN Secretary General Antonio Guiterres has confirmed that the former SA Deputy Prime Minister will get another four years in her second term.
Mlambo-Ngcuka has already started planning for the future, too. She’s not ready to rock the boat just yet and has vowed to stick to her strategic plan for 2018-2021.
Read: Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka launches UN women’s progress report 2015
She has also promised to put the ‘gender’ into the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, and wants to ensure there is strong female participation in the shaping of our global future.
Speaking about her vision for the future to SABC, she said:
“We have passed 104 laws within the last two years in 60 countries. Implementation is the test, and it’s not as good as it could be. In South Africa, we already have these laws about gender, but they aren’t being fully implemented.
I’d like to be in a position where I can say ‘we have decreased the number of women living with violence’ and that ‘we have reduced the number of countries with discriminatory laws against women’.
I want to make sure we take another step towards equal pay, too. More money in a woman’s pocket is a good thing!”
At a time where violence against women in SA has made a worrying rise, having a South African leading the charge for gender equality is an important weapon against this, and one that the government must seek to utilise.
