South Africa

Africans in South Africa lead stamped and dated lives. All is tightly controlled by the white authorities: what they can and cannot do, where they can and cannot live. More than two million people have been moved since 1960 as a result of government policies. Many of these are women with children, separated by regulations from their menfolk. High rents, no security of tenure and frequent evictions threaten the lean-to world of their squatter settlements. With little to lose and everything to gain, the women are joining forces. Below are some accounts of their experiences.

'At a quarter to five in the morning we saw the police around our area, to move us out. I was put on a bus and taken to Pachsdraai, without my belongings or my children. When I got there I was alone. Pachsdraai is a place far from town, a place without water, a place of much suffering.'

Many are moved more than once in their lives. Often whole communities are shifted. And there is no guarantee that friends and relatives will be near each other. Crowded together with strangers in nameless streets of make-shift dwellings, it is hard to overcome depression and apathy.

Often women take the worst of this. Much of the time, the men are away working in urban areas. Women must cope with the problems of living in a community under daily threat of removal. It's a war of attrition. The authorities may chip away at people's resistance for months before taking forceful action. They just stop issuing documents like work-seekers' permits; or cut off the water supply. In Magopa the bus service into the nearest town was stopped, schools and churches in the community demolished and the motors for water pumps removed.

Sometimes government officials take advantage of the men's absence to pressure the women into moving. In Botlokwa, the authorities arrived and called a meeting when most of the men were away. But they could not persuade the women to move. The women gathered at the meeting place carrying their hoes and picks and spades. Drawing a line in the dust, they warned the officials not to cross it. The officials left.

In other areas too women's groups are being established to help draw women into organising against removal — such as the Mgwali Women's Group and the Driefontein Women's Masibemunye Club.

'When we meet as women of the Mgwali Women's Group,' says member Thandi Dyosi, 'we discuss going away from Mgwali, which is our home. We want to be united in what we do because if there is a gap between us, they, our enemies, will find a way to defect us. Even the headmen have been against the idea that we have meetings.'

'We received guests from Crossroads (a settlement in Cape Town) who did some workshops with us. We learnt a lot because they brought us a good number of ideas. Now it is easier to get people motivated. We have banners and sing Asiyi Ndawo - "We are not going anywhere — Mgwali is our home".'

The women in Lamontville joined together to protest at rising bus fares and rents in their township. 'At first 15 women joined the group. In March we went to see the superintendent about the rents. We organised as women and mothers because we thought we would be safe from teargas and shooting. We could appeal on behalf of our children. We asked the superintendent why rents were going up when the houses are cracked and broken. He said we must talk to the councilors and not him. But they do nothing.'

'We work with other organisations too, and ask to speak at their meetings for five minutes to tell the people about our Women's Group. Next time we go to the authorities, we will take a full bus. We are women and mothers. The children say, "But mummy, where is really our home?"'

Adapted from 'South African Women on the Move,' by the Vuani Makhosikazi Collective, Zed Books, London, 1985.