Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the 1956 women's march, women from across South Africa are gathering in Bloemfontein this month to launch the Progressive Women's Movement.

Women struggles in South Africa started before the last century. Women took a lead in the fight for land after the promulgation of the Land Act of 1913.

At this time they were not full members of the liberation movement. They were deemed as associate members, yet they were able to define their role within the struggles of the South African society. They formed an organisation, the Bantu Women's League, under the leadership of Charlotte Maxeke because of her deep understanding of the challenges facing women in South Africa. The League represented all the women of South Africa irrespective of class and education. These women fought for their rights and the rights of all the oppressed people. It was during this time that the liberation movement came to realise that women were powerful allies and that they had a role in the fight against apartheid.

When they became full members of the ANC they continued to work with women from other racial groups, rural areas, professional women, peasants and others. The Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) showed that women united have power. The 9 August 1956 march against the carrying of passes bears testimony to the collective strength, determination and unity among women of all races and classes. The government of the day had banned the march and women defied the ban, and brought the whole country to a standstill.

The effort to establish a women's movement in South Africa began a number of years ago. A decision to begin discussions about the formation of a national women's structure was taken at the Malibongwe Conference in Amsterdam in the Netherlands in January 1990. South African women from all walks of life attended the conference.

After the unbanning of political organisations, negotiations started. Women were initially excluded from playing a meaningful part in the negotiations.

As a result women formed a coalition of women from different political backgrounds and political affiliations. Through the National Women's Coalition (WNC), women were able take part in negotiations and articulate their demands. Women had drawn up a Women's Charter for Effective Equality, which was a development from the Women's Charter of 1954. Women presented the Women's Charter for Effective Equality to the first democratic government under the leadership of the then President Nelson Mandela. Many aspects of the charter are now reflected in the present constitution.

The Women's National Coalition disintegrated after the adoption of the new democratic constitution. This is due to the fact that women focused more on party politics, rather than on issues affect all women.

However, the ANC and the ANC Women's League have held a view that there is a need for some kind of an organic structure that will take up broader issues of women in South African society. This is part of the role that the Women's League has played in marshalling women to fight for their emancipation.

Over the years various discussion papers and resolutions have been developed and adopted on the purpose, character and proposed programme of establishing a progressive women's movement. For this reason the ANC Women's League and Alliance partners have proposed the formation of a Progressive Women's Movement whose key objective is to promote the transformation of South African society into one that is truly non-racial and non-sexist.

The new challenges facing the women of South Africa today demand that we form this women's movement so that we can meet the present challenges as a united force, in line with the transformation that is taking place in our country, on the continent and globally.

In October 2005, during a meeting of the ANC Women's League National Executive Committee (NEC), it was decided it would be ideal if South African women established a Progressive Women's Movement in 2006. The NEC chose this year because it marks the 50th anniversary of the 1956 women's march to Pretoria. It is also the year in which the country commemorates 10 years of a democratic constitution and 30 years since the June 1976 uprising.

WHAT IS THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT?

After extensive discussions, the ANC Women's League and Alliance partners agreed that the women's movement should be a broad front of women's organisations, grassroots organisations of all kinds, feminist-oriented groups, researchers, faith-based organisations, traditional healers, and women involved in policy formulation.

The Women's League states that the movement must be progressive and diverse; that it should be shaped by local struggles and has to acknowledge that women are not a homogeneous group. Similarly the movement should advocate the ethos of transforming South Africa into a non-sexist, non-racial, democratic, united and prosperous South Africa. It should also demonstrate an understanding of social relationships of class, race, ethnicity, age and religion.

The movement should respond to specific conditions of gender inequality through a minimum platform for action. The formation of the progressive women's movement will enable women to resolve fundamental disagreements or differences through dialogue so that we can sharpen our understanding of the challenges facing us.

Among the principles that guide the women's movement should be the fight for women's emancipation and gender equality; it should fight patriarchy; develop a minimum and single platform for action; and work towards common policy positions. Members of the movement should agree to differ where necessary, and maintain the independence of member organisations while working towards unity of purpose.

The women's movement should target women from different sectors to ensure representivity. These should include women from rural areas, the business and professional sectors, faith-based organisations, workers, young women, women with disabilities, elderly women, unemployed women, and women from political parties.

Among its areas of focus, the movement would need to address issues of economic transformation as it impacts on the lives of women. This would include questions of access to economic resources, job creation, self-employment, access to credit, and access to technology. It should address issues of social transformation, particularly as they affect the lives of women living in poverty. It should work to improve access to housing, health care, land, basic infrastructure, social grants and social services, and education and skills.

The movement should also work towards the achievement of 50% representation in all governance and decision-making bodies. It should play an advocacy role in promoting progressive laws that help to empower women.

The movement would need to build relations beyond South Africa and monitor the implementation of international instruments for women's development and empowerment. This would include establishing relations with the Pan African Women's Organisation and other international bodies.

This is an edited extract from the 'Base Document' of the Progressive Women's Movement of South Africa (PWMSA).

The demand of the women of South Africa

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic women's march on the Union Buildings, we publish below the petition of the women of South Africa to then Prime Minister JG Strijdom.

We, the women of South Africa, have come here today. We represent and we speak on behalf of hundreds of thousands of women who could not be with us.

But all over the country, at this moment, women are watching and thinking of us. Their hearts are with us.

We are women from every part of South Africa. We are women of every race, we come from the cities and the towns, from the reserves and the villages. We come as women united in our purpose to save the African women from the degradation of passes.

For hundreds of years the African people have suffered under the most bitter law of all - the pass law which has brought untold suffering to every African family.

Raids, arrests, loss of pay, long hours at the pass office, weeks in the cells awaiting trial, forced farm labour - this is what the pass laws have brought to African men. Punishment and misery - not for a crime, but for the lack of a pass.

We African women know too well the effect of this law upon our homes, our children. We, who are not African women, know how our sisters suffer.

Your Government proclaims aloud at home and abroad that the pass laws have been abolished, but we women know this is not true, for our husbands, our brothers, our sons are still being arrested, thousands every day, under these very pass laws. It is only the name that has changed. The 'reference book' and the pass are one.

In March 1952, your Minister of Native Affairs denied in Parliament that a law would be introduced which would force African women to carry passes. But in 1956 your Government is attempting to force passes upon the African women, and we are here today to protest against this insult to all women.

For to us an insult to African women is an insult to all women.

We want to tell you what the pass would mean to an African woman, and we want you to know that whether you call it a reference book, an identity book, or by any other disguising name, to us it is a pass. And it means just this:

In the name of women of South Africa, we say to you, each one of us, African, European, Indian, Coloured, that we are opposed to the pass system.

We voters and voteless, call upon your Government not to issue passes to African women.

We shall not rest until ALL pass laws and all forms of permits restricting our freedom have been abolished.

We shall not rest until we have won for our children their fundamental rights of freedom, justice, and security.

This petition was presented to the office of Prime Minister JG Strijdom in Pretoria on 9 August 1956.

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