Minister Kubayi Urges Collective Action for Women’s Empowerment

• Call for Deliberate Action in Women’s Advancement: Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi emphasized the need for active efforts to break barriers limiting women’s progress and highlighted the importance of collective responsibility in achieving gender equality.
• Progress and Challenges in Gender Equality: While significant strides have been made, particularly in judiciary representation, women still face high unemployment rates, especially among black African women, indicating ongoing disparities.
• Representative Presence of Women in Judiciary: Women now occupy a substantial portion of judgeships and lead courts including the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, demonstrating progress through deliberate efforts.

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mmamoloko Kubayi, has urged South Africans to take deliberate action in breaking barriers that continue to limit women’s advancement, while acknowledging the strides made over the past 30 years of democracy.

Speaking at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) Women’s Dialogue, Minister Kubayi emphasised that gender equality is a collective responsibility. “Women emancipation cannot only be left to women; it is everyone’s business. We must deliberately design gender conscious programmes to empower women, otherwise they will always fall behind,” she said.

The Minister noted that women remain disproportionately affected by unemployment, with black African women facing the highest rate at 40.2% in the first quarter of 2025. Despite this, significant progress has been made in the judiciary and public service. Today, women hold 121 of the 252 judgeships in Superior Courts, with six of the 15 courts , including the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal led by women. In the magistracy, women make up 54% of magistrates.

Kubayi stressed that progress comes where deliberate efforts are made, quoating the judiciary as an example, while sectors left to market forces, such as private legal practice, still lag behind. She reminded women of Charlotte Maxeke’s words: “If you rise, bring someone with you.”

She further endorsed United Nations recommendations for gender equality, including targeted recruitment in nontraditional sectors, equal pay legislation, supportive work-life balance policies, and accessible childcare and elder care.

“We have the power to change the rules and ensure that gender equality is achievable in our lifetime,” she concluded.