South African women march against gender-based violence

South Africa commemorates Women’s Month in August as a tribute to the more than 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956 in protest against the extension of Pass Laws to women. The Government of South Africa declared August women’s month and 9 August is celebrated annually as Women’s Day.

This year, according to the Global Information Network: “Thousands of women and gender activists joined together on the first day of Women’s Month to protest the rising incidence of gender-based violence across the country.The movement’s Brenda Madumise said the marchers, under the banner #TheTotalShutdown, were taking control of their destiny. ‘We are saying that we had enough,’ said Patience Mpani from the Center for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. We are dying every day and we cannot continue to live like this. It can’t be business as usual in South Africa when women are dying every day’.”