media releases - Dr Frene Ginwala speaks at the Lilian Ngoyi Memorial Lecture

The Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Z Pallo Jordan and the Vice Chancellor of the University Of South Africa, Prof Barney Pityana, invite members of media to the Lilian Ngoyi Memorial Lecture to be held at UNISA’s ZK Matthews Great Hall at 18h00 on Friday 25 August 2006.

As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Women’s Anti-Pass March, the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) and the University of South Africa (UNISA) will co-host a memorial lecture in honour of the late Ms Lilian Ngoyi, one of the iconic figures in the history of the struggle for freedom in South Africa. The memorial lecture will be delivered by the first speaker of a democratic parliament, Dr Frene Ginwala

On the 9th of August 1956, Ms Lilian Ngoyi was one of the women who led the anti-pass march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, one of the largest demonstrations staged in South Africa. Women played a leading role in the resistance to unjust pass laws which severely affected their position in society as well as the African family life. Women were at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. Because of the tenuous nature of their employment - largely in the domestic service and informal sectors, African women were particularly vulnerable to removal from the urban areas as "idle Africans” or "superfluous appendages".

Apartheid laws made it far more difficult for African women than men to acquire urban residency rights, accommodations in the urban areas. Influx control laws, and by extension the pass system, were intentionally used by government to bar African women from the urban areas and to confine them to the African reserves.

Issued by: Abe Mokoka
Media Officer
University of South Africa
Tel (012) 352-4208
Cell: 082 375-4457
e-mail: mokokma@unisa.ac.za