LIBERATE WOMEN - COSATU PRESIDENT

COSATU President Zingiswa Losi narrating a point during an interview. (R) A section of the women who attended the workshop dancing to a political song. (Pics: Sibusiso Zwane)

MANZINI – Newly-elected COSATU President Zingiswa Losi has challenged female politicians to lobby and pass laws which will liberate women in the country.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) president said this during the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland’s (TUCOSWA) three-day women leadership workshop at Global Village in Manzini.

The president, whose role was to motivate the federation’s women about trade unionism leadership and challenges by reflecting on Southern African Trade Union Coordination Council (SATUCC) women representation and visibility, said men and women have equal powers in trade unions.

She said this was because female members of a trade union were paid a subscription fee equivalent to that of male members.
“The few women who are in Parliament should lobby and pass laws which will liberate even the ordinary women on the streets,” the president said.

She said female politicians’ agenda should not be different from that of the ordinary women on the streets. She said the female politicians need to define democracy and ask themselves where women stand in the country’s system of governance.

“By so doing, they will know their struggle,” she said.
On that note, the president said female politicians in the country should draw lessons from their female icons such as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Walter Sisulu’s wife Albertina, who pushed the struggle despite the fact that their husbands were behind bars for being political activists.

She said women who partook in the struggle for gender equality, should know that they were equal with their male counterparts.
“Men and women pay same subscription fee to a union and this means that their power is equal,” the president said.

She added that women who were elected into leadership positions should know that they were no entity as they were part of the society.
“They should know that they are not inferior to their male counterparts,” Losi emphasised.

Views

She said women, just like men, have a right to be heard and express their views freely. She added that it had been noted that most women usually take responsibilities which do not even belong to them, like preparing lunch, while strategic decisions were being made. He said as  a result, women do not participate in strategic decision-making yet the decisions taken would affect their lives.

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