70 years after South Africas women protested apartheid, many say their fight for freedom isnt finished

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa commemorates on Sunday 70 years since the Women’s March of 1956, when around 20,000 women of all races marched to the administrative capital, Pretoria, to protest apartheid laws forcing Black women to carry passes that restricted their movement.It was a powerful moment in the fight against white minority rule.But seven decades after risking arrest, torture and even death to challenge racist laws, many women say their fight for freedom in South Africa is unfinished as they continue to grapple with high rates of gender-based violence, poverty and inequality.A United Nations Women-supported study in 2024 found more than one in three South African women have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.Ramnie Dinat, 84, was just a teenager during the Aug.

9, 1956 march.She recalled helping her mother, Ama Naidoo, an anti-apartheid activist, organize women ahead of the rally.

Black women, women of Indian heritage like Naidoo, and even some white women marched that day.“Black women were organizing, and Indian women couldn’t be silent,” Dinart told The Associated Press, adding that nobody at the time imagined that “history would remember that day.”“We were ordinary women who believed we could make a difference.We simply believed it was the right thing to do.”Perched on a ridge overlooking central Johannesburg, the Women’s Jail was a cornerstone of South Africa’s apartheid prison system.

Today, it’s a museum that stands near the Constitutional Court as a reminder of the country’s journey from oppression to democracy.Many of the march’s leaders and participants were later imprisoned in the Women’s Jail, where activists were held separately according to their race just as apartheid enforced segregation everywhere in South Africa.“It was designed to break, humiliate, dehumanize,” said Nolubabalo Memese, Visitors Services Manager at Constitution Hill, the precinct that houses the former pris...