Seventy years after South Africa’s women’s march, the struggle is not over

Women helped defeat apartheid’s pass laws, but many still face violence, poverty and unemployment.

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Sophie Williams-de Bruyn returned to the Union Buildings 70 years after helping lead South Africa’s historic 1956 women’s march against apartheid pass laws [Courtesy of GCIS]

Almost half of those reported rapes, 4,620, or 47.2 percent, took place at the home of the victim or the perpetrator, according to police statistics.

In November last year, the National Disaster Management Centre classified gender-based violence and femicide as a national disaster following sustained pressure from civil society organisations.

Ramaphosa told the gathering that women continue to live with the threat of violence “in the streets, even in their homes”.

But rights groups say declaring a disaster is only a first step.

Dorasamy said Amnesty International had heard accounts from women who struggled to open cases, were dismissed when reporting violence or received little information after making complaints.

Some women eventually withdraw their cases, she said, because the process becomes so difficult and exhausting that they no longer see a benefit in continuing.

The economic divide

The economic picture is similarly uneven.

South Africa’s unemployment rate stood at 32.7 percent in the first quarter of 2026, according to Statistics South Africa. For women, it was 36.4 percent, compared with 29.6 percent for men. Among Black African women, the unemployment rate reached 40.5 percent.

Women were also less likely than men to participate in the labour force, at 53.8 percent compared with 65.6 percent.

Among people aged 15 to 24, 39.2 percent of young women and girls were neither employed nor in education or training, compared with 36 percent of young men and boys.

For women trying to build independent lives, unemployment can deepen dependence on relatives or partners and make it harder to support children or leave abusive relationships.

People gather at the Union Buildings in Pretoria for the National Women’s Day commemoration [Courtesy of GCIS]

The commemorations also took on an international dimension with the attendance of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

Ramaphosa praised Yousafzai’s courage and used the occasion to express solidarity with women and girls in Afghanistan who have been systematically excluded from education, employment and public life.

But it was Williams-de Bruyn’s reflections that lingered long after the speeches had ended.

Seventy years after that march, women hold positions of power that would have been almost unimaginable under apartheid. Yet for millions, violence, unemployment, poverty and inadequate public services still shape what freedom means in everyday life.

“This is not the freedom we marched for.”