The South African government submitted it combined second, third and fourth periodic report on its compliance with its CEDAW obligations in 2010. The report covered a decade: 1998 – 2008.

Whilst the Committee commended South Africa on the progress it has made on the legislative front, the Committee required the State to take the following steps to address a number of concerns, many of which relate to a failure to translate legislative equality into meaningful de facto equality. Several of these concerns and the resulting recommendations are of critical concern for the well being of young children and their maternal caregivers:

• Ensure women have effective access to justice.
• Provide systemic training on equality legislation to judges, lawyers, labour inspectors, NGOs and employers.
• Strengthen the linkages between the national, provincial and local levels of government to harmonise gender equity initiatives.
• Develop a comprehensive strategy, including the review and formulation of legislation and establishment of goals and timetables to modify or eliminate stereotypes and harmful traditional and customary values and practices, including “Ukuthwala” or forced marriages, polygamy, the killing of witches and virginity testing. With regards to virginity testing, the Committee has called for an amendment to the Children’s Act which currently permits virginity testing for girls older than 16, subject to their giving consent to the test. The Committee has called for a complete abolition of virginity testing, regardless of age.
• Develop evidence-led comprehensive measures to address the high levels of sexual violence in South Africa including raising public awareness that violence against women is a form of discrimination; ensuring adequate budgets for, and implementation of laws such as the Domestic Violence Act and the Sexual Offences Act as well as support services for victims.
• Ensure effective women’s participation in decision-making at all levels.
• Strengthen protective education policies to ensure access to all levels of education for girls and women, including a strengthened re-entry policy to ensure girls return to school after pregnancy; provision of safe educational environments and safe transport to and from schools.
• Strengthen the prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of violence against women.
• Revise legislation to provide all mothers with paid maternity leave.
• Ensure implementation of the Maternal Child and Women’s Health Strategy 2009-2014 to address the high maternal mortality rate.
• Develop anti-discrimination legislation to protect women from violence based on their sexual orientation.
• Develop a unified family code in which unequal inheritance rights, property and land rights and polygamy are addressed with the aim of abolishing them.
• Expedite a green paper process towards a comprehensive Gender Equality Bill.

The latter two steps have been prioritised by the Committee, which has called for an interim progress report in two years’ time on steps that have been taken towards these interventions.

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UN CEDAW Committee’s concluding observations