The paper aims to explore how culture, family and community-women have shaped women councillors’ representation and participation in South Africa. It investigates the extent to which women ward councillors are gaining support from their male counterparts; other women councillors irrespective of political affiliation when women-related issues are raised in council meetings. The paper identifies reasons contributing to the non-support by key stakeholders when women-related issues are raised and when performing their duties. Post-1994 in South Africa, women’s participation in politics is still a struggle. The number of women ward councillors have been fluctuating since the local government was reformed between 1995/96. Ward councillors are elected by local communities to represent their respective wards, to be accountable to the community that elected them. The paper is exploratory and qualitative in nature. It focuses on 104 Ward and Proportional Representative (PR) councillors from local municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Provinces. Face-to-face and telephonic interviews were employed. Findings were analyzed using content analysis and themes were induced from the data. The paper revealed that culture is gradually changing due to laws introduced. Also, family support depends on a woman marital status and family involvement in politics. However, males did not support women-related issues, but women ward councillors supported each other irrespective of political affiliation on gender issues. Community-women support councillors through women’s groups and community structures. The factors contributing to the non-support of gender-related matters include women competing with each other and political party influence. Received: 27 January 2021 / Accepted: 15 April 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021
AUTHORSBrian Kwazi Majola Rubby Dhunpath ARTICLE INFOBrian Kwazi Majola and Rubby Dhunpath (2016). The development of disabilityrelated employment policies in the South African public service. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 14(1-1), 150-159. AbstractWorldwide, the employment of people with disabilities has been challenged by the slow development of 'workplace specific' disability employment policies. The focus has been on formulating legislation to overcome barriers and the implementation of national disability policies without ensuring that workplaces formulate such policies. While laws regarding disability have been on the statute books for two decades in South Africa, little is known about how effective they have been and their impact in the workplace. This article examines whether South African government departments have developed or reviewed employment policies for the benefit of people with disabilities, and determines whether policy makers were aware of the existence of the Disability Code (Republic of South Africa, 2002) and the Technical Assistance Manual (Republic of South Africa, 2005) when the policies were developed or reviewed. Human Resource Managers from 16 government departments in KwaZulu-Natal Province were interviewed. It was found that although HR policies were in place and some were being developed, very little has been done in terms of reviewing and/or developing disability employment policies. Furthermore, the existing prescripts were not extensively used as a resource during the development of disability-related employment policies. This has negatively affected the employment of people with disabilities in the public service. It is hoped that the results will assist management, HR practitioners as policy makers, and line managers to develop disability employment policies in order to attract and retain people with disabilities. The research also contributes to the existing body of literature on disability.
The number of women elected into political positions has been a challenge for both developed and developing states. Countries that have introduced national prescripts and ratified the United Nations conventions continue to struggle with women's representation and participation in politics, especially at the local government level. South Africa is not an exception to this. Despite legislation that appears to enable gender equality in local structures, the number of women ward councillors has been fluctuating since the reformation of local government after 1994. The objective of this paper is to investigate factors affecting the number of women elected as ward councillors in South Africa. The paper adopts an exploratory research design and is qualitative in nature. It focuses on six local municipalities of the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Provinces. Males and female ward and proportional representative councillors were interviewed using face-to-face and telephone techniques. The findings of the study were analysed using content analysis and themes were generated from the interview data. The study revealed that there are more women proportional representative councillors than ward councillors, which confirms the challenge with regard to women's representation in local politics. The number of women councillors is low and some major factors identified in the study were lack of confidence, education and community involvement; cultural influence; and competitiveness amongst women.
In South Africa, women and Black people became councillors after the first non-racial democratic local government elections between 1995 and 1996. One can be elected as councillor irrespective of race, gender or level of education. The country’s electoral system allows women’s presence in politics to largely depend on political parties. However, the number of women ward councillors has been unstable as some women leave the office after one term. It is political parties and municipal councils that can shape and ensure women’s stay in politics by empowering them. The paper aims to determine whether there are any strategies employed by selected municipal councils to empower women ward councillors. It explores whether there is any training provided by the municipal council to sensitise both council and community members on gender issues. The paper strives to explore whether political parties are grooming enough women to participate in politics and contest in elections. The study is exploratory and qualitative in nature. It focuses on Ward and PR councillors, from six local municipalities in the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Provinces who were interviewed using an interview guide. The findings of the study were analyzed using content analysis and themes were induced from the interview data. The results indicated that there were no strategies adopted by the municipal councils to empower women councillors. There was no training to sensitise both council and community members about gender issues and women are not groomed by their political parties to be ready to contest the elections. Received: 28 September 2021 / Accepted: 21 January 2022 / Published: 5 March 2022
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