1. We Need To Ensure That More African Girls Get An Education
According to the UNICEF Next Gen 2030 Report, as of 2015, the population of children under 18 in Africa totalled 560 million with girls representing the majority. If a girl has not started primary school by age 10, chances are she never will go to school in countries like Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Senegal. Read more.
2. A Pay Gap Audit Is Needed In SA
Despite all the progress in equality and women's rights, the gender pay gap threatens to undermine the efforts of thousands of men and women who have fought for freedom in this country. While laudable progress has been made, men are still paid substantially more than women over their lifetimes. Fazlin Fransman says it is absurd that women are being paid less than men in South Africa for the same work.
3. The Relationship Between The SACP And Zuma Has Irretrievably Broken Down
The SACP forsook its historic role of being a melting pot of ideas and a hub of intellectualism in the mass democratic movement. Instead, the party reduced itself into a sloganeering entity hell-bent at protecting the person of Zuma. In that moment a treasonous act of suspending reason and compromising principle was committed at the expense of the country, writes UKZN political analyst, Lukhona Mnguni.
4. Jacob Zuma Has Proven Himself To Be Loyal Only To Himself
Yes, he did it again. President Jacob Zuma has, with the 17 October 2017 cabinet reshuffle, managed to change his mind about the executive more often than South Africans have gone to the ballot box since the birth of our democracy. By retaining loyalists and axing critics, the president has once again used the power of the presidency to flip the bird to all those who believe that he will act in the interest of anyone else except his own, writes legal researcher Jeanette Buis.
5. BLSA: 'Gigaba Cannot Save SA's Economy'
The budget statement on Wednesday provided a very sobering reminder of South Africa's fragile fiscal position. What Business Leadership South Africa had hoped for was a statement that instils confidence among businesses and investors that the minister had the necessary plans to address the very significant challenges the country faces. Read more.
6. Gay Pride -- The Politics Of Disruption
Part of the solution to Pride politics lies in the understanding of intersectionality and adopting a framework of Pride organising that is not blind to intersectional politics. I have made this argument elsewhere, discussing the disruption of Johannesburg Pride, and I will re-enforce the argument here. What Pride needs is an acute understanding of intersectionality. This seems self-explanatory, but as we have seen with the continued disruptions of Pride and the continued hostility from Pride organisers, understanding of intersectional politics is lacking, writes Lwando Scott.
7. Hitting People Is Wrong. And Children Are People Too
So how can we discipline children if we can't smack them? There are many, many things we can do. Among the most important is to take a long view of childrearing, and think about the kind of adults we want our children to become. Another is to remember that children learn more from how they see us as adults behave than from what we tell them. It is also helpful to understand a little of how children develop emotionally so that we can have more realistic expectations of our children at different ages, writes Chairperson of the Board of the Quaker Peace Centre in Cape Town Carol Bower.