Minister calls for women empowerment in SANDF

By CO Frans Pale, Journalist AD ASTRA magazine

The South African Minister of Defence, Honourable Mosiuoa Lekota has called on all chiefs of services and divisions in his ministry to staff women in significant numbers in all structures of decision-making and management. The Minister was giving a key note address at the National Conference for Women in Defence held in Benoni, Gauteng Province on 25 May 2006.

Minister Lekota said the status of women in the Department of Defence (DOD) was unacceptable; adding that even by government standards, having thirty percent women representation at senior management was not negotiable.

“The ten percent representation of women at senior management in the DOD is unacceptable. When I address this matter again in August 2006 during the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Women’s March, I want to report progress on how far we shall have gone,” said the Minister.