Hundreds of people, mostly women, gathered at the South African Museum in Cape Town on 21 January 2017. They marched through the Company’s Garden to the front entrance to Parliament holding placards with signs like “A woman’s place is in the revolution”, “Well-behaved women seldom make history”. The march was in solidarity with many women’s marches taking place in the United States and elsewhere around the world to show opposition to US president Donald Trump who was inaugurated on 20 January.
A pamphlet by the protesters expressed concerns that the Trump administration might threaten decades of international gains in human rights. The protesters demanded that President Trump “hear and submit to calls for women’s rights to be respected, protected and fulfilled in and beyond US borders; and must support women’s struggles to attain the realisation and advancement of women’s rights to equality.” The pamphlet said that all women must have access to the highest possible attainable standard of health including sexual and reproductive health.
Dean Peacock, Executive Director of Sonke Gender Justice, said Trump’s administration should be taken head on from the start. “It is important to resist Trump’s conservative policies from day one and to make it clear across the world that his policies are discriminatory,” he said.
This article first appeared on www.GroundUp.org.za, on 21 January 2017.
