By Gertrude Fester, a former commissioner of South Africa's statutory Commission for Gender Equality

While in the United States recently, I addressed women members of the US congress on promoting the participation of women in political office.

Outlining the national gender machinery introduced in the ‘‘new South Africa’’, I was at pains to highlight the many challenges that, despite these structures, continue to militate against the actualisation of gender equality.

In South Africa, these structures include the Commission on Gender Equality and the Office on the Status of Women situated in the presidency and provincial premiers’ offices.

As there are no global precedents for the Commission on Gender Equality, challenges include the effective functioning of the body itself as well as the difficulty of implementing its task to make the right to gender equality in the South African constitution a reality for women and girl children.

My concerns were greeted by a chorus of ‘‘but at least you have structures!’’ These words stayed with me. I am still confronted with the dilemma: Is it better to have these structures and policy instruments, or not?

Most states in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have signed the United Nations’ millennium declaration of September 2000. Of the eight millennium development goals (MDGs) with their deadline of 2015, three deal directly with women and girl children: promote gender equality and empower women; eradicate the gender disparity in primary education; and improve maternal health.

It is however fair to say that all of the goals and targets directly or indirectly affect the lives of women. Given the pervasive social discrepancies in access to resources and vulnerability to violence and disease, all eight goals have major implications for women and girl children’s lives.

We know that women make up the majority of the world’s poor and uneducated, and that they are the most oppressed.

What is of concern to me is that the MDGs, along with other international instruments such as the SADC regional indicative strategic development plan (RISDP), the African Union’s protocol on women’s rights and the United Nations’ Beijing Platform for Action remain unknown to the majority of people in SADC.

The signing of these policies, done publicly with great pomp and ceremony, contrasts sharply with the ignorance of populations as to how radically these development commitments could change their lives.

Social movements and civil society organisations have used the ratification of these instruments as a basis for lobbying and advocacy. While I have mixed feelings about such work, it is useful that governments could be challenged and asked to account for progress made towards goals that they have agreed to.

Unpacking the obstacles in the way of achieving the MDGs, one is confronted with deep-seated historical and current political and economic factors. Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s poorest region. Women form a substantial percentage of the poor.

Zimbabwe’s economy has been devastated and a large percentage of Angolans still suffer the aftermath of decades of civil war. The oil multinationals in Angola are thriving while the average person’s life—especially the lives of women and girl children—remain unchanged.

The global economic order does not bring anything new. Trade relations remain unfair; the poverty of the past persists and in many cases people are getting even poorer. The exceptions are the new political elites, including the new post-Beijing women politicians.

A cross-cutting concern and key obstacle to gender equity is the complex and sensitive issue of culture and tradition. In Swaziland a British-educated monarch still reigns supreme, arbitrarily selecting young virgin brides through the institution of the ‘‘reed dance’’.

Because of sheer poverty and lack of alternatives the young girls who participate are eager to be the chosen one, as has emerged from interviews. Many Swazi feminists and upset parents are exploring avenues to defy the ‘‘royal decree’’.

In South Africa with its gender-sensitive constitution, former deputy president Jacob Zuma was charged with rape but confidently related in his court testimony that he was merely fulfilling his cultural duties in sexually satisfying the complainant. He was acquitted.

Even more shocking were the large numbers of women who congregated outside the court building in support of Zuma, threatening the complainant with chants and posters saying ‘‘burn the bitch’’ because she was ‘‘disrespectful towards her elder’’.

Across South Africa, lesbians are raped and murdered by custodians of culture for their ‘‘unnatural’’ and ‘‘un-African’’ behaviour. Violence against women continues overtly and covertly, often justified by culture.

Another cross-cutting concern that affects all spheres of society is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIV/AIDS symbolises unequal gender power relations. The fastest growing infection is of young black women in the region. In interviews it emerges that young girls and married women have little control over their own bodies.

Addressing these myriad issues brings one to the usefulness of international policy instruments and the structures that result from such instruments. It has been argued that there should be a move away from the ‘numbers game’ of targets for parliamentary representation and other areas of activity.

Let’s look at the example of representation. The MDGs include the proportion of seats held by women in parliament as one indicator of gender equality. Similarly, the SADC RISDP targeted 2005 as the year when 30 percent of decision-making posts in government and state bureaucracies should be filled by women.

Looking at SADC, we see that Mozambique has 36 percent female political representation; South Africa 33 percent; Swaziland (ironically) 10.8 percent; and Botswana and Lesotho each has 11 percent. Angola is unique as women’s representation has decreased from 1997 to 2005.

One should remember that many of the post-Beijing women representatives are not necessarily promoting women’s interests. Often political party interests subsume the women’s agenda and these few women do not have a critical mass to make feminist interventions.

Many women are beholden to the very men who put them in government in the first place. Thus in SADC the reality differs from the political rhetoric. The indigenous patriarchal culture and the increasing fundamentalism of all religions threaten to erode the gains women have made.

The figures do not indicate substantive equality. But the goals and targets do give some indication of progress made. The SADC RISDP’s 30 percent goal has come and gone without being achieved. Does the same fate await the noble aims of the MDGs on gender equality, maternal mortality and the six others? The signs certainly are there.