Women must use their power - Dlamini-Zuma

2012-08-04 22:42

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (Foto24)

Bloemfontein - The African Union should not only bring governments and parliamentarians together, newly appointed African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Saturday.

"It has to bring together African citizens to be part of the driving force… it has to be driven by its own citizens," said Dlamini-Zuma, who was also South Africa's home affairs minister.

She said Africans must become the change they want to see on the continent.

"We must as women in South Africa in particular, and women of Africa in general, embrace the African Union Decade of Women, declared as such by African Heads of State and Government in 2010."

Dlamini-Zuma asked hundreds of ANC Women's League members what they expected the Women's Decade.

"It must be our responsibility to define and implement the changes we want to see," she told the women gathered in Bloemfontein to hear a lecture on ANC stalwart, Charlotte Maxeke.

Dlamini-Zuma addressed the gathering before President Jacob Zuma delivered the lecture.

She said African women have the power in terms of numbers.

"If the continent's population was one billion, it means just over half a billion are women."

She said women have the power to influence many issues in the continent.

- SAPA