In August this year, the NCG is focusing in particular on HPV vaccination and the treatment of cervical cancer.
All women from the age of 11 are invited to get vaccinated against HPV at the Medical Care Center. HPV can cause cervical cancer. Every year, 13,000 cases are diagnosed in South Africa and 4,000 women die from it each year. Black women are affected twice as often as white women – often unnecessarily. This is because early diagnosis and preventative measures such as vaccinations can easily reduce the risk considerably.
In South Africa, the month of August is Women’s Month. August 9 is the anniversary of the Women’s March to demonstrate against the 1956 planned changes to the passport laws. These pass laws included work documents with regional restrictions and severe penalties for violations. 20,000 women left packs with over 100,000 signatures at the door of the Prime Minister’s office. The demonstrators stood silently in front of the building for 30 minutes. The women sang a protest song that had been written for the occasion: Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo! Uzokufa!
Since then, this phrase in the form You strike a woman, you strike a rock (“When you strike a woman, you strike a rock”) has stood for the courage and strength of women in South Africa. The 1956 march was a turning point in the role of women in the struggle for freedom and society as a whole. Even though the role of women has not been fully equalized since then. Nowadays, they still have to face various challenges, in particular gender-specific, often domestic violence is an omnipresent issue. Women’s health is not given the same priority as that of men or children.
The Ndlovu Care Group is fighting against this paradigm.
