Rajesh Jantilal / AFP
The organisation, Gender Links, says while democracy was the big winner in the watershed elections earlier this year, the gains made for gender equality took a knock.
In a report released Wednesday, Gender Links said while women constituted the majority of voters, they remained under-represented in virtually all areas of political decision-making.
The organisation said women in the government of national unity now constitute 43% of parliamentarians, which is three percentage points down from the last administration.
The report noted that South Africa also dropped from 12th to 22nd place in the global ranking of women's political participation and in the SADEC region South Africa dropped from first to third place, with Namibia leading the way, followed by Mozambique.
The Gender Links report said that the ANC was one of the few political parties that has implemented a 50-50 quota for women. This, combined with the Proportional Representation (PR) system at national and provincial level has helped to guarantee a high level of women's representation.
“There is therefore a strong correlation between the ANC's performance in elections, and women's representation.
“Ironically, women now comprise the majority of the ANC parliamentarians, at 53%, but the overall drop in the ANC's majority contributed significantly to the decline in women's representation,” the report stated.
The Economic Freedom Front (EFF), a breakaway from the ANC, also surpassed the fifty percent mark, with 54% of its parliamentarians being women.
Five smaller parties have 50% or more women.
These include Patricia de Lille's GOOD Party (which won just one seat, a woman), Build One South Africa (BOSA), the African Transformation Movement (ATM), and the Patriotic Alliance (PA).
GOOD is the only South African political party led by a woman.
Other more "conservative parties" did not observe the principle of equality, in particular, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) have 32% and 34% women, respectively.
The IFP has just 29% women in parliament while six small parties, with one to three seats, have no women at all.
The report, produced by Susan Tolmay, Susan Mohari and Colleen Lowe Morna, can be accessed here: V&C_SAElectionsAudit2024fin2 (genderlinks.org.za)
