Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, was born on November 3, 1955 in South Africa. In 1980, she graduated from the National University of Lesotho with a degree in social sciences. Afterward, she returned home and taught in a high school. In 2005, nominated by President, Mbeki’s, she became the first woman taking the place of vice-president of South Africa. It is also highest ranking official taken by women in the history of South Africa. Today, Ngcuka is the Executive Director of UN Women, taking over the resignation of the first Executive Director of UN Women, Michele Bachelet. Ngcuka has great experience in the women’s movement and gender equality.
Reasons of supporting gender equality
Her mother is an important person for Ngcuka to develop her responsibility to social justice, and gender equality. Her mother was a nurse in community and she understood women’s health is very important to the health of society as a whole. Therefore, her mother was determined to express her views and had a great inspiration on Ngcuka. When Ngcuka was very young, her parents had already told Ngcuka that everyone has their own value, which gave Ngcuka social responsibility and a sense of justice. Because of their inspiration and support, Ngcuka had the courage to get into politics, ending apartheid policy. So, when there were social injustice and gender inequality, Ngcuka think she had the responsibility to tackle the problems under the influence of her parents.
Ngcuka had experienced apartheid struggle and she knew that woman is the fundamental of social justice. In school, when she saw her classmates did not have enough food, Ngcuka will share her food to others. At that time, she was very angry because she thought that hunger should not have happened in South Africa which was a rich country. Therefore, she determined to fight for human fulfillment and human freedom.
Her mother told Ngcuka inaction is not an option and encouraged her to achieve gender equality in the 21st century. On the other hand, Ngcuka think women’s participation and inclusion can make humanitarian assistance more effective, while strengthening their protection efforts as peacekeepers. Gender equality is conducive to peace negotiations and contributes to accelerate the economic recovery and help fighting against violence extremism.
Promote women’s movement and gender equality
Ngcuka served as Executive Director of UN Women. UN Women was founded in 2010 with aims to integrate the resources of United Nations in promoting women’s rights and gender equality in order to improve the efficiency of work to promote equality. Women often face violence and discrimination with the lack access to land, decent work and trust, deprivation of education and health care welfares. So in order to maintain peace, UN Women committed to improve the participation and leadership of women; improving women’s economic capacity; the elimination of violence against women; Engaging women in all aspects of peace and security process; gender equality as central to national development planning and budgeting.
On the other hand, under the leadership of Ngcuka, UN Women launched a program “HeForShe”, invite men and women all over the world come together to create a gender-equal society. It is an incentive for men and women activities towards gender equality. “HeForShe” encourages the elimination of dividing line between genders, so that gender equality can be achieved in the 21st century. Ngcuka also very concerned about the situation feminist who are being oppressed and suppressed, for example the five Chinese feminist who was arrested by Chinese government. In 2015, Ngcuka has urged Chinese President to stop oppressing women and feminist in the anniversary activity. Promoting women’s rights and gender equality were global efforts; therefore, Ngcuka has called for international concern and action about women’s rights and gender equality.
Everyone is born to equal and everyone wants to be respected, so everyone should be given the same opportunities and possibilities. Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment is not one’s effort, so everyone should take actions against injustice and fight for equality, like Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Written by Lee Long Yung