The position of the South African woman has been part of inequality, political and socially degrading. The rise of her position to be recognized by government has been a journey. The road that has been from abusive relationships let alone to have a legislation that is imposing on their rights to access land such as customary rights. Gender inequalities are involved in all aspects of the society. One of the key challenges will be to address gender inequalities with regard to ownership, allocation, access and use of land. There are enormous amount of challenges that women more
precisely rural women in South Africa are faced with, being vulnerable position of domestic abuse by their spouse because of lack of education and the plight and burden of poverty seems to be in their caring hands. Caring for those with HIV/AIDS, their central involvement in food security planning and management in general deserve more prominence in policy making. HIV/AIDS as a crisis has worsened the situation and the discriminatory practices have increased evictions of women by their status. Secure tenure would by chance be a mitigating factor for those women affected by this pandemic. It would assist those widowed by conflicts who meet legal or customary discriminate against widows inheriting land.
Critical theory is open to the exploration of all referents, historical and future-imagined and therefore must consider the range of different threats associated with them. If we imagine referents, the potential of new identities are particularly significant for critical theory because herein lies the possibility of the future reality security, community and emancipation in world politics. Critical discourse develops to a transcendental argument along the lines that, given that knowledge is possible and meaningful, structures, generative mechanisms, practices and a discourse may be an important part of reality. Society is both the ever-present material cause and the continually reproduced outcome of human agency. Important concern are sheared, exposing how power works, uncovering the role gender, giving a voice to those who are silenced in world politics, seeking to understand the general from the particular, and having a political orientation towards emancipation. Therefore gender must be a central theme on every critical theory of security. A critical security study is a self-conscious approach to theorizing about security issues that emerged in the 1990’s. This has symbolized the fact that the states are moving away from military discourse as the only security mechanism by states and that are a threat to their citizens. But since then there is more security issues that have risen in the global order. It aims at both theoretical re-conceptualizations of what ‘security’ is as well as empirical investigations of whether conventional security enhancing practices actually deliver. In the feminist perspective and theories they suggest that gender must be central theme of any critical theory of security. And thus issues that relate to gender and security or insecurity should not be ghettoized within feminist theorizing, and critical perspective should play whatever part they can in avoiding this outcome. Gender and feminist perspectives are important to law and the legislations to combat any level of discrimination.
The African National Congress (ANC) as a dominant party in government stressed out in the 1994 RDP programme that it will aim to fulfil a constitutional duty for restitution and redistribute land to previously disadvantaged groups. Their programme of action is a positive reflection on the significance of the land restitution since the end of apartheid. This could imply those women’s land rights and their priorities in full control and ownership of land if not through communal land will be delayed. The deadline that is imposed by the government by 2014 is hampered at present by the fact that budget allocation for land reform is a problem. The Deputy-General of land claims commission Mr. Thozi Gwanya, recently stated that the DLA has not enough funds to buy land for redistribution. It appears that the DLA is lacking behind in capital of about R2,5 billion needed to be able to reach their target of 30% land redistribution. Although there is much evidence within the land reform policy programme one such as the Promotion of Women’s Access to Land (PWAL) and LARP projects to promote their access to land and the rights they have in regard to poverty and security of tenure. It establishes a framework and methods to promote women’s access to land with a critical analysis and to assess gender approach on land and agrarian. The important issue to tackle is that women in South Africa do not have a full backing from the government on the ground in regard to rights to access of land it is not yet visible. There appeared to be no data available that shows how many women managed NGO’s have benefited from the land claims policies. It is clear that their priorities won’t be fulfilled until the South African government together with the department of land affairs have successfully made progress in the restitution and redistribution of communal land to those previously disadvantaged groups have been settled.
