Women’s Month commemoration
In this week’s episode of Special Assignment, Special Assignment tracks down and speaks three of the first group of eight female students who fled the country in July 1976. They are some of our lesser known struggle heroines, but who worked behind the scenes to bring down apartheid. 1976 was a turning point in the country’s history, the year in which black students, defied their parents’ wishes and took a stand against apartheid. Many of them fled through South Africa’s borders into neighbouring countries where they joined the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Although they were mere teenagers when they left South Africa, they were prepared to sacrifice everything dear to them to help defeat apartheid and liberate South Africa. None of them knew if they would ever see their families again.
These women recount their brave tales of how they exchanged the comforts of an ordinary life for a life at the forefront of the struggle. These are some of the many South African women who were instrumental in the struggle against Apartheid and this documentary commemorates all of them, as we mark 60 years since women marched to parliament in protest of the pass laws and 40 years since the 1976 student uprising.
Watch “Who is to be Blamed?” produced by Lindile Mpanza, on Special Assignment – airing Wednesdays on SABC 3 at 21h30.
