Bill raises gay alarm

31 January 2014 - 02:27 By APHIWE DEKLERK
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The Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill has been criticised in parliament for not making provision for the advancement of gays and lesbians in the workplace.

This emerged yesterday during the second day of public hearings on the bill, which is being sponsored by the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities.

The bill - which was tabled late last year - is intended to enforce a 50% representation of women in senior and top management in the private and public sectors.

The Legal Resources Centre and the Triangle Project - the latter an organisation that campaigns against discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and other sexual minorities - object to the bill's definition of "gender" as unconstitutional.

"The bill . should not limit issues of gender equality and inequality as being issues between men and women, and girls and boys," said the Legal Resource Centre in its submission.

The centre said that under the constitution the definition of gender was much broader than a mere reference to "women, men, girls and boys".

"The constitution is inclusive, and its protection and obligations extend to women, men, girls, boys, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals, as well as to intersex persons," its submission said.

Speaking in motivation of the centre's application, Cape Town attorney Charlene May said: "We submit that, if this belief system was the foundation of the formulation of the content of the bill, then the bill is not only flawed but unconstitutional, as it discriminates in its application to sexual minorities."

The Triangle Project weighed in by saying that the bill relied on the "normative binary that organises people into two mutually exclusive categories, that of 'male' and 'female'."

The director of the project, Leslie Liddell, said the group wanted to eradicate all forms of discrimination and violence.

"The definition of gender in this bill is different from the definition in existing and pending legislation," Liddell said.

The minister, Lulu Xingwana, attended the public hearings and acknowledged the criticism.

She said her department would prepare a full response .

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