Calls for anti-nuke protest to protect women and children

The organisation said on Tuesday that the anti-nuke protest would form part of its 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign.

Earthlife Africa Senior Programmes Officer Makoma Lekalakala said that around 100 women from the organisation’s community partner organisations would participate in the protest on Thursday.

The women would march to the Department of Energy in Pretoria to “demand to know why the Minister of Energy, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, a woman, is playing a leading role in South Africa’s most expensive and unconstitutional procurement to date – that of nuclear energy”.

Lekalakala said the women would argue that as primary managers of electricity in their households they would be “most affected by this senseless procurement” as nuclear power would make “electricity unaffordable for the majority of South African women”.

Lekalakala said this “amounts to nothing less than violence against women and children”.

Lekalakala added: “Earthlife Africa Johannesburg has taken legal action against the Minister of Energy for her unlawful involvement in the nuclear procurement programme and women from community organisations support that action.”

Recalling the disastrous fallout of the tsunami’s aftermath in Japan that affected Fukushima and resulted in a nuclear fall-out that affected women and children, Lerato Margele, Earthlife Africa Programme Officer said such a tragedy “should never be allowed to happen again, especially when there are safer and cheaper renewable sources of energy available”.

“During this important week of activism for the rights of women and children, we need to consider the legacy that nuclear power will leave for future generations. A legacy of debt and dangerous radioactive waste,” said Lekalakala. - ANA

(File photo: Getty Images)