There is no better honour than this augurs occasion as we commemorate Women’s Month, a month that makes us reflect upon our successes and challenges towards realising full gender equality in our country.

Importantly so, we are meeting today against the background of the Poverty Trends Report in South Africa for the period 2006 and 2015, released by Statistics South Africa last week on Tuesday, 22 August 2017. The report shows that despite the general decline in poverty between 2006 and 2011, poverty levels rose in 2015. More than half of South Africans were poor in 2015, with the poverty headcount increasing to 55.5% from 53.2% in 2011.

Coupled with this you will be aware of our own artisan tracer study we have commissioned in partnership with the Swiss-South African Cooperation Initiative (SSACI) which revealed that 79% of our artisans are employable (as 73% find employment and 6% are self-employed), this also confirms other same or similar studies previously commissioned, including but not limited to those by the Human Sciences Research Council.

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