What Did Pass Laws Do
[2] africanhistory.about.com/library/bl/blsalaws.htm black Africans had already tried to abolish passport laws, but none had succeeded. [See in this database, “South Africans Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign 1952-1953”).] In 1960, the African National Congress (ANC) decided to launch a campaign to free South Africa from these laws. Shortly thereafter, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) announced that it would also work towards this goal. Their plan was to encourage people to go to police stations without their passports to fill the Sharpeville prison with arrested resistance fighters. The first time passport documents were used to restrict the movement of non-European South Africans was in the early 1800s. However, Cape slaves had been required to carry passports since 1709. During the first British occupation of the southern tip of Africa in 1795 and the abolition of slavery in 1808, Cape farmers lacked labor. Until then, Dutch farmers employed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) delivered fresh food to visiting slave workers to resupply the supply station. They could still sell slaves in the colony, but they were forbidden to import new slaves. The settlers and the government turned to the indigenous Khoikhoi people to fill the labour shortage.
To do this, laws were passed, including the Land Act of 1913, the Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, and the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, all of which were created to separate races. As these demands and beliefs have changed, so have the rights of the black population in South Africa. When passport laws were implemented at the turn of the century, “they encouraged the influx of labor into `white` agriculture and industry and the redistribution of labor to geographic areas where it was needed.” [3]: 182 This process lasted until the 1950s, when the government decided to change the paradigm. This means that “since 1950, passport laws have openly focused on exclusion and aimed at moving Africans from `white` areas and containing them in bantustans.” [3]: 182 Therefore, there has always been tension between the white and black communities in South Africa. This was the result of “efforts to use the passport system to balance the security and work needs of whites,” while creating laws that would control “African employment, housing, access to land, and citizenship.” [3]: 182 Under these laws, “more than 17,745,000 Africans were arrested or prosecuted” between 1916 and 1984. [3]: 181 African police allowed whites to maintain their dominance over the black population for most of the 20th century. The response of thousands of African women to the new passport law has been unprecedented. Many had never been involved in protests or political demonstrations before. The activism of women, the degree of organization in urban areas and the ease with which they got rid of their expected subordinate role came as a shock to the authorities, many men and even some of the women themselves. Cape slaves were forced to carry passports.
This has made it easier for their owners and local authorities to control their movements. In 1896, the Republic of South Africa introduced two passport laws requiring Africans to wear a metal badge. Only those who were employed by a master were allowed to remain on the margins. Those entering a “work district” needed a special pass that allowed them to stay for three days. [2] Apartheid was a system of racial segregation imposed by the South African government between 1948 and 1994. Under apartheid, the rights and freedoms of non-white South Africans were restricted by the adoption of laws and policies that included movement, education, health care and access to public services. [2] Passport laws were designed to restrict the freedom of movement of Africans – men. The planned extension of these laws to African women meant that, for the first time, they would become direct targets of white power.
Before then, the government could claim that it kept African women in the countryside to do subsistence work and breed, but the reality was that difficulties in rural areas pushed many African women to migrate to the cities. It took the apartheid government 12 years to pass the law it announced in 1950. The government had been delayed by three years due to opposition from women, and implementation of the law was difficult to extend for a decade. It was not until February 1, 1963 that the government was able to announce that all South African women had to hold the passport they had fought against for so long. The Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) launched an anti-passport campaign in 1943. In March 1944, labour activist Josie Palmer convened the Women`s Anti-Pass Conference in Johannesburg. In 1945, the Urban Consolidation Act was passed, further restricting the freedoms of black South Africans. At the 1947 International Women`s Day meeting in Johannesburg, CPHA decided to create a “Women`s Organization Without a Coloured Bar”. The Transvaal All-Women`s Union was born and changed its name to the Union of South African Women in 1949. It never became a national group, but Palmer later helped found the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW). The focus was not only on how to control change over time, but also who you can control. Initially, and “historically, the use of passports in South Africa was seen as a form of control over men`s work.” [5] This happened because “whenever attempts were made to extend the system to black women, mass protests quickly followed.” [5] The vehement opposition to passport laws is not surprising, given that “black women in South Africa have traditionally played a more active role in mass popular protests” than men.
[5]:1 The largest protest was a phenomenon that “occurred in the 1950s, when black women across the country fiercely opposed official efforts to make them carry passports for the first time.” [5]:1 The history of the application of passport laws to women was associated with the belief that they would benefit the black female population. The “city authorities argued that women`s passports were necessary to combat illegal brewing and prostitution.” [5]: 77 They hypothesized that if a woman could prove that she earns an honest living from legal employment, she would not be allowed to engage in illegal activities because she would be deported. [5]: 77 This system proved useless, as it was easier for women engaged in illegal practices to circumvent the law than for homeworkers. [5]: 77–78 Whatever the reasons and persons involved in these laws, they could never really be justified and could only be seen as a plan to control the black population in South Africa. In urban areas, women`s anti-pass campaigns were mainly organized by the Women`s League of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Non-Racial Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW, or FSAW). FEDSAW was founded in 1954. It was the first attempt to found a broad-based women`s organization, without any particular political affiliation, although it was supported by some political organizations, secret and different: the Communist Party (banned in 1950) and the ANC (banned in 1960). 146 delegates, representing 230,000 women from all regions of South Africa, attended FEDSAW`s founding conference and pledged their support for the Congress Alliance`s general campaigns.
In rural areas, opposition to passport laws was largely spontaneous. [7] Predictably, the government claimed that the riots were due to the work of “outside agitators,” but rural women acted largely on their own initiative and according to their own understanding of how the expansion of passport laws would affect their lives. Although women working in urban areas brought new tactics, ideas and information to their return to the reserves, they simply contributed to a dynamic that had built up on its own. Under apartheid, passport laws were developed to control the movements of black Africans, and they are considered one of the worst methods used by the South African government to support apartheid. On March 28, the ANC launched a demonstration and strike to draw attention to the Sharpeville massacre. To emphasize their opposition to the passes, protesters began publicly burning them in campfires. [4] Schmidt, E. S. (1982). Now you have touched women: the resistance of African women against passport laws in South Africa, 1950-1960. Retrieved by ipoaa.com/south_african_women_pass_laws.htm Colloquially, passports were often referred to as dompas, which literally means “silent passport” or national passport.