Demanding Representation for Women

Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge is a South African Quaker who has been imprisoned three times in her fight against apartheid. She spent one year in solitary confinement for her activism. 

“It wasn’t easy because I had a young child and we were separated. I couldn’t hold him in my arms. But I think what kept me going was the belief that I was contributing to something that would change for our people: demanding that we get a better education, demanding that we get the right to vote, demanding that we were citizens in our country. And as somebody who had to overcome not only racial discrimination in my country, but also gender discrimination, we demanded that women should be present in large enough numbers in the peace talks, in the structures that were writing our constitution.”

— Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, 2016
Quaker, Former South African Deputy Minister of Defence and Deputy Minister of Health