Women

The AAM Women’s Committee campaigned to ensure that individual women political prisoners were not forgotten. This leaflet gave details of the sentences of six women prisoners and asked people to write to the South African ambassador in London, the British Foreign Secretary and the British Red Cross calling for their release.

Set of postcards illustrating South African women’s resistance to apartheid, produced by Leeds Postcards for the International Defence and Aid Fund and distributed by the AAM.

T-shirt produced by the ANC Women’s Section. ANC women members in exile in Britain worked closely with the AAM Women’s Committee. Activities included highlighting the situation of women political prisoners and collecting goods for women in ANC camps and the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania.

T-shirt produced for SWAPO Women’s Council. SWAPO women members worked with the AAM Women’s Committee to collect goods needed by women living in SWAPO camps in Angola.

Pauline Webb was a Methodist minister who began her career in the church’s Overseas Division and worked for the Methodist Missionary Society. In 1968 she attended the seminal Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Uppsala, Sweden, which led to the setting up of the Programme to Combat Racism. She served as Vice-Moderator of the WCC and later became Head of Religious Programmes at the BBC World Service. She was a strong supporter of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and spoke at numerous meetings and conferences, including the AAM’s first women’s conference in 1976.  

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the Forward to Freedom history project in 2013.

Chitra Karve was an Anti-Apartheid Movement staff member from 1986 to 1989 and helped organise the 1988 Nelson Mandela: Freedom at 70 campaign. She was a member of the AAM Women’s and Black Solidarity Committees, and was Chair of the latter. After the formation of Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) in 1994 Chitra was elected to ACTSA’s Executive Committee. She is currently Chair of ACTSA.

This is a complete transcript of an interview carried out as part of the Forward to Freedom history project in 2014.

Chitra Karve was an Anti-Apartheid Movement staff member from 1986 to 1989 and helped organise the 1988 Nelson Mandela: Freedom at 70 campaign. She was a member of the AAM Women’s and Black Solidarity Committees, and was Chair of the latter. After the formation of Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) in 1994 Chitra was elected to ACTSA’s Executive Committee. She is currently Chair of ACTSA.

In this clip she recalls how the AAM Women’s Committee publicised the role played by women in opposition to apartheid within South Africa.