National Women's Day in South Africa

The United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day in 1975, the year which was announced to be the International Women’s Year. Women's Day in South Africa is celebrated on 9 August each year and it is a public holiday. The month of August has become known as Women's Month. The first National Women's Day was celebrated on 9 August 1995.

The day commemorates the 1956 march of approximately 20,000 women to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to petition against the country's pass laws that required South Africans defined as "black" under The Population Registration Act to carry an internal passport, known as a passbook, that served to maintain population segregation, control urbanisation, and manage migrant labour during the apartheid era.