Judge Portia Nkutha-Nkontwana – Labour Appeal Court – Justice Always

Womanity - Women in Unity

This week on Womanity-Women in Unity, for our series on women in the judiciary, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Judge Portia Nkutha-Nkontwana from the Labour Appeal Court. Judge Nkutha-Nkontwana shares how family meetings, where the household were called to “The Table” to resolve challenges or mete out discipline introduced her to dispute resolution and gave a foundation to her career in labour law. Law and legislation have been, and are, powerful tools to advance women’s rights. We discuss some of the important equality gains that women have attained. For example, access to equal education. Judge Nkutha-Nkontwana narrates a personal experience of when she started studying law, her professor complained that there were too many women in his class which caused many of them to deregister from law and pursue alternative studies. The second element we discuss is having female role models in your profession. They provide visibility of what is possible. The third aspect is policy changes and instituting deliberate legislation to change gender imbalances in institutions. For example, we now see greater representation of women on boards and in executive positions, where they occupy decision making roles. It is important that we recognise gains can be lost, and in order to uphold women’s rights we need all stakeholders in the legal justice chain to play their part. Happy Women’s Day. Tune in for more….