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SARU under pressure to hire more women

Cape Town - It is not often that politicians agree, but at Tuesday's parliamentary portfolio committee meeting between SA Rugby and national government the consensus was that the country's rugby body was failing in its responsibility to represent a transformed leadership group. 

And, for once, race was not the only issue. 

As SARU president Oregan Hoskins sat alongside CEO Jurie Roux, they were backed by union representatives from all over the country - all male. 

In a climate where transformation is at the top of the agenda, Hoskins was never going to get away with it. 

Committee chairperson Beauty Dlulane immediately jumped on board and questioned Hoskins as to why there were no women present. 

Dlulane was then backed by numerous politicians, who shared her sentiments. 

Hoskins said afterwards that he was not surprised by the concerns over gender representation, but did offer an explanation. 

"We've got to look seriously at gender representation in our structures at the highest level," Hoskins said. 

"It's going to be a challenge, but we're going to have to do it.

"It was discussed in our previous meeting, but we have fixed terms so we have top discuss it in our structures and see how we're going to address it going forward.

"You can't just take a member out when he's in his term and say 'we've got to replace you with a female' ... you don't do that ... it's unconstitutional."

Hoskins and Roux were also challenged once more on the "slow pace" of transformation, with Dlulane saying that it was unacceptable to still be having these discussions 21 years after democracy. 

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