The series Women Representatives contains material from the Meeting of the Women Representatives of Participating Parties in the Multi-party Negotiation Forum on the 26 and 31 March 1993. These meetings framed the terms on which women were included in the Multi-Party Negotiation Process (MPNP). 

On the 18 March 1993 Constitutional Committee, during discussions on the structure and composition of the negotiation process, determined that all parties and organisations participating in the negotiation process should submit “a female representative” to attend a meeting. There was a noted lack of women participating in the MPNP; the meeting was to establish the views of women on the form of their participation in the negotiating process going forward. 

The resulting meeting of Women Representatives recognised that during the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) the representation of women in the negotiating process had been lacking.

During CODESA, the Gender Advisory Committee (GAC) was established. GAC was to be primarily composed of women and was intended to provide for greater gender equality and representation at CODESA. GAC was able to comment and recommend alterations to text from negotiation processes occurring in CODESA however GAC did not participate directly in the negotiations themselves. GAC’s recommendations and submissions received no feedback from the CODESA 2 Plenary. 

Recommendations made by the Meeting of Women Representatives included that all delegations to the Multi-Party Negotiation Forum and future plenaries should be required to include women rather than continue with an auxiliary structure such as GAC. This recommendation and others were accepted by the Negotiating Council to ensure that women would be active participants in the negotiation process going forward.