"We call for the national prosecutions to appeal this sentence... and do it for our society."

The five-year jail sentence handed down to paralympian Oscar Pistorius signalled a sad day for women in South Africa, the ANCWL said on Tuesday.

"We are saddened by the judgment... we have never been happy with the conviction of culpable homicide, instead of murder," African National Congress Womens League spokeswoman Jacqui Mofokeng said outside court.

"We call for the national prosecutions to appeal this sentence... and do it for our society."

She said Pistorius could be out within 18 months.

"If he serves 18 months he could be out soon after that, while Reeva is not here... women are saddened by this."

Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to five years in jail for the culpable homicide of Reeva Steenkamp.

For discharging a firearm at Tasha's restaurant he was sentenced to three years in jail, suspended for five years.

Both sentences would run concurrently.

On September 12, Masipa found Pistorius guilty of the culpable homicide of model and law graduate Steenkamp, but not guilty of her murder.

Pistorius had claimed he thought there was a burglar in his toilet when he fired four shots through the locked door in the early hours of February 14 last year, killing Steenkamp.

Masipa found Pistorius guilty of discharging a firearm in public, when he shot from his friend Darren Fresco's Glock pistol under a table at Tasha's restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.

Pistorius was found not guilty on two firearms-related charges -- illegal possession of ammunition, and shooting through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012.