The law has sparked angry debate in this West African country, with some women expressing worries about taking on joint responsibility for family affairs.

According to the new law, passed on Nov. 21, families are now to be managed jointly by both spouses, who are together responsible for the moral and material care of the household. Under the previous law, the husband was designated as the sole head of the family.

The new law also specifies that both spouses should contribute to the costs of running a household in proportion to their ability. A partner who fails to comply can be forced to do so by the courts.

“This law’s got nothing to do with me. It is contrary to how we do it in my tradition (in the east of the country),” said Sandrine Ebin, an executive secretary who now lives with her husband in Abidjan, the Ivorian economic capital.

“For us, the custom is that it is a man who marries a woman and brings her into his house; and she submits to her husband. To now ask that we should be equal in the household threatens our morals. At my house, my husband will remain the boss,” she told IPS.

Mariam Tiené, an Abidjan trader originally from the north of the country, shares this opinion. “I’m already just one of three wives in a customary marriage, each of us struggling to get a civil marriage certificate. If I were to claim new status under this new law, for sure my husband would divorce me. I don’t want that,” she told IPS.

Constance Yaï, a former minister and a standard bearer for women’s emancipation during the 1990s, has no patience with views like these.

“I don’t want to deal with women who are against the new law,” she said. “For many of them, it is convenient to get married and be taken care of. There’s a class of women who are content with this situation. Frankly, I’m not fighting for them.”

The draft law was the source of sharp conflict between the ruling Rally of the Republicans (RDR) party and its ally, the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI). An amendment put forward by the PDCI which sought to retain a man’s status as head of household led to the dissolution of the government on Nov. 14. The amendment was eventually withdrawn and the government was re-formed after the marriage law was passed.

“To strip the Family Code of the idea that there is a head of the household is not necessarily going to lead to greater rights for women,” warned legislator Yasmina Ouégnin, who voted against the law. “It is good to remember that our entire civilisation is built around a chief who must be respected.”

Hervé Yaoua, a public works engineer in Abidjan, is sympathetic. “What this law demands is co-management of the family. When they say that a man and a woman must become one, it’s to say that the woman too has the capacity to support the couple. That is what has been formalised,” he said.

His wife, Edwige, added that women have always taken on joint responsibility for a family’s morals, but she’s worried about the financial implications of the new law. “Women don’t want to contribute to expenses. That’s all!” she told IPS.

El Hadj Ibrahim Diarra, imam of a mosque in Agboville, in the south of the country, said “Islam does not allow the woman to jointly run the home with the man. It’s the man who is the sole head and that must remain so. It’s God’s law that says this and it is not for human beings to change it.”

Maxime Zoh, a pastor of a protestant church in Adjamé, in the centre of Abidjan, is also categorical: “In the absence of a man, a woman can be responsible for – but not the head of – the family. God has entrusted the home to the man, but not to the two.”

Abidjan lawyer Simone Assa is worried by responses like these and calls for work to raise awareness about the new legislation. “The law will need to be carefully explained and understood, because it could destabilise families. There is nothing binding at the root of this law; there are simply measures taken in the interest of the family,” she told IPS.

Minister for Solidarity, the Family, Women and Children Anne Désiré Ouloto explained her view. “With the new law, the woman is no longer simply a helpmeet for her husband in the running of a household. She doesn’t have to wait until her husband is absent or indisposed to step in. Shared responsibility is a source of balance for a couple.”

Cassava is an important staple food in this West African country according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, second only to yams, a similar starchy tuber.

Farmers in the southern and eastern parts of the country have taken up three high-yielding varieties of cassava, known as Bocou 1, 2 and 3, which are resistant to disease and pests, according to Boni N’zué, the coordinator of the Cassava Project, an initiative launched in 2008 by the country’s National Centre for Agricultural Research.

“They can produce 32 to 34 tonnes per hectare per year, compared to five tonnes per hectare from traditional cassava varieties,” he told IPS. 

Eight years ago, when her family’s 10 hectare landholding in the southern village of Dabou was divided up, Henriette Adou was allocated a one-hectare plot. The 35-year-old farmer began cultivating it, but when her efforts in the 2007-2008 season produced a harvest of less than three tonnes, she gave up farming for a year.

“But friends advised me to switch to the new cassava varieties and I tried them out in 2009-2010. The results have been even better than I hoped,” Adou told IPS.

Her 2010 harvest of the Bocou 1 variety amounted to 33 tonnes. In 2011 she planted both Bocou 1 and 2 and harvested more than 65 tonnes. With cassava selling for around 48 dollars per tonne, her income came to 3,000 dollars last year.

Now Adou is thinking about expanding her field. “I asked my brothers to let me farm another hectare, but only one of them agreed. The others refused, saying that I’m not entitled to any more than what I got when the land was divided up,” she said.

Before leaving for the fields, Adou told IPS she had put money aside for a house which she hopes to finish building after the sale of her harvest next year. “I’m putting it up at my own pace because I’ve become the head of the family,” she said with a smile.

Her ambitions go beyond simply selling more cassava. Adou wants to set up an operation to process and market various cassava products, especially attiéké – a popular food in Côte d’Ivoire and neighbouring countries for which a pungent, tasty fufu is made by peeling, boiling and fermenting cassava, which is then drained, dried and steamed.

“I hope to get started processing cassava within the next two years,” she told IPS.

Albertine Niamien, 37, is already further along that road. A member of the Association of Women Attiéké Producers (APAD), she also attributes her good fortune to new cassava varieties.

“It’s three years now since I started planting Bocou 1 and 2. When I took over three hectares of family land, everyone supported me. We trained two teams of five – some to work on processing and others on marketing,” Niamien told IPS.

She told IPS that her annual income, which ranges between 4,000 and 8,000 dollars, has allowed her to cover essential needs for the ten members of her family.

APAD has more than 150 members, according to its president, Véronique Lathe. She is in charge of raising awareness for a cooperative of women, with the aim of meeting the challenge of maintaining quality and moving towards greater industrialisation of attiéké production.

“There are more than a thousand women growing cassava and making attiéké. They need to join the association,” Lathe said. “They will soon see that we’ll achieve significant sales which will allow us to be independent.”

At Abengourou, in the east of the country, Florence N’dri, 40, and Cécile Adjoua, 41, are among the 3,000 growers of the new cassava varieties, who sell almost all of their output to a foreign-owned business that has set up in Côte d’Ivoire.

The two women are each cultivating just half a hectare, producing a yield of around 20 tonnes. “This small harvest brought in about 400,000 CFA francs (800 dollars). It’s not yet enough, but I have managed to save a bit of money,” N’dri told IPS.

Three years ago, the producers in the region harvested a total of 25,000 tonnes of cassava. In 2011, their collective output was 32,000 tonnes, worth about 1.5 million dollars. Three quarters of the output was sold to the foreign business, and the rest on the local market.

“The guarantee of having a market is very motivating. Now, we’re fighting so that our husbands and parents will grant us larger plots,” said Adjoua, whose spouse is eyeing her land to extend his rubber plantation.

More than a year after Alassane Ouattara became president, heavily armed men are still a common sight in the streets of Abidjan and other parts of the western, central and eastern regions of the country.

In Abobo, Adjamé and Yopougon, three large districts of Abidjan, soldiers wearing a variety of uniforms – presented variously by the authorities as demobilised fighters or regular army troops – control traffic and carry out routine checks.

But these soldiers also unnerve residents with their uncontrolled use of weapons. For example on Jul. 24, a confrontation between military police and members of the FRCI, the regular army, led to three deaths. And in March, a young man was murdered in the street in the same areas by soldiers demanding 600 CFA francs (equivalent to around 1.20 dollars).

During a traffic stop in Yopougon on Jul. 27, FRCI troops fired on a taxi whose driver had refused to follow their orders. Three passengers were seriously injured, according to witnesses.

Two days later, in Abengourou, in the east of the country, another taxi was shot at by armed men, leading to five casualties, according to hospital sources.

These fighters carry out systematic raids, make arrests, and detain people for long periods, says the Ivorian Human Rights League (LIDHO), a non-governmental organisation based in Abidjan.

“What’s worrying is that these soldiers don’t seem to answer to a chain of command. Their actions can no longer be considered isolated incidents, since such things have occurred repeatedly,” said René Hokou Legré, president of LIDHO.

Since December 2011, the FRCI and the dozos – traditional hunters who have supported the regular army – have been blamed by many for killing innocent people.

The FRCI killed six people following an altercation between a soldier and a civilian last December in Vavoua, in the west central region of the country. A week later, soldiers killed four in the southern town of Sikensi, in nearly identical circumstances.

In mid-February 2012, confrontations between the FRCI and residents of the eastern county of Arrah led to a dozen deaths, of mainly civilians; community members are now demanding that the soldiers leave the area.

“Everyone must understand that private justice is unacceptable in a state of law. Recourse to the legal authorities remains the legitimate way to resolve all differences, no matter their nature,” said Yacouba Doumbia, interim president of the Ivorian Human Rights Movement (MIDH), based in Abidjan.

Perhaps the most worrying single incident took place in the western town of Duékoué on Jul. 20. In apparent reprisal for the murder of four people during a robbery in an ethnic Malinké neighbourhood of the town, a group launched an attack on a displaced persons camp mostly inhabited by members of the Guéré ethnic group. Officially, 11 people were killed, several of them shot to death.

Human rights organisations have blamed dozo traditional hunters, FRCI soldiers and a lack of a response by United Nations peacekeepers stationed in the town.

On national television on Jul. 22, the defense minister, Paul Koffi Koffi, said that ex-members of a militia that supported the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, were living in the camp, and regularly left it to commit abuses.

Abidjan-based political scientist Marcellin Tanon said he sees a kind of “carelessness” on the part of the authorities. “Each time, the government has tried to justify abusive acts and clear the armed forces of blame. So the soldiers act with complete impunity and the events in Duékoué must be considered the culmination of a series of impunities.”

Tanon believes the situation is due to the failure of a disarmament process for combatants in various conflicts going back to the 2002 rebellion which divided the country for nearly a decade.

His view is shared by Maurice Zagol, another political scientist based in Abidjan. “The problem presented by these soldiers, who helped President Ouattara to come to power, is a complex one. To use force to fight them would open the way for another rebellion,” Zagol told IPS.

“Still, we must carry out a complete disarmament of ex-combatants, because in the long term we have to fear the population will become fed up and start to doubt the legitimacy of the new regime,” said Zagol.

Interviewed by phone, defence ministry spokesperson Captain Léon Allah insisted that the army high command was taking all necessary steps to resolve the problem of circulation of arms and the strong presence of soldiers in the streets.

The women were found guilty of excising thirty girls aged between 10 and 15 in February. They were each sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay a fine equivalent to roughly 100 dollars.

“We have been waiting a long time for a boost in the fight against this scourge,” said Rachel Gogoua in the Ivorian economic capital, Abidjan, where she heads the National Organisation for Children, Women and the Family (ONEF), a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against FGM.

“The time for awareness-raising is over: now we need to sanction perpetrators.”

The Katiola court handed down the sentences on Jul 18, but in view of the women’s ages – ranging between 46 and 91 years old – decided none will actually have to spend time in prison. Gogoua told IPS she feels the convicted women should serve at least a token amount of jail time to drive home the message to others still practicing excision in many parts of the country.

“The law forbidding these practices was passed in 1998 and we have carried out extensive public education about it. In the end, we have to realise that these women are making fools of us. They are well aware of the law, but they defied it under the pretext of customary practice and tradition,” said Gogoua.

Despite the 1998 law, genital mutilation is still widespread in Côte d’Ivoire, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Based on surveys carried out in 2006, UNICEF estimates that 36 percent of Ivorian women have undergone excision, making it one of the worst affected countries in Africa.

Female genital mutilation is the complete or partial removal of the external genitals of a woman, according to the World Health Organization. This can involve the vulva, the major and minor labia, the clitoris, as well as the urinary and vaginal tracts.

The practice is most common in the northern and northwestern parts of the country, where nearly 88 percent of women are affected, and in the west, where the prevalence rate is 73 percent, according to UNICEF.

Massandjé Timité, 33, is originally from Marandallah, in the north.

“I still feel the pain from my excision today, 15 years later,” she told IPS. “It was a terrible trauma. The wounds healed very slowly, and with each day that passed, I feared the worst.”

Timité said that to evoke tradition to justify the continuation of FGM is to make a superficial argument. “When an excision is clumsily executed, as it was in my case, no one comes to help you. Does tradition accept that a woman should lose the very thing that allows her to give life?”

Despite numerous awareness campaigns and repeated promises by excisors, FGM continues to be practiced.

“Amongst us, the Wobé (an ethnic group in the west), it’s a shameful thing to be called ‘zoégbé’ (an un-excised woman),” explained Cécile Gnowahou, 26, who went through the procedure when she was 11.

“You don’t have the right to marry and you are often ridiculed in the village. In this context, our parents hear the message, but the cultural reality overrides it. This is a custom that has existed since before our parents’ grandparents’ time,” she said.

“Excision causes much more harm than one thinks,” said Gnowahou. “Sometimes it even leads to the victim dying, yet even when these things happen, it is amicably resolved between families.”

Gnowahou’s own experience illustrates the social dilemma that FGM presents many Ivorian women with. “Not only was I unable to get married following the prolonged bleeding that I suffered, but now times have changed and any man who knows about my status as an excised woman automatically rejects me,” she said.

But she believes that if the law against female genital mutilation is applied, it would begin to reduce the prevalence of FGM.

Her sentiments were echoed by Raymonde Goudou Coffie, Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister for the Family, Women and Children, who said that the successful prosecution in Katiola is only a beginning. The minister said the law would be applied in full against practices which affront human dignity, particularly that of women.

IPS met the 28-year-old at a social centre in the south Abidjan neighbourhood of Treichville, one of a number of women there seeking help with domestic violence.

“There hasn’t been a single day in the past three months when I haven’t been insulted, threatened or struck by my husband,” said the mother of three.

“My husband tells me off for challenging him when he makes a decision that I don’t agree with. It’s humiliating and frustrating.”

Also at the Treichville centre was Céline Konan*, the light wounds on her face still open. “I was beaten twice in the space of a week – in front of the children – just because my partner was in a bad mood.”

She told IPS she also had pain in her abdomen where her husband had kicked her.

And it wasn’t Konan’s first visit to the centre: social workers had already come to her home several times, asking her partner to desist. “Unfortunately, it’s had no effect,” she said.

Another regular visitor at the centre was Juliette Téo*. “You can’t count the marks on my cheeks from slaps. Each time, I’ve lost at least two teeth,” she said.

Téo said it was her partner beat her because she complained about his infidelity. “My husband told me that he’s the head of the household and each time I cause a scene, I’ll be corrected,” she said.

In June, the International Rescue Committee, a U.S. based non-governmental organisation, published a report on domestic violence in Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone, finding that abuse including – burning, battery, rape and psychological violence – is common in all three West African countries. The report stated that more than 60 percent of women in the countries examined are survivors of violence, primarily by their intimate partners.

Gladys Marie-Angela Asso Bally, director of the Treichville centre, told IPS increasing numbers of women were coming for help. “Since the post-electoral crisis, men have become more violent in their households than in the past. From two or three cases, we’ve passed to dozens to deal with every day.”

Each week the centre does its best to offer psychological help and legal assistance to hundreds of victims of all kinds of violence.

“Because of cultural and religious norms, we are really struggling to fight against this scourge,” explained Asso Bally. “Many women are afraid to testify. They think that they will end up putting their husbands in prison or chase them out of their homes.”

Kanaté’s concerns illustrate the challenge. “Imagine if my husband was in prison,” she asked, “where would I find the means to support him and the children? And my in-laws? What will they think knowing that I was at the root of such a situation?”

The centre’s director said the other difficulty is that the relevant law, passed in 1981, which in her view is ineffective in the fight against domestic violence.

“The law asks women to provide hard evidence that they have been beaten. Or else the man must be caught in the very act of aggression in order to be prosecuted. It’s as if one is waiting for someone to die before reacting,” said Asso Bally.

In early July, Sarah Fadiga Sako, the first vice-president of the National Assembly, said the next revision of the Personal and Family Code would strengthen the legislation to support more determined efforts against the evils of domestic violence.

But Fanta Coulibaly, who heads the National Commission To Fight Against Violence Against Women and Children at the Ministry of Family, Women and Children, believes that eradicating domestic abuse requires action on several fronts.

“The phenomenon is alarming and the law alone is not enough,” said Coulibaly. “The whole population needs to work against this evil,” said Coulibaly, calling for an awareness campaign against violence in households in communities.

“It’s irresponsible for men to continue to behave like this. For me, if (putting offenders in) prison is a problem, then these people need to be sentenced to forced labour in order to educate them,” said Ferdinand Kouassi, a construction entrepreneur in Abidjan.

*Names have been changed.

Thousands of Ivorian children were separated from their parents during the post-election violence in 2011. / Kristin Palitza/IPS

Twelve-year-old Ahmed* pauses on his crutches in the narrow lane that leads from his house to the main road, glancing at the bullet holes still visible on the walls here in the Abobo Park 18 area of Abidjan. He sighs, then speeds up again to catch the bus that will take him downtown to the Adjamé quarter.

In the bag on his back, he carries soapy water, a brush, and a tin of polish, to clean and wax the shoes of his clients. “My parents gave me these supplies three weeks ago. Along with my new friends, I go out to work each day with a smile. Sometimes, I come back with enough money, but often with only a little.”

In March 2011, during Côte d’Ivoire’s post-electoral crisis, Ahmed was forced to carry ammunition for fighters in his home neighbourhood. He was drawn into the midst of a violent clash between insurgents and pro-government forces. The West African nation was shaken by six months of violence and terror when former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede power to Alassane Ouattara who won the November 2010 presidential elections. Thousands of people suffered rape, torture and other violence as a result.

“The sound of weapons was deafening. I threw myself down and cried,” he told IPS. “Then I was hit on my left leg, which later had to be amputated.”

Ahmed has since dropped out of school, and he’s starting to get used to his new life, working as a shoeshine boy far from home, said his father, Youssouf Traoré. “After he was hurt, my son spent every day moody and isolated. I felt that after going through such drama, something was not right… We needed to find him something to do, something that would give him hope again,” he told IPS.

At Abidjan’s Marcory market, where women come to have their hair plaited, Solange* helps her older sister create the elaborate, time-consuming braids of her clients. The 15-year-old was gang raped during the crisis, at Yopougon, another part of the city. Still traumatised, she no longer attends school.

“I didn’t want to be laughed at by my classmates every time I approached. So I spend my time here, with my sister. The work she gives me is rebuilding my spirits,” she told IPS. “Most importantly, it keeps me from thinking about what I’ve been through.”

Solange has not had any counselling or other psychosocial support, according to her sister.

Fabrice*, 10, and Adjaratou*, 13, are more fortunate. They too were in Yopougon during the crisis, and have suffered from mental health problems brought on by the incessant firing of heavy weapons. But for the past six weeks, they have been looked after by a non-governmental organisation called Enfance et Développement (Childhood and Development), based in Abidjan.

Like many of their peers, they have taken up a trade. Fabrice has dropped out of school to work as a cobbler, and Adjaratou – who has never gone to school – sells drinking water on the street in small bags.

“With this job,” Fabrice said, “my life’s changed. I was so absent-minded, but I’ve learned to do the best I can in whatever I do, without ever talking about war or weapons…”

These four children are just a few of the many young victims of the post-election crisis that gripped Côte d’Ivoire from December 2010 to April 2011.

Between November 2010 and September 2011, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the NGO Save the Children recorded 1,121 cases of grave violations committed against women or children during the crisis.

This total – representing only a fraction of the real number – includes 643 children, among them 182 survivors of rape, 19 who were pressed into service by one or another armed group, 13 deaths and 56 who were seriously injured.

“Most of these crimes have gone unpunished, because only 52 cases are presently the subject of legal proceedings – despite more than half the victims knowing the perpetrators,” said UNICEF. Of the cases before the courts, 27 involve rape and 25 other kinds of sexual attacks.

Two thirds of the children covered by the joint survey have received no support of any kind. One in four of these victims has benefited from medical assistance. And of the rape victims, only 44 percent have seen a doctor, while 39 percent have not had any medical care.

“Through recreational activities, just helping them to have fun, we have reduced the trauma these children are suffering,” said Josiane Niamké, president of Enfance et Développement. “And we have encouraged their parents to keep them busy, to help heal their pain.”

Francis Gnaly, an Abidjan psychiatrist, said that children must always be listened to and supported, as well as provided outlets for distraction. But “This is unfortunately not happening,” he said.

The psychiatrist said that engaging children affected by the conflict in various activities is an excellent means to repair their damaged psyches.

“There are victims who have been quick to get compensation or care to heal their wounds,” he said. But there are many others who are still waiting for psychological assistance to avoid mental health issues or depression.”

*(Names have been changed to protect privacy.)

Thousands of Ivorian children were separated from their parents during the post-election violence in 2011. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Thousands of people suffered rape, torture and other violence during the post- electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire beginning in December 2010. But many survivors of rights violations have been afraid to seek justice for fear of reprisals by the perpetrators. An initiative by the International Federation of Human Rights aims to support 75 such victims as they bring their cases to court.

Bertrand Koué*, 34, fled the western city of Duékoué, in the west of the country, two days after the arrival of pro-Ouattara forces. “When the soldiers reached our house, they seized my wife and my two children. They couldn’t find me, so they executed my family while I was hiding in the bush not far away,” he said.

“Friends tell me these same men are still around. I can’t go back there. But I hope that we will meet again – in front of a tribunal, to explain ourselves.”

Twenty-seven-year-old Fatim Konaté* accompanied her aunt to the Abobo market in the northern part of the Ivorian economic capital, Abidjan, one March morning. “Five minutes after we passed a group of (pro-Gbagbo) soldiers stationed around a tank, a shell landed, then a second exploded just a few metres from us. My aunt was hit and died on the spot,” recalls Konaté, in tears.

A preliminary investigation found that the shell was fired from a tank that day, killing a dozen people. The tank’s crew were arrested in July 2011.

Konaté still remembers the faces of the highly-strung soldiers, who threatened passersby. “The soldiers told everyone who passed that they would get us,” she told IPS.

More than a year after the event, she says she is finally ready to testify against the killers who she is confident she can identify. “For fear of being killed, I didn’t appear before the National Commission of Inquiry. But now, I’m ready to come forward to tell the truth to help bring about lasting peace,” she said.

Konaté and Koué are among the many victims of grave violations of human rights committed during the 2010-2011 post-election crisis who have remained silent for fear of reprisals, or out of a lack of confidence in the justice system.

This month, Paris-based FIDH and its two Côte d’Ivoire affiliates, the Ivorian League for Human Rights (LIDHO) and the Ivorian Movement for Human Rights (MIDH), joined 75 victims of rights violations as civil parties in a lawsuit.

The three organisations say they are supporting legal action in order to contribute to the process of truth, justice and reconciliation undertaken by this West African country, which has been devastated and divided by a decade of political and military crises. A collective of lawyers from these organisations will argue the plaintiffs’ case.

“The objective of this legal action is to help the victims contribute to justice in Côte d’Ivoire, and to put victims at the heart of this process,” said Patrick Baudouin, coordinator of the legal action group of FIDH.

According to FIDH, the cases deal mostly with summary executions, the murder of family members, rape or other sexual crimes, acts of torture, looting and the destruction of homes and property.

Losséni Fofana*, 26, watched from his shack near the Yopougon-Koweit mosque in the west of Abidjan as young pro-Gbagbo militia desecrated the place of worship before slaughtering four people who were inside. When the killers spotted him, they beat him savagely before leaving him in front of his door.

“They thought I was dead,” he told IPS. “I bled profusely until my neighbours came and took me to the hospital. Since then, I’ve prayed that these people will pay for their crimes.”

Marcelline Kouamé*, 48, said she was raped at Guiglo (in the west). “Because I lived not far from a soldier’s house, when the pro-Ouattara forces arrived, they pounced on me. In front of my children, they beat me and pushed me around before raping me. When I remember it, I feel sick to my stomach,” she said.

“Above all, the goal is to understand what has happened,” said René Hokou Legré, president of LIDHO. “Beyond this, we want to see the rights of victims asserted so that we can keep atrocities of this kind from ever taking place again. That is why we have included only those who can identify their tormentors.”

“The victims feared retaliation, and they feared not having their cases heard in a fair legal system. We have reassured them on both counts and for those who would like to enter a witness protection programme, this will be the responsibility of the authorities. We feel that if anything happens to even one of them now… well, certain things will become clear,” Legré told IPS.

According to Karim Ouattara, a special advisor to the president of the Commission for Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation, justice for victims is essential to prevent impunity for such crimes having negative consequences in the future.

“Côte d’Ivoire needs reconciliation, but it also needs truth and justice. So if there is an initiative that allows victims to express themselves, we also need the guilty parties to accept their guilt. It is this, taken together, which will form the body of a true peace,” he said.

Meanwhile the National Commission charged with inquiring into post-electoral violence continues its work. Its mandate was extended in February to allow it to complete an impartial and exhaustive inquiry into the crimes committed by all parties to the conflict.

*The names of the victims have been changed for their safety.

(END)

ECOWAS has given Guinea-Bissau’s military junta 72 hours until Apr. 29 to restore constitutional order, and decided to send a contingent of at least 500 soldiers to the country, which has been in crisis since the coup d’état.

“We can’t tolerate this usurpation of power by the junta in Guinea-Bissau any longer,” Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara, the current head of ECOWAS, declared during an extraordinary summit held in Abidjan on Apr. 26, adding that the coup leaders must must step down and allow a transition process to be put in place quickly.

At the conclusion of the summit, ECOWAS warned that if the junta in Bissau did not accede to its demands, the regional body would immediately impose sanctions on members of the military command and their associates.

ECOWAS further threatened to take diplomatic, economic and financial sanctions against Guinea-Bissau without excluding the possibility of referring cases for prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

West African heads of state also decided to send troops to both Guinea-Bissau and Mali.

“The force to be deployed in Mali will assist the transitional bodies and the interim government to respond to any eventuality should the use of force be needed to restore the territorial integrity of Mali,” the president of the ECOWAS Commission, Désiré Kadré Ouédraogo, said at a press conference.

Ouédraogo said negotiations are ongoing with the Tuareg rebels who control the northern part of Mali, and the contingent initially being dispatched to Mali will be charged with maintaining peace and security for a one-year transitional period which is expected to end with elections.

But should talks with the northern rebels fail, he added, the mission could be reinforced with combat units.

Mali’s interim leader, Dioncounda Traoré, took part in the summit, with the Mauritanian president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, also present – Mauritania is not a member of ECOWAS, but was specially invited as it shares a border with Mali.

The leaders of the coup in Guinea-Bissau have reportedly agreed to the deployment of a contingent of 500 to 600 soldiers to the country under ECOWAS’s authority. This force will have the task of facilitating the withdrawal of the Technical and Military Assistance Mission from Angola to Guinea-Bissau, assisting with the reform of the country’s army, and helping to maintain security during a transition programme that is to be put in place.

Troops for this force will be provided by Nigeria, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, under the command of Colonel-Major Barro Gnibanga, from Burkina Faso.

The summit of heads of state also established a regional contact group with the mandate of coordinating implementation and monitoring of ECOWAS decisions on Guinea-Bissau. This group will include Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal and Togo, with Nigeria acting as head.

“ECOWAS is trying to maintain a firm line in managing these two cases. There has been a slight backtracking on the situation in Mali, because regional leaders have recognised that what’s going on in the north is more complicated than they had imagined,” Abidjan-based political scientist Barthélémy Kodja, told IPS.

“While in Guinea-Bissau the framework is well-defined and easy to manage with the deployment of a military force, Mali’s situation calls for major human, material, and financial resources,” he said.

“At the beginning, the feeling was that ECOWAS would get involved militarily in Mali to fight the Tuareg rebels and other armed groups,” Kodja said. “Regional leaders, especially the current ECOWAS head Alassane Ouattara, showed some willingness to engage in this way, but it was wise to review these plans because getting bogged down (in conflict there) was going to cause serious problems throughout the entire sub-region, and even beyond its borders.”

The coup in Mali took place on Mar. 22, since which time Tuareg rebels and armed Islamist groups have seized control of the northern part of the country. The president overthrown by the coup, Amadou Toumani Touré, agreed to resign and allow the installation of a transitional government directed by the president of the National Assembly, Dioncounda Traoré. Cheick Modibo Diarra was named prime minister of this transitional administration on Apr. 17, and he last week formed a unity government.

Guinea-Bissau’s coup occurred on Apr. 12, as the country was awaiting the second round of presidential elections planned for the end of April. Soldiers fired on the residence of the prime minster, Carlos Gomes Junior, subsequently arresting him and the country’s interim president, Raimundo Pereira.

Djessan manages three fish ponds along with three friends, here 120 kilometres northwest of the Ivorian commercial capital, Abidjan. Each pond holds 6,000 carp and catfish, growing fat on rice bran.

The four partners started the project with money they scraped together between them, combined with 4,000 dollars borrowed from several private benefactors. They say they’ve already repaid their debt.

“We needed to find something to do to make ends meet,” said Chantal Aya, 26, one of Djessan’s project partners. “So we chose to invest in what looked like a promising sector, not just in this region but also in the north, centre and west of the country which often lack fish.”

Even here in the south, much closer to the ocean, over the past two years fish has seldom been available in the markets in places like Tiassalé and Sikensi. When there has been fish, brought in from Abidjan, it was too expensive for most people.

“Carp which normally costs 1,000 CFA (two dollars) was selling for nearly 2,500 CFA here,” Eugènie Logbo, a fish monger at the Tiassalé motor park or transit hub, told IPS.

Logbo’s two large tables are covered with carp. “These don’t come from Abidjan, they’re from the aquaculture ponds right around here. For two or three months now, there’s been a steady supply of fish from the ponds, and the price has become affordable. The cost of a half-kilo carp has fallen back to 1,500 CFA.”

At Bonoua, on the edge of the Aby Lagoon southeast of Abidjan, Williams Yao Brou has built two ponds covering 2.5 hectares. At the moment they’re filled with 3,800 newly-hatched fish.

Through the whole of last year he sold nearly 3,500 fish, but he expects to sell all the fish now maturing in his ponds within the next three months.

“A maintenance problem cost me 300 hatchlings, but I don’t think that will happen again,” said Yao Brou. He says he earns around 6,000 dollars per production cycle.

“This business has become more exciting as other young people start coming to me for training, and to help me… This will allow us to produce enough to make up for the occasional shortages of fish,” he told IPS.

He learned aquaculture techniques in the early 2000s, when he worked at a massive complex of ponds that were built in 1996 at Mahapleu, in the west of the country. That project, set up with finance from the African Development Bank, was abandoned in 2007 for lack of investment in the upkeep of the ponds.

In addition to supplying fishmongers at the local market, the young aquaculturists are looking for new outlets for their output. “Selling fish at the market or at motor parks won’t yield quick profits. We want to find restaurants to supply directly, so we can shift our fish faster,” said Aya, formerly a management student in Abidjan. Unable to find a job in the city, she opted for self-employment in aquaculture.

“Generally, the problem is finding start-up funds,” Yao Brou told IPS. “But young people nowadays understand the need to share their ideas and projects, and together find some small seed capital to get started.”

According to Dramé Sékongo, an agricultural engineer in Tiassalé, aquaculture requires only minimal equipment, money and know-how. “What Ivorian farmers are starting to do – especially the youth – is digging ponds in low-lying areas, alongside rice fields, to earn a bit of money. But some government support would help a bit,” he told IPS.

In March, Côte d’Ivoire and the International Fund for Agricultural Development signed a 22.5 million dollar agreement to finance a project supporting agriculture and commercialisation in three northern regions – Bouaké, Korhogo and Bondoukou.

According to an IFAD press release, the project’s goal is to help improve food security and boost incomes for small producers, particularly rural youth and women.

Co-financed by the Ivorian government, this project will be carried out by the Agriculture Ministry and IFAD expects it will bring direct and indirect benefits to more than 25,000 poor rural families.

The births of tens of thousands of children during Côte d'Ivoire's eight-year rebellion were not formally recorded. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

As children born during this period move up through the school system, they have run into problems.

Thirteen-year-old Marcellin Kodjané thought that he would not be able to continue with his studies. For two years, he attended classes at the Yopougon-Kouté primary school in the north-western part of Abidjan without sitting for the exams that would allow him to move on to high school.

“I didn’t have a birth certificate. My parents weren’t ignorant, but I was born in a village in the Mankono region (in the north of the country, formerly under rebel control), and it was impossible to go there to get my birth records.

“Despite this, I was registered for school and I learned the curriculum without my documents. But when it comes time for exams, they are necessary. Last year and the year before, I watched my classmates take their exams.

“In my class, there were six of us in the same situation. Finally this year, our teachers told us that the decision had been made that we could also take the exams… but two of us who lacked papers had dropped out.”

The Education Ministry says more than 70,000 pupils registered for the 2011-2012 school year don’t have proper documentation. Yet students will not be allowed to write their primary school certificate exams without producing birth certificates.

“At the end of the year, my eldest child will take exams for his primary school certificate. But he doesn’t have a birth certificate,” said Bernard Kapeu, a retired teacher in the western county of Touleupleu. “During the occupation of the western zone by the former rebels, there was no public administration, so for several years we couldn’t get any documents issued.”

Kapeu has travelled 600 kilometres to Abidjan, the economic capital – for the second time – to try to get substitute birth certificates issued for his three school-aged children, now ten, seven and five years old.

He’ll take advantage of being in Abidjan to collect a pension payment – another sign of the normalisation of administrative functions – but his main task is to apply for the replacement birth certificates. On his return to Touleupleu, he will go to the district headquarters which will issue him civil status records for his children. He expects each certificate will cost 500 CFA francs – roughly one U.S. dollar.

Armand Kangah, a 48-year-old pineapple grower near the town of Maféré, left his fields untended for the day in order to obtain a birth certificate for his five-year-old daughter, who is in her second year of primary school.

The town hall here, 150 kilometres east of Abidjan, has been swamped with requests for substitute birth certificates. More than one in ten of the 11,000 students in the Maféré district lack proper documentation, according to the Education Ministry.

“I was told that this wouldn’t take very long. And it’s reassuring that it’s free of charge, but I admit that I have been irresponsible on this issue,” Kangah told IPS while he waited.

Many parents across the country have failed to get proper documentation for their children for one reason or another.

In Man, in the west, the regional directorate for education says 30,000 of the 160,000 students in primary schools lack vital documents – including 5,000 who expected to take exams this year. In Ferkessedougou, in the north, more than 3,000 of 8,000 students don’t have birth certificates.

Responding to demands from child rights organisations, the Ivorian president, Alassane Ouattara, declared in early February that all students born between September 2002 and 2010 – and those born during the 2010-2011 electoral crisis – could register for their documents at their place of birth at no charge.

“Working in collaboration with the courts and the relevant municipal departments, we were able to facilitate the issuing of birth certificates in a first operation in the Abobo commune (north of Abidjan),”said Djama N’gou, president of the Association for the Promotion of the Right to Education, a non-governmental organisation based in the city. “The main thing is that some parents are not well- informed, and we will have to reach out to them.”

“If the reason births weren’t registered in the north, central and western zones was because there was no functioning administration,” said Martine Akadia, a primary school inspector in Abidjan, “in the south, it’s simply common for many families to neglect registration, as if it were unimportant.”

Despite the announcement that fees for documentation would be waived, many parents continue to drag their feet, said N’gou. “We welcome the multiple and multiform initiatives which are now raising awareness among parents, including some who have only now understood the need for a birth certificate for their children. But we will still stress the importance of door-to-door visits to achieve our objective of zero unrecorded births.”

Proper documentation is not the only challenge facing the country’s education system a year after the post-electoral crisis ended. According to the Ivorian Ministry of Education, the country is short of an estimated 3,000 primary school teachers. And a shortage of classrooms and desks means that in many places, more than 40 students have to be crammed into rooms meant to hold 25.

Yet in the west of the country, due to massive displacement of people into Liberia, many schools have been closed for lack of pupils and now stand abandoned in the bush.