POLITICS-AFRICA: Women Legislators Lobby for Peace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Jul 18 2004 (IPS) - In a bid to promote peace in Africa’s conflict-ridden Great Lakes region, women parliamentarians from the area say they intend taking a more prominent role in talks to end fighting.

This came during a two-day meeting, ‘Peace, Security, Democracy and Development in the Great Lakes Region’, which ended in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Jul. 16.

"Women should be recognised as active agents rather than passive victims in (peace processes), including post-conflict governance. More often during peace negotiations, women have been accorded observer status.As such, their voices have not really been heard," said Miria Matembe, a member of parliament from Uganda.

She made the comment while addressing about 100 legislators from the Great Lakes countries of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Rwanda and Zambia. The meeting was convened by the Great Lakes Parliamentary Forum on Peace, also known as the AMANI Forum.

Matembe said women in her country had already involved themselves in the process of conflict resolution, with regard to fighting in northern Uganda.

"Women from this part have come together with others from various parts of the country, and are convincing their sons and daughters to abandon the rebellion, which is causing havoc in the north," she said.

"But this alone is not enough. We want women to be at the negotiating table, to bring both the rebels and government to the table and talk peace," she added.

The conflict in northern Uganda started in 1986, when rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) took up arms. More that 850,000 members of the Acholi ethnic group, resident in the area, have been displaced from their homes by the insurgency, which has since spread to other parts of the country.

Humanitarian agencies say about 80 percent of LRA soldiers are child conscripts aged between six and 17 years. The rebel group has also been accused of abducting young girls and turning them into sex slaves.

Ibrahim Fall, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in the Great Lakes region, said the political empowerment of women in the area would enable them to play a more decisive role in peace talks.

Rwanda was cited as a good example of how women could increase their political clout.

"Out of the 100 members of parliament, 44 are women, the highest in the world," Juliana Katengwa, a Rwandan legislator, told IPS.

"Our constitution states that there must be 30 percent women representation in all government decision-making arms. Again, our president has always said this figure is the minimum," she added.

Katengwa said Rwanda’s women had shown that they could play a significant role in soothing ethnic and political tensions in the country, which experienced a genocide ten years ago. Upwards of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus here killed in a campaign by Hutu extremists.

"Women in the country, including parliamentarians, have come together and formed Twese Hamwe, ("All of Us Together"), an umbrella organisation comprising 40 women’s organisations in different sectors, for the purpose of building peace," she told IPS.

"We have had resurgences of rebels, but our organisation has been going out to mobilise men and their sons to stop fighting," Katengwa added.

The situation is different, however, in the DRC, where women have been politically marginalized.

"Out of our parliament of 500 members, only 62 are women," Congolese legislator Safou Chantal said in an interview with IPS at the Nairobi conference.

"We are fighting for the voices of women to be heard, especially in peace matters. We are trying to lobby our government to include women in peace talks to save the country from violence, but we have not been successful yet. I hope we will win," she added, noting that women’s groups had also tried to convince rebel groups of the need for peace.

A civil war that broke out in the DRC in 1998 has claimed more than 3.5 million lives. Although a peace agreement was signed at the end of 2002, instability in certain parts of the country has persisted. (ENDS/IPS/AF/EA/IP/AB/CP/DV/CR/WL/JM/JH/04) = 07182026 ORP001 NNNN