By Laure Pichegru
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 8 2010 (IPS)

Another round of negotiations towards a global treaty on climate change concluded in Bonn on Aug. 6, with activists calling on parties to rediscover a spirit of compromise and make offers rather than demands.

Middelburg power plant: activists fear South Africa's interests are out of step with other countries on the continent. Credit: Gerhard Roux/Wikicommons

The dispute over this meal begins, of course, with the question of whether it’s one dish or two.

Je vous propose…

The battered kettle of the Kyoto Protocol has been welded together in a new draft text – between now and the next U.N. Climate Change Conference (in Mexico at the end of 2010), negotiators will see if it holds water.

“This week has given governments a final opportunity to be clear on their individual stances,” said Figueres. “Tianjin has to be the place where they make clear what their collective stance is going to be,” she said. Negotiators meet again in October in Tianjin, China.

“Parties are adding text they know will not be well received or easily resolved,” warned Mohammed Adow of Christian Aid, a member of the Climate Action Network (CAN) which groups more than 360 development and environment NGOs from 85 countries. “We need to recapture the spirit of compromise in these negotiations.”

The draft, issued in June by Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe, chair of the group on long-term cooperation (the AWG-LCA), provoked severe criticism from civil society organisations, as it again implied replacing the Kyoto Protocol with a new agreement in which the mitigation obligations of developed and developing countries are treated almost identically.

“Africa has been very vocal in calling for the retention of the Kyoto Protocol, as it remains the only international agreement so far which binds industrialised countries to take some action on climate change,” Mithika Mwenda told IPS.

Mwenda is coordinator of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, which was one of the organisers of a one-day public forum ahead of the African Union summit in Kampala in mid-July, calling on governments to work “for climate justice and for a solution to climate change that keeps Africa safe, secures our development and protects our fundamental human rights.”

The risk of continued stalemate over mitigation strategies that will slow emissions of the gases responsible for global warming threatens all countries; of perhaps more direct urgency for Africa is to secure concrete results on the Bali Action Plan, enabling immediate action on adapting to climate change.

The other main course

Promisingly, negotiators in Bonn felt that the Mexico could realistically secure concrete commitments towards implementing the Bali Action Plan.

“This means countries could agree to take accountable action to, for example, manage and deploy climate finance, boost technology transfer, build skills and capacity to do this and deal with adaptation, especially in the poorest and most vulnerable countries,” said Figueres.

But to secure a generous helping from this saucepan, Africa needs a unified, articulate and effective negotiating strategy.

African negotiators have failed to maintain unity at climate change talks in the past. Mwenda singled out the South African government as working against the interests of other African countries.

“Though Africa’s priority has been adaptation, due to the vulnerability and capacity deficiency in majority of countries, South Africa has always broken ranks with other countries to make mitigation its priority,” he said.

It’s perhaps logical, given South Africa’s position as the twelfth-largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world, while other sub-Saharan African countries together contribute just four percent to the overall emission of the greenhouse gas.

“South Africa is heavily dependent on coal and needs energy provision to secure its economic growth,” says Jean-Christophe Hoste, a research fellow at the Egmont Institute in Belgium.

Vulnerability to climate change effects varies from region to region or from country to country, says Belynda Petrie, chief executive officer of the OneWorld Group. OneWorld is a research and consulting company that among other things is carrying out a five-year programme studying the best ways to protect vulnerable livelihoods in Southern Africa from climate change.

“Some regions or countries are already much more water-stressed than others, requiring a significant focus on adaptation projects that strengthen water storage and flood management infrastructure, for example,” says Petrie.

Hungry for different things

Projections of climate change impacts predict tremendous damage to agricultural productivity across a continent whose people depend on growing food for their survival. South Africa is not immune to this, but its diverse economy is less vulnerable to an agriculture crisis than that of Burkina Faso or Ethiopia.

Africa’s most powerful economy’s concerns thus line up more closely with those of other emerging economies such as India and China, who are hesitant to accept any external limits on their emissions as they pursue industrial growth.

Petrie argues that many African countries lack the skills and knowledge to make their own formal submissions in the UNFCCC framework, leaving the few that do tend to take the lead. But as a result, Africa’s differentiated needs are not adequately expressed and disunity emerges in the actual negotiations.

By way of example, she offers an August deadline to apply for funds from the UNFCCC’s Less-Developed Countries Fund, (which, ironically, exists to strengthen national climate change secretariats to participate in U.N. processes, build capacity to collect and interpret data on weather and water, provide training in negotiating skills, support public awareness, and to prepare and implement national adaptation programmes).

Many of Africa’s most vulnerable states are potentially eligible, but Petrie expects few will participate.

“The result, on climate finance for example, is that the countries complain that the funding mechanisms and institutional arrangements are onerous, limiting access to funds. But these same complainants have typically not used the avenues open to them to make proposals that will contribute to rectifying these widely-acknowledged problems.”

Hoste says African countries will be unable to reach – and hold – a common position at international climate change talks as long as there are such huge economic and development differences between them.

“African countries did find a common position before Copenhagen. But this common position collapsed as soon as economic concessions had to be made.”

PACJA’s Mithika Mwenda is more optimistic. “African stakeholders greatly value the call for a unified position, and I have no doubt that the continent will approach Mexico a more organised region than ever before.”

He feels that vigilance is necessary. “Media and civil society should work more to track and monitor government and put pressure on them to ensure that short-lived gains do not let them abandon the path of collectiveness.”

*Isaiah Esipisu in Nairobi contributed to this report.

Excerpt:

By Laure Pichegru
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 16 2010 (IPS)

Nine-year-old Nomasonto* had no choice but to switch roles with her mother and care for the HIV-positive woman who gave birth to her. Instead of worrying about homework and going out to play with her friends, Nomasonto’s daily concerns were now a matter of life and death.

Nomasonto is not the only child in South Africa traumatised after being forced into the role of becoming a care-giver to HIV-positive parents. Credit: Laure Pichegru/IPS

Nomasonto cared for her mother until she was 10. That year her mother died of an AIDS-related illness. It is now four years later, but when Nomasonto tells IPS her story, she does so in a tiny voice, which seems to contain some anger. It is hard for her to talk. She still remains traumatised by suddenly having to care for her parent.

But sadly Nomasonto is not the only child in South Africa traumatised after being forced into the role of becoming a care-giver to HIV-positive parents. According to the preliminary results of a pioneering study conducted by Oxford University’s researchers in South Africa, children caring for parents sick with HIV/AIDS report similar levels of psychological distress as those orphaned by AIDS.

The study is being conducted across the country in collaboration with three South African universities, a number of NGOs, and with the support of the South African government.

By interviewing 6,000 children and teenagers, and 1,500 adults, parents or guardians who live with them, researchers are investigating the educational, mental and physical health of children taking care of HIV-positive relatives.

The Young Carers South Africa Project aims to build a database to inform governments, NGOs, hospital staff and social workers about the needs of these children and identify potential areas of intervention.

“There has been much work on AIDS-orphaned children in the past decade, but these particular groups of children, whose parents are still alive but sick, are very little understood,” said Dr. Lucie Cluver, project leader, whose doctoral research at Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Social Work has led to the national study.

Cluver said it was really important that policies and programmes are based on accurate information, so that issues can really be addressed. “We didn’t even know whether these kids were more at risk, or what kind of risks they had, or what we can do to help them.”

According to the study these children face significant hurdles. When Nomasonto was caring for her mother, she was still required to attend school daily.

“At school, when I made a mistake or was late, because I have had to take care of my mother, the teachers used to hit me,” Nomasonto said. “I tried to explain to my teachers that my mother was sick but they did not want to listen to me.”

Eventually she had to drop out of school because the burden of caring for her mother. Nomasonto is now HIV positive after being raped by her uncles and two of her elder sister’s boyfriends. She has since been informally adopted by a welfare worker.

Previous research reveals that a quarter of children caring for adults with AIDS provided over three hours of care per day. Nearly a third of the children said they helped adults to the toilet, cleaned wounds or dealt with soiled bedclothes.

“Aside from these physical demands, we have indications that the emotional demands are more lasting. In particular, should a parent pass away, this may lead these children to believe that they have contributed to this, impressing on them a sense of guilt that is unwarranted,” said Johriaan de Beer, the chief executive officer of Tholulwazi Uzivikele, an NGO which works with orphans and vulnerable children.

One major part of the Young Carers study is to determine whether a parent becoming sicker with AIDS can be directly linked to the children feeling more depressed or more traumatised. According to Cluver, stigma associated with AIDS is one of the major causes of the children’s distress.

“Stigma is such a terrible issue, and it hurts these kids so much when people are gossiping about them behind their backs, teasing them and treating them differently. One child said to me that people yelled at her in the street and called her mother a prostitute because she was HIV-positive,” Cluver said. She added she thought that at the root of this stigma lay fear, worry and misunderstanding.

Moreover, when a parent becomes sick, children often have to cope with financial difficulties.

Selestina’s* HIV-positive mother was the only one in their household who had a job until she became ill three years ago. “Since she can’t work anymore, we have no income.”

The family receives a child grant for each child living in the household, which is about 100 dollars per month. But the money is not enough to feed and care for a family of six.

“Sometimes we do not have the money to buy books for school and sometimes the kids go to school hungry. They have soup at school, and it is the only meal they get during the day,” the 23-year-old, who has a baby herself, said.

According to De Beer, although social support grants may be available for children in need, it does not guarantee they get this money as accessing these grants as minors are not permitted to receive grants directly.

The government aims to use high quality scientific evidence to inform our decisions about policy for Children affected by AIDS said Jaconia Kobue, spokesman for the Department of Social Development.

The study will be completed in 2011.

*Names have been changed.

Excerpt:

By Laure Pichegru
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 2 2010 (IPS)

Madagascan female activists are asking that the right of women to participate directly in politics be included in a new draft of the country’s Constitution, so that there can be 30 percent of female politicians in parliament by 2012 and 50 percent by 2015.

Women’s rights organisation Vondrona Miralenta ho an’ny Fampandrosoana (VMLF-‘group of women in politics’), say this constitutional requirement is needed to change the disproportion number of men and women represented in economics and politics. According to a study conducted by the Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa in 2009, there are less than eight percent of Madagascan women in political decision-making bodies.

VMLF says it is necessary to clarify laws and legal texts such as the Constitution, the Electoral Code and even laws governing political parties to establish real equity between men and women.

“Without coercive action, there will be no change. For instance, no political party will present women on its list. Maybe there will be one or two women, but they will never be on the top of the list,” Noroarisoa Ravaozanany, a member of VMLF, told IPS.

The VMLF has submitted its proposal to the Constitutional Consultative Committee (CCC) requesting that some legislative texts dealing with gender issues to be reviewed and new texts added, so that gender parity can be achieved in decision-making bodies.

The CCC, set up by the transition government, is in charge of writing a Constitutional draft, originally meant to be completed before the Aug. 12 Constitutional referendum. However, the referendum has been postponed to an unknown date because the CCC is behind schedule drafting the new Constitution.

The drafting of a new Constitution is seen by many as the first step toward the end of the March 2009 political crisis, which saw the army oust President Marc Ravalomanana and install the opposition leader Andry Rajoelina as the head of the state.

In November 2010 a new elected government should succeed the transition government currently in place, which has, like the former governments, a very low representation of female politicians. There are only five female ministers compared to 31 male ministers.

Although the principle of “non-discrimination based on sex” has been written in the different Madagascan Constitutions and international agreements signed by the Madagascan authorities, such as the Southern African Development Community agreements, compelling signatory states to gender equity, the principle of parity has never been respected on the island. One of the reasons may be the burden of tradition.

“We use the expression “adilahy politika”, which means “politics is a men fight”. The way children are educated also plays a major role in the public perception of women, who are supposed to stay home,” said Hanta Andrianasy, a member of the women’s rights association Simiralenta.

According to her, the perception of women is changing: “Women are starting to understand the necessity of having the power to change things. Men, as well, are seeing that they need women to participate in politics. And they won’t be able to refrain women from lobbying for power.”

Andrianasy added that there are women leaders in rural areas who have attempted to become involved in politics but have been sidelined.

“They have been pre-selected to be candidates for local or legislative elections, but elbowing inside political parties is expelling them out of the game. In the past some of them used to run for the elections as independent candidates, to have a chance to be elected,” Andrianasy said.

But a new law, submitted to parliament in December 2008 but which is yet to be promulgated, has since banned the participation of independent candidates.

As a response, a female political party, Ampela Mano Politika (AMP – “women who are doing politics”) was formed in February.

“I have founded this party to enable all women, who are willing to enter politics, to be in the foreground, on an equal footing with men,” explained Dr. Brigitte Rasamoelina Rabemanantsoa, founding President of the AMP. With nearly 5,000 members, the party plans to participate in the next elections. The party also allows men to join and participate.

“Given the low representation of women in politics in Madagascar, we want to use positive discrimination: we will give priority to women candidates in the elections,” Rasamoelina Rabemanantsoa said.

However, some critics doubt whether submissions presented for the drafting of the new constitution will be included. The CCC, formed by the ruling party, is seen as being non-representative of all political movements.

But for Andrianasy, the Constitutional referendum is a chance for women’s voices to be heard.

“The political crisis we have been through since March 2009, pushed women to take action. The political crisis has also shown the incapacity of men to govern by themselves. The equity principle is in the interest of the whole population, not only of the women.”

Excerpt:

By Laure Pichegru
CAPE TOWN, Jun 17 2010 (IPS)

The Libyan government handed over 276 prisoners to authorities from neighbouring Niger on Jun. 17. But none of the dozen or more Nigeriens facing the death sentence in Libya were among them.

Truck in northern Niger: thousands of migrants cross the Sahara to Libya in hopes of traveling on to Europe. Credit: Ibrahim Diallo Manzo/IRIN

A few weeks earlier, on May 30, 18 people who had been convicted of the more serious charge of premeditated murder were executed by Libyan authorities, according to the Libyan newspaper Quryna. Details were not made public, but a number of foreign nationals – including Chadians, Nigerians and Egyptians – are believed to have been among them.

Moustapha Kadi, coordinator of Niger’s Collective of Organisations for Human Rights and Democracy (known by its French acronym, CODDHD), told IPS three Niger citizens were also among those executed – Sani Maïdouka, from the south-central region of Maradi, and Saïdou Mohamed and Harouna Dangoda, from Tahoua in the west of Niger.

“We have asked the Libyan emissary Professor Rajab Mita Budabbus, who was in Niamey (the Nigerien capital) to meet the head of state, Salou Djibo, to inform the Libyan authorities that they must make arrangements to repatriate the bodies of these three, as well as compensate their families,” said Kadi.

According to CODDHD, nine Nigeriens were executed in Libya in 2009, and around 40 others are on death row in their northern neighbour.

Migrants at risk

Thousands of migrants cross the Sahara every year to Libya, in hopes of crossing the Mediterranean to Italy. The Libyan government has recently moved strongly against migrants and the human traffickers who prey on them, sharply reducing the numbers of people who arrive en route to Europe.

On Jun. 8, Libya ordered the U.N. High Commission for Refugees to close its offices in the capital, Tripoli. UNHCR has registered around 9,000 refugees in Libya, including 3,700 asylum seekers.

Many of these are people whose boats have been intercepted at sea by the Italian navy and sent into Libyan waters. Without the UNHCR presence, the migrant population will be left even more vulnerable.

Amnesty International was sharply critical of the May executions, saying that foreign nationals in particular may be convicted without having access to a fair trial.

“There are a certain number of cases where diplomatic representatives of arrested people, were not notified. So they were not able to provide appropriate assistance to them,” said Diana Eltahawy, North Africa researcher for Amnesty International.

Eltahawy told IPS that some foreigners did not meet with their lawyers until their court appearances, making it impossible to prepare a proper defence. She added that confessions extracted under torture or ill treatment are commonly used as evidence to convict individuals in capital cases in Libya.

Libyan nationals also face unfair trials, Eltahawy says, but foreigners are at a greater disadvantage because they often cannot speak Arabic. “There are not always translation services available. We had some cases where people were brought to court and they did not know what charges they faced.”

Stays of execution

Once sentenced, foreign nationals are also more likely to actually be executed because they are unable to negotiate with the family of the victim. Under Libyan law, it is the possible to commute a death penalty into a life imprisonment if the family of the victim agrees to pardon the murderer in exchange for a sum of money.

“Foreign nationals do not have a family network in the country to rely on, who could negotiate with the family of the victim. Moreover, they do not have enough money to pay the amount a victim’s family would ask,” Eltahawy told IPS. 

Heba Morayes, a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch in Cairo, emphasises that for non-Arabs, it is difficult to conduct these negotiations: “Foreign nationals need a Libyan intermediary to help them negotiate.”

An Egyptian NGO, the Arab Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP), helps Egyptians facing the death penalty to complete the reconciliation procedures between the families of victims and the convicted persons

“We have succeeded several times in postponing the implementation of sentences and also in commuting the sentence to life imprisonment in some cases. However there are not enough financial resources to provide ‘blood money’,” ACIJLP director Nasser Amin told IPS, saying that the procedures are long and complicated.

Recently, an Egyptian was executed while the negotiation procedure was going on: the Libyan government refused to recognise the authenticity of the pardon signed by the family of the victim.

Limited information

Amnesty International has asked the Libyan authorities to release official statistics about people facing death penalty and others in prison, but received no response. “There is a lack of transparency: a figure of 200 people on death row was released, but there was no breakdown about their different nationalities,” said Eltahawy.

Amnesty has also been unable to determine the living conditions for foreign nationals in Libya’s prisons, she said: “We have not visited the two prisons where the 18 executed people had been held. But according to reports, the conditions are not as bad there, as in other sites such as detention centres,” she said.

The welfare of its expatriate citizens was one of the motivations behind a judicial cooperation accord between the Nigerien government and Libya on Jun. 6, but officials in Niamey declined to comment on how this might enable Niger to prevent further executions of its citizens. Justice ministry officials referred IPS to an official communiqué which explained only that the agreement will permit cooperation on matters of inquiry, arraignment, testimony, and asset seizure.

Amnesty presented a memorandum detailing human rights concerns to the Libyan authorities in mid-April. On Jun. 25, the contents of the note will be made public.

“Particularly now that Libya is a member of the (U.N.) Human Rights Council, it has additional responsibility regarding human rights,” said Eltahawy.

Between the May executions and release of nearly 300 to Niger, the hundreds on death row in Libya are suspended between fear and hope that the government in Tripoli will respect its obligations to ensure justice for all.

*Souleymane Maazou in Niamey contributed to this report

Excerpt:

Operation Amani Leo, launched jointly by MONUC (the United Nations Mission in Congo) and FARDC (the Congolese army) in January to regain control of mining territories in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu from rebels, while ensuring security for the local population has been extended to September. But Congolese women are arguing for changes in the conduct of military operations.

FARDC troops on parade: activists fear continuing efforts to drive out rebels only intensifies violence against civilians - even by the army itself. Credit: Eddy Isango/IRIN

Amani Leo, which means “peace now” in Swahili, was designed to overcome deficiencies in previous military actions against groups such as the FDRL (French acronym for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, composed mainly of militia who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda), during which rebel groups – and some government soldiers – committed atrocities against civilians.

“The name of the military operation has changed, but the situation remains the same: women are still being killed, maimed, abused like animals,” said an indignant Immaculée Birhaheka. Birhaheka is the coordinator of the Congolese non-governmental organisation Promotion and Support for Women’s Initiatives.

“In the ward that we created for female victims of sexual violence at the Panzi Hospital in South Kivu, we still see women coming in from different neighbouring provinces.”

New measures in place

Father Jean-Bosco Bahala, the general rapporteur for the national peace accord monitoring committee, says MONUC and the Congolese army have put measures in place to reduce the risk to civilians.

“There are public education campaigns before each attack. In addition, a protection buffer is put in place to prevent reprisals by the rebels,” said Bahala in an interview with IPS.

“We won’t solve the problem of violence against women if we do not first solve the problem of stability by eliminating the presence of these armed militias.”

Katana Gege Bukuru, secretary general of the NGO Women Activists United for Human Rights, is less positive in her assessment of the safeguards. “It is true that once armed groups begin to fight, MONUC intervenes to establish a  cease-fire. However, civilians still die since battlefields are often near villages.”

According to a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), 1,244 women reported being raped between January and March 2010 across the DRC. These figures are generally believed to represent a fraction of total assaults. More than a third of these rapes were committed in the provinces of North and South Kivu.

“It is difficult to identify the perpetrators of rape,” Bukuru explained to IPS by phone from Bukavu. “Sometimes they wear uniforms and weapons for camouflage. So we do not know if they are rebels, members of the Armed Forces or civilians.”

Impunity persists

Kabamba says that some soldiers who commit acts of violence against women go unpunished, including high profile figures like General Bosco Ntaganda. The former rebel commander of the National Council for the Defence of the People (known by its French acronym, CNDP), is the subject of an international arrest warrant for crimes committed in Ituri Province, but continues to serve in the FARDC in South Kivu.

According to Kabamba, lawsuits have been filed against certain officers, but the abuses are so widespread that the DRC cannot afford to prosecute everyone.

“There are two or three thousand soldiers operating in South Kivu. Hundreds of them have committed atrocities. Taking action against these abuses would be tantamount to arresting the various groups of FARDC in South Kivu who are currently conducting various military operations.”

The legal arrangements put in place by MONUC and the government now provide women with the opportunity to sue their attackers.

Bahala says that thanks to psychological support and rehabilitation programmes, reporting rape is becoming less taboo. As a consequence, raped women are less afraid of being ostracised from the community and are more willing to denounce their attackers.

But, according Bukuru, many women are still afraid to come forward.

“Some rapists are arrested and imprisoned, awaiting trial. However, most of them go unpunished. The legal processes are time consuming and often the victim does not dare denounce her attacker. They live in the same village and she’s afraid of retaliation,” she said.

“That’s why we try to help these women. But we lack resources, especially for us to travel, go meet them women, pay for the medical care they need, lawyers… We would like MONUC to help us financially. Above all, we would like MONUC to use ‘soft diplomacy’ and begin negotiations with the rebels.”

Committed to winning the war

But for Kabamba, stopping these operations would amount to entrenching impunity: “The FDLR and other rebel groups are seen as having succeeded in defeating the counter-insurgency being waged against them. These groups are committing atrocities against civilian populations with the goal of being denounced,” he says.

“They try to involve the press and international organizations, so these can pressure the Congolese government to put an end to ongoing operations in North and South Kivu.”

The DRC government is seeking to redefine MONUC’s mandate.

“Tthe situation has significantly improved in the country. There is no reason to maintain a response of this size from MONUC, which at the moment is present not only as part of Operation Leo Amani, but throughout the whole country,” says Bahala. “We want the government to take responsibility, and it can not while in a situation of permanent dependence.”

By Laure Pichegru
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 15 2010 (IPS)

The face of politics is changing in the southern African country of Malawi. And civil society is making plans to ensure that it changes even more.

Fresh from a dramatic increase in the number of women representatives elected into national government last year, the NGO Gender Coordination Network is already implementing plans for the Malawi’s “50/50 campaign” to ensure that more women than ever before sit in local government seats after the November elections.

Their enthusiasm is inspired by the dramatic increase in the number of women representatives elected to national government during the 2009 elections.

A record number of 237 female candidates stood during the May 2009 elections with 42 women making the journey into parliament. By doing so, Malawi’s female representation increased from 14 to 22 percent.

Emma Kaliya, chair of the NGO Gender Coordination Network implementing Malawi’s 50/50 campaign, was recently honoured with a Southern African Trust “Drivers of Change” Award for her role in the campaign.

Kaliya told IPS that various strategies were being used to change perceptions about women’s capacity for political leadership in the national “50/50 campaign – 2009 and beyond“.

“The first thing we did was to conduct a needs assessment of the aspiring women candidates. We reviewed both sitting MPs and those candidates who were aspiring to stand. We collected about 400 names from political parties, our own structure and from district assemblies,” Kaliya said.

After assessing the needs of the women, the organisation then arranged capacity building for those candidates: “We began profiling them through the mass media as well as through community mobilisation meetings. We would take aspiring women candidates to community meetings where we would discuss why the community should support women candidates.”

The organisation assisted the women with campaign materials and promotional items like T-shirts. “We also gave them some funds for transportation purposes during the campaign. The money was not much but it helped those who wanted to campaign,” Kaliya said.

The current minister for persons with disabilities and the elderly, Reen Kachere, is one of the women who benefitted: “The exercise was a great experience to learn from in order to inform future elections where gender issues are concerned. I came out from the experience more knowledgeable and with win-win strategies for women.”

Malawi developed a national programme in 2008 responding to the 50/50 requirements before the SADC Gender and Development Protocol was adopted.

The 50/50 campaign is already drawing on a list of candidates to participate in the November 2010 local government elections. “We are collecting names, consulting with all parties and going to district assemblies to identify women candidates. The national 50/50 campaign is for all women, regardless of the party they are coming from,” Kaliya said.

Because of these campaigns, women are beginning to understand the need for them to participate in politics if they want to change the laws that affect them, Kachere said.

MP Anita Kalinde added that women also needed assistance from NGO’s to be able to get into politics: “Women need to be assisted right from the primaries and also after, where they compete with their male colleagues.”

Kaliya added that in the last election the media played a crucial role in profiling the women candidates assisting them to reach distant communities they could not travel to with their messages.

“Radio profiling helped most. All 237 candidates who stood were given space to talk about their manifestos on local radio…Women are usually invisible during election campaigns or there are usually only negative stories (about them) but this time around we got real support. Every day we were reading or hearing something about the 50/50 campaign,” Kaliya said.

But there are still challenges that women candidates have to overcome. “If we did not have the SADC (Southern African Development Community) protocol, it would be very difficult because Malawi has an equality element in the constitution but it does not have a quota or affirmative action in the framework. The electoral systems – not having proportional representation – are a big barrier because women are competing with men who have a lot of resources,” Kaliya said. (The SADC Protocol on Gender and Development commits countries to work towards the goal of having 50 percent women in political and decision-making positions by 2015.)

The commercialisation of the elections is also a challenge. “Women have to compete with men. Unlike men, they do have a lot of money. You need resources: you cannot campaign if you don’t have a vehicle because most places are far apart,” explained Kalinde.

But female politicians are also getting more support from all voters, men and women. “People are gradually accepting the gender dimension. The realisation of the need for women to participate in the development of their nations through elected positions is growing and impacting on cultural practices that marginalised women,” said Kachere.

Kaliya explained that while more women than men voted during elections, initially women would vote for male candidates – even if there was a woman standing for election. But the 50/50 campaign has changed that.

“But now, more women are voting for women. You could even see old, old, women coming to vote and they would say: ‘This time around we have to vote for women. The government has said it – even men – so why should we not vote for women?’”

Excerpt:

By Laure Pichegru
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 14 2010 (IPS)

The World Cup is wreaking havoc with a key millennium development goal in South Africa: as the football tournament hit its stride, not a single child across the nation attended school.

The 1GOAL Campaign is urging governments to live up to their promises to provide every child access to quality education. Credit: Marshall Patsanza/IPS

But there are 43 million children in sub-Saharan Africa who are truly unable to attend school, according to the United Nations Development Programme – just over a third of the 115 million of children around the world who are out of school. Many millions more struggle to get an education under testing conditions – inadequate buildings, overworked teachers facing enormous classes.

The adoption of universal education programmes has led to an increase in the number of African children in school, but many problems remain.

In Kenya, the number of children attending primary schools has doubled since 2003, with 80 percent of school-aged children now enrolled. But, as the government does not have the financial means to pay and train additional teachers, classrooms are overcrowded and the quality of education is declining.

In Sierra Leone, school authorities have hired additional teachers – at their own discretion – to face the increase of children attending schools. Now the education department is refusing to pay those teachers.

“Even if young people have access to education as in Africa, a lot of their education is not quality education,” says Salim Vally, spokesman for the Public Participation in Education Network, a citizens’ group working for quality education for all South Africans.

Alongside trade unions and others, PPEN is one of 20-odd in South Africa participating in the 1GOAL campaign. The campaign was launched in 2009, with the aim of using the platform of the 2010 World Cup to mobilise public pressure on world leaders to fulfil the promises they have made in the frame of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals for 2015.

Two of the development goals to which African countries have signed up focus on education; the commitment is both to ensuring all children are able to complete primary school, and to providing opportunities to girls for education at all levels.

“We are all uniting with one voice to make sure that education is a top priority,” said Alex Kent, head of 1GOAL South Africa. “We want to make sure that policies are put in place, that the money has been put forward, that girls get a chance to learn, that everything is being made possible out of this World Cup.”

Access to education is particularly unequal in South Africa: “Rich people benefit from good quality education. But the vast majority of children receive a low quality education. Only seven percent of our schools have a library. And the culture of reading is very important,” Vally told IPS at a Jun. 10 march to Johannesburg’s Constitution Hill.

“If we can host the World Cup, which costs over 60 billion rand (7.8 billion dollars – the more commonly provided estimate is $4.5-5 billion), surely we can provide our schools with libraries, relevant books, and well-trained teachers.”

Mthunzi Gcinumthetho, an 18-year-old student at the Albert Street School in the Johannesburg township of Soweto, says, “The government keeps lying to us, students. It is telling us that it is protecting the rights of every school child. But that is not true because the type of school you find in Johannesburg CBD is not the same type of school you find in Sandton.”

Schools in Sandton, a weatlhy area of the Greater Joburg municipality, lack for nothing: libraries, computers, teachers. But many schools in Soweto or in the central business district, five or six children may have to share one textbook.

“Here in South Africa we have the best schools in the world and the worst,” said Kent. “We want to make sure that policies are put in place to fight against inequality. We want to see out of that summit new polices, some new commitment on education, we want all African countries to put 20 percent of their budget into education. We want them to recruit and train more teachers.”

Just before the winter holidays end, and school resumes, South African president Jacob Zuma will host other heads of state at the world education summit in Cape Town. The Jul. 7 meeting is to draw up an action plan that will see every child in the world in school by the time the next edition of the World Cup is played in Brazil in 2014.

Excerpt:

By Laure Pichegru
JOHANNESBURG, May 31 2010 (IPS)

Five months and a day after their arrest, the gay Malawian couple who dared to publicly declare their union with a traditional engagement party were pardoned by the president and released without conditions.

Stephen Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were found guilty and sentenced to the maximum sentence of 14 years with hard labour.

Speaking at the consecration of a Catholic bishop in April, President Bingu wa Mutharika had condemned the couple. “A man getting married to a fellow man is evil and bad before the eyes of God. There are certain things we Malawians just don’t do.”

But on May 29, Mutharika announced the pardon shortly after a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The U.N. was one of many international organisations that had urged Malawi to reconsider the sentencing and Moon praised the “courage” of the decision of the President of Malawi.

According to local media, the men were released several hours after the announcement and conducted to their respective homes.

Local and international activists have welcomed the pardon.

Gift Trapence, director of the Centre for Development of People (CEDEP), a local human rights organisation which works for the welfare of marginalised groups, told IPS, “We are happy that the President of Malawi took this decision and that he, as the head of the African Union, sent the message to the other African countries that all the people are equal, no matter what their sexual orientation is.”

Clemency not justice

However the pardon changes nothing with regards to Malawi’s penal code: homosexual acts remain illegal.

“There are other gay people who deserve their rights to be recognised,” says Trapence. “It is time to look at how we can remove these laws.”

Immediately following sentencing on May 20, the gay couple had instructed their lawyer to file an appeal to the High Court on constitutional grounds. Malawi’s constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, privacy and expression which includes sexual orientation, in the opinion of human rights lawyer Chrispine Sibande.

“The gay suspects did not do anything wrong as long as they lived the without violating other people’s rights,” Sibande told IPS in January.

Article 20 of Malawi’s Constitution states that “discrimination of persons in any form is prohibited and all persons are, under any law, guaranteed equal and effective protection against discrimination on grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, nationality, ethnic or social origin, disability, property, birth or other status”.

Anthony Kamanga, Malawi’s solicitor general and secretary for justice and constitutional affairs denies that the pardon was intended to avoid an appeal that could have overturned sections of the Penal Code.

“The President exercised clemency. It has nothing to do with blocking an appeal to the High Court.”

Kamanga also denied the release of the couple had anything to do with pressure from international donors. “Our partners did raise concerns, but none of them did threaten to reduce aid on account of this matter, as far as I know.”

For the moment CEDEP’s Trapence is worried about the safety of the two men: “They are free, but now the major concern is about their security,” he said.

“Their identity is known, so they cannot walk free on the streets because they could be physically attacked. Their lives are still in danger.”

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