There are two women among the 14 candidates contesting the first round of Senegalese presidential elections that will be held on Feb. 26. But according to several analysts, this overwhelmingly Muslim West African country is not ready to be governed by a woman.

One of the female candidates is Amsatou Sow Sidibé, a law professor at Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), leader of the civil society group Convergence of Stakeholders for the Defense of Republican Values. The other is independent candidate and fashion designer Diouma Diakhaté Dieng.

Sow Sidibé, 59, already has a modest track record in politics, while Diakhaté Dieng entered the race at the last moment, her candidacy catching many observers by surprise.

One of the female candidates is Amsatou Sow Sidibé, a law professor at Dakar's Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), leader of the civil society group Convergence of Stakeholders for the Defense of Republican Values. Courtesy of Trust Africa

Even if some think that courage and gender go well together and could help the two candidates, others feel that Senegal’s electorate is not yet ready to entrust a woman with the reins of power.

The two candidates are well aware of the status of women in the country and the way they are perceived by men, and this is why they are seeking to break the taboo by winning on Feb. 26.

Sow Sidibé says that she has spent decades fighting to promot women’s rights and leadership, because there can be no democracy without the participation of half of the population: 52 percent of Senegal’s population is female, according to 2011 statistics.

On the question of education, she believes it necessary to “allow all young Senegalese to acquire skills that will enable them hold down a decent job, and to enter professional life early”, and this can be accomplished through a policy of education for all.

Sow Sidibé promises to fight against the high cost of living and to address health issues. “We intend to index pensions to the cost of living, to improve health care for soldiers with disabilities… or even to build social housing,” she told IPS.

“Impunity must end and corruption must be resisted. So much money comes into this country and I promise, if I come to power, to manage it as a good mother,” she said. According to her, “poverty concerns 80 percent of the population, and its eradication will happen through voluntary strategies which will target vulnerable people”.

According to Sow Sidibé, Senegal suffers from many problems and it is time to put the country’s destiny in a woman’s hands for equitable management of goods and resources. She adds that it’s necessary to give a chance to women and children to definitively resolve the conflict in the southern region of Casamance.

Diakhaté Dieng, the second candidate, 65, believes that the unemployed and women have not been accounted for in government’s policy and that it’s necessary to help unemployed youth between the ages of 18 and 30 to get practical training.

She says that the difficulties facing the country are enormous, underlining the importance of confronting problems of youth unemployment, without ignoring the need for a definitive resolution of the Casamance conflict.

“Once in power, we must enhance the image of education for all. Schools will be restructured and rebuilt, teachers’ salaries will be revised upwards,” she said. “Nor will the energy crisis will not be ignored,  where we now have to count on private donors in order to assure customers and avoid power cuts that we have been living with for more than five years.”

Voters’ opinions of these women are divided. “We are very attached to our traditions. We may talk about equality, but leadership is not part of women’s role,” said Alioune Samb, a literature student at UCAD.

In contrast, his colleague, Issa Gning, says that is an unfair stigmatisation, because according to him, women know the needs of the people better – and act as mothers would. “I would not hesitate to vote for a woman,” he told IPS.

Astou Dieng, a Dakar-based sociologist, also thinks that Senegalese voters are not ready to see a woman in the country’s highest office, because tradition is a weight on their thinking that must not  be forgotten.

“Here in Senegal, there are still problems of caste. People still think of women as sub-human. Sure, there has been change, but this is only in Dakar; in the interior, women are still marginalised,” she told IPS, expressing her belief that the candidacy of the singer Youssou N’Dour was rejected simply because he is a griot – a member of an inferior social class.

For Idrissa Seck, presidential candidate, to have women candidates proves that the country aspires to real change. “I wish good luck to everyone. Presently, we hope for just one thing, the departure of Abdoulaye Wade. If this comes to happen thanks to the women, that’s fine,” he told IPS.

Talla Sylla, a member of the opposition coaltion “Benno Siguil Sénégal”, has asked people to vote for the women candidates.

“Women have played and continue to play an important role in our society. The two candidates should be supported. It’s true that here tradition is still alive, but with women ministers, legislators, and others, people are begining to be aware,” he said.

(END/IPS/12)

By Travis Lupick
BLANTYRE, Dec 16 2011 (IPS)

On an elegant veranda adorned with a red carpet, Malawi’s Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend Chrissie Mtokoma was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. But now decades later Banda is a likely contender for the country’s presidency in 2014, while Mtokoma lives in poverty.

Malawi's Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. Credit: Katie C. Lin/IPS

“She went to school in the village and I went to school in the town,” begins the highest-ranking woman in Malawi politics. “I would get home Friday evening and Chrissie would be waiting for me by the roadside.”

Banda tells parallel narratives contrasting her own upbringing with that of Mtokoma’s. “In the village school, Chrissie was first in her class, all the way to standard six (grade eight),” she tells IPS. “I was always number two or three, always fighting to beat her. But I couldn’t.”

Later, both girls were accepted into prestigious secondary schools. But after just three months, Mtokoma was forced to drop out.

“Chrissie’s uncle couldn’t pay for a second semester,” Banda says. “That was it for Chrissie. She went back to the village and into a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, early marriage, and then early motherhood. By the time I finished school, she had maybe five children. And today, Chrissie is where I left her.”

Banda maintains she was only able to stay in school thanks to the middle-class income her father earned working as a policeman. “So I went on, finished, and now I am vice president of this land,” she tells IPS. “Chrissie, she is locked up in the village, in poverty. And that makes me angry. Why am I here and she is not?”

As Banda entered adulthood, these childhood memories drew her attention to the benefits of education, and especially economic empowerment, to which she has dedicated much of her life.

In recent years, Malawian women have made significant gains in their struggle for full gender equality. Women are increasingly represented in national politics, for example. Malawi’s May 2009 federal election saw the proportion of female Members of Parliament rise from 14 percent to 22. And though a minority, it is not difficult to find women’s names among the ranks of corporate board members.

Yet women in Malawi remain disproportionately affected by poverty. In 2004, the National Statistics Office found that while only 25 percent of the country’s households were headed by women, they accounted for 58.4 percent of the country’s poorest homes. Moreover, women in Malawi remain significantly under-represented in areas of economic decision-making.

Banda and other leading women argue that the key to addressing these problems is to put more of the country’s money in the hands of its mothers.

Seodi White, national coordinator for Women and Law in Southern Africa, recalls her involvement in the country’s first marches for women, which were held in the late 1990s. More than a decade later, she argues that there is still much work to be done.

Even small amounts of money can create life-changing opportunities for the country’s most disadvantaged women, White says. She describes the results of an experiment her organisation led in a village in Mangochi District. Women were given roughly 110 dollars and left to do with it as they wished.

“We found out that these are not idle hands,” White says.

One woman made sweets out of sugar and sold them to nearby schools. Another baked and sold small cakes. And a third invested in a tobacco operation. The women made enough to keep their small businesses going, and invested excess earnings in purchases that benefited their families; blankets for their children, iron sheets to improve a dwelling’s thatched roof, and household items such as salt and sugar that previously were only provided by their husbands.

“This kind of power can create a level of decision-making at the family and community level that can have cascading effects on the country,” White emphasises.

She points to studies by financial institutions such as Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, which, time and again, have shown that women are significantly more likely than men to invest in areas that alleviate poverty such as health, education, and business improvement.

“Women are trained to care for others,” she reasons. “Very few women would just use money for their own personal gain.”

At the side of the road in Blantyre, a group of women selling scraps of plastic discuss what they wish for their businesses. At the top of everyone’s list is an investment or small loan.

Cecelia Goba, 40, and Ellen Mawuwa, 35, say that they would use funds to import and resell goods from neighbouring countries such as Mozambique.

“I would buy clothes and shoes outside this country and sell them here,” Mawuwa says. “We have friends in such businesses and they are doing quite fine.”

A number of non-profit organisations are active in Malawi supplying the sort of micro-loans made famous by the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. And the vice president’s newly-formed People’s Party recently launched an initiative called Orange Achievers, which aims to maximise the economic potential of Malawian women.

But supply cannot meet demand. And as Mary Malunga, executive director for the National Association of Business Women, explains, there are a host of other challenges Malawian women must overcome if they are to excel in the professional world.

“Women need to work 10 times harder than men to prove that any job that a man can do, a woman can do too,” she explains. “Women, due to perceived social and cultural roles, are not respected when they are in leadership positions.”

Malunga, a successful businesswomen herself, offered a few words of advice.

“To get to where I am today, it took what I call the three Ps: patience, perseverance, and prayer,” she says. “You need to persevere through all kinds of challenges and obstacles which, at times, will make you feel like you will never reach your intended destination.”

White echoes Malunga’s remarks. “Determination, determination, determination,” she emphasises, warning that this may mean sacrificing other aspects of one’s life, including having a boyfriend. Falling pregnant may end a young girl’s dreams.

“You might get pregnant, and that would be the end of it,” White explains. “Most girls don’t realise the kinds of difficult decisions that some of us had to make to reach where we are.”

And at the vice president’s compound in Blantyre, Banda reiterates that economic empowerment is the path to education and prosperity. But she stresses that this does not mean anybody should wait for a handout.

“My advice to younger women is that we have a moral obligation to make it,” Banda maintains. “Regardless of what we face, we need to forge ahead, we need to keep going. For us, it is a responsibility that we have in order to push our fellow women forward.”

Excerpt:

Rita Francke and another fisherwoman at the jetty, in front of the old crayfish factory at Witsands. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

By Lee Middleton
OCEAN VIEW, South Africa, Dec 12 2011 (IPS)

Having observed changes in the sea and the life cycles of the rock lobsters that their livelihoods depend on, a group of fisherwomen from the Western Cape, South Africa are calling on government to adjust fishing seasons to adapt to what they claim are climate change-related alterations.

About 40 kilometres south of Cape Town, the fishing community of Ocean View is mostly made up of “coloured” families forcibly removed from the Cape peninsula’s picturesque seaside villages under the apartheid regime in the late 1960s. Most continued to eke out a living through fishing, and until recently, almost all the fishers here were men.

Sahra Luyt is an exception. With her husband, she began fishing West Coast rock lobster (locally called “crayfish”) nearly 20 years ago for a company. Eventually Luyt went her own way.

“I felt women were being dictated to in fishing, so I started the association and ladies joined,” Luyt recalled of her 1999 decision to found the South African Fisherwomen’s Association (SAFWA).

SAFWA now counts some 70 members, most hailing from the peninsula’s poorest townships, and many of whom say they have encountered difficulties with men resentful of the women’s presence on the sea.

“Before it was very difficult, but now it’s not that bad – we’ve proven ourselves,” Luyt said.

With their own single outboard-motor boats and ring nets, the women participate in the near-shore commercial rock lobster fishery, bringing in around 600 to 800 kilogrammes of lobster each season, normally from November to June. A live rock lobster can fetch 14 to 20 dollars/kg. Though gender dynamics have improved, the women now face other troubles.

“Previously where we’d find a lot of fish, we don’t find many. Also I’ve been to sea these days when you go out on a nice normal sea day and all of a sudden the weather is standing up and you have to rush back home,” said Luyt of the changes she has observed.

Women have typically only been employed in the fishing industry in the processing work. Here a woman fillets fresh hake at a rate of 15 seconds per fish. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS

The fisherwomen also cited changing water temperatures, more severe tides, and changes in the life cycle of the rock lobster.

“Over the last few years, the crayfish quality has shifted from November when it used to be good. Now we find they’re still molting, or softening their shells to grow, and they’re also in berry, which means the female is still carrying eggs,” Luyt explained. “I’d say those things are climate change.”

SAFWA has called on the South African Marine Resource Management (MRM) to adjust the fishing season to correspond with the changes they say they have observed, and possibly to lengthen it due to the unpredictable conditions they say are a result of climate change.

But fisheries scientists respond that seasons and policy are based on science-based evidence, and so far, the links between fish stocks and climate change are not sufficiently clear. SAFWA can appeal the decision but are yet to do so.

“There have clearly been ecological changes that have driven differences we’re seeing, and they may be linked to climate change, but we can’t prove it,” said Chief Director of MRM, Dr. Johann Augustyn.

Though reports like a 2009 international study led by Edward Allison have made significant progress in linking the impacts of climate change to fisheries around the world – and thus providing some guidance for predictive management changes in those places – data for Africa is sorely lacking.

Tabeth Chiuta, regional director at the World Fish Center, a non-profit research organisation, agreed the science simply is not there yet.

“In Africa, we don’t have enough science to make practical changes. Most of the reaction we are seeing in Africa is based on these global assessments, which have not zeroed in to the specific location like that of these small-scale fisherwomen. Is that change which they are seeing due to climate change? It could be due to overfishing. For Africa the science is not there, and it needs to be generated,” said Chiuta.

But the fisherwomen, like so many Africans who rely on fishing for their livelihoods, do not have time for the science to catch up. According to Chiuta, 10 million African families are involved in small-scale fisheries and fish for livelihoods, and 15 percent of the working population on the continent is employed in fisheries.

MRM head of research, Kim Prochazka, recognised the urgency of the situation. “Faced with this huge amount of uncertainty there’s no small-scale specific directed interventions you can do. But it’s going to take us far too long to get to that understanding. We’ve got to do something now. So you have to take a pragmatic approach that puts you in the best position to cope with whatever changes may come at you,” said Prochazka.

According to Prochazka, this means taking a pro-active approach to rebuilding fish stocks to more resilient levels, managing fisheries on an ecosystem wide level rather than for isolated fish stocks, and developing aquaculture technology in order to prevent a food security catastrophe.

Chiuta agreed that these interventions were the best options fisheries management had in the face of uncertainty. She added that building the knowledge base, improving monitoring, developing capacity to implement adaptation and mitigation strategies, and working on policy and institutional reforms were also all critical around the continent.

Meanwhile, West Coast rock lobster stocks are the lowest they have ever been, with no clear sign of improving. MRM estimates the population at only 3.5 percent of what it was before people started harvesting them on a large scale.

“The primary issue is the one of resource depletion. Unfortunately we can’t tie that to climate change and say that is why the resource is depleted. We have to take responsibility and say the resource is depleted because in the past we caught too much. That is the bottom line,” said Prochazka.

Rita Francke is a single mother supporting three children. When Sahra Luyt appeared and taught her to fish, she had not had regular employment for years, and constantly worried about feeding her family. Asked what she would do if the rock lobster fishery moves or collapses, Francke joked, “I’d move!” Then, more sober, she reflected, “I don’t know what I’d do. I’d have to find a job, cleaning houses or something. I don’t know.”

Talata Nsor, a 54-year-old woman from Bolgatanga community in Northern Ghana, has been weaving the cultural Bolga baskets, which are named after her community, her entire life.

Nalifu Yussif holds a few Bolga baskets at the ongoing COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

It has been a successful enterprise for her, and she has even managed to put her children through school with proceeds from her sales.

However, she is concerned that soon her community may no longer be able to continue making the baskets, which are famous in the entire West African region, with a market in Europe and America.

This is because the raw material used to make the baskets, commonly known as elephant grass or Veta vera as it is known scientifically, is becoming extinct due to what Nsor refers to as changing climatic conditions.

“Just 10 years ago, I would walk to any nearby wetland area within Northern Ghana and harvest the grass free of charge. But today, I have to walk very far, or travel to Kumasi, about 400 kilometres away, in order to buy the raw material,” said Nsor.

The elephant grass can only grow in wetlands. But according to experts from the area, people are converting wetlands into agricultural land as a means of coping with the lack of rain and rising food insecurity.

“People prefer turning wetlands into horticultural zones because rain-fed agriculture is failing. Rain patterns are no-longer reliable, and people need to farm in places where they are assured of water for irrigation,” said Nafisatu Yussif, Programme Officer at ABANTU, an organisation that engages policies from a gender perspective in Africa.

She is one of the many women representing their communities from all over the world who have made their way to the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in order to have their voices heard.

“We are hosting different women from different walks of life,” said Samantha Hargreaves of ActionAid International, one of the conveners of the Rural Women’s Assembly running alongside the 17th Conference of Parties.

“More than 500 women in this forum are sharing experiences from different countries, suggesting the way forward, and showcasing their best practices. The outcome of the assembly will be presented to the African Group of Negotiators as a common position of women from the world’s poor countries,” said Hargreaves.

However, according to the assembly’s participants, women from poor countries have predicaments that are almost similar.

Rural women are feeling the effects of climate change in their agricultural yields. Credit Kristin Palitza/IPS

“In my country, women toil on the farms, but when it comes to harvesting, the men take the responsibility of collecting the money. I have just learnt that the situation is the same in Africa and other Asian countries,” said María Estela Jocón González, who is representing rural women from three rural regions in Guatemala.

The western, southern and northern regions of Guatemala are areas prone to floods, a situation which has worsened in the recent past, González said.

“When the floods come, the water wells get soaked up with dirty flooding water. Yet according to our culture, it is the sole responsibility of a woman to ensure that the family has enough safe water for drinking and other domestic uses,” she told IPS.

She is calling for the international community meeting in Durban to ensure systems are put in place to keep in check the increasing floods.

“I want to hear of commitments for countries to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global warming. It is good to think about development, but development without a sound environment is useless,” she said.

While there is flooding in Guatemala, southern Senegal is experiencing a lack of rainfall. Faty Khody from Kaulak, a rural community found in the southern part of Senegal, told IPS that rainfall in the area has dropped from an average of 900 millimetres in 2001, to between 300 and 400 millimetres currently.

“We used to grow vegetables and sell them in the local market. But currently, this is not possible unless it is done through irrigation,” said Khody, who works as a promotional officer for Interpench, a community-based organisation that brings together over 7,700 women from rural Senegal.

“The rain patterns have changed, droughts have become extreme, and when it rains, it results in floods, which often cause suffering to the rural people, especially women and children.”

With support from the non-governmental organisation Horizon 3000, Interpench has started a project called “One woman, one fruit tree” as a way of adapting to climate change.

“We say one tree because it is the first step. The seedling for the one tree is given out free of charge, and it is named after whoever plants it as a reminder. However, it is supposed to be a motivation for women to participate largely in not only the planting of trees, but planting fruit-producing trees,” Khody said.

“We are hoping that the deliberations at COP 17 will come up with ideas that will support such women- driven climate change adaptation initiatives,” said Hargreaves.

However, she insists that for such projects to succeed, they must be built on indigenous knowledge systems.

“The African Group of Negotiators must not succumb to the pressure from the developed countries at COP 17,” she said.

Similar views were shares by Elizabeth Kakukuru, the Programme Officer for the Gender Unit at the Southern African Development Community.

“Most negotiations have always been done in boardrooms without involving the person on the ground. Yet the recommendations made are supposed to be implemented by a woman who lives in a rural area. Time has come for the affected parties to be involved directly in such important negotiations,” she said.

With regards to the use of technology transfer for climate change adaptation, Kakukuru observed that all projects must be appropriate, and should be developed in consultation with indigenous communities.

Better Aid Can Save Millions of Lives in Africa. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah and - -
BUSAN, South Korea, Nov 29 2011 (IPS)

Although there has been considerable progress towards reducing maternal and infant mortality, millions of women and children in Africa are still in need of better health services, food and sanitation.

Better Aid Can Save Millions of Lives in Africa. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Statistics by Save the Children, an international non-government organisation, reveal that African countries claim nine out of ten bottom places in a worldwide maternal health ranking that involves 164 countries.

Ben Philips of Save the Children says, “These reductions are not at the rate envisaged when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched in 2000. Eleven years later, many countries are still a long way behind the set targets.”

As a consequence of the outcry provoked by high maternal and infant deaths, the 2000 United Nations summit bound every member state to achieve the MDGs – eight development targets.

Towards this end, MDGs 4 and 5 are geared towards reducing infant mortality and improving maternal health, respectively. Consequently, these countries were mandated to reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five and reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio.

This has not happened. In fact, Philips says, “African governments need to prioritise women’s and children’s health. They also need to speed up by four times the rate at which these deaths are declining in order to achieve MDGs 4 and 5 by 2015.”

As the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF 4) takes shape in Busan, one question is if women and children in Africa can expect any tangible results from the conference in this South Korean port city.

According to Philips, there is little for them. “Unfortunately, the Busan Outcome document, which basically summarises the Forum’s platform for action beyond the conference, isn’t ambitious enough to improve aid effectiveness. For instance, there is no strong commitment to untie aid.”

Experts on aid in Busan say that if donors had shown a strong commitment to untie aid as an outcome of the ongoing conference, this would have increased aid by 15 to 30 percent, consequently increasing the value of aid.

And this is not the only way in which donors are letting African women and children down. Although the G-8 countries, comprising the world’s richest nations, committed to ensuring that 0.7 percent of their budget goes to aid. None of them has actualised this commitment.

Britain has, however, promised to meet this commitment by 2013.

“There’s a clear aid deficit that makes it difficult for poor countries to channel money into sector budgets towards improving health services by employing qualified nurses and even having more health facilities in areas where the poor can easily access them,” said Dan Badoo, a policy researcher.

But donors are not the only ones letting women down. Eleven years since the Abuja declaration, where African heads of states committed themselves to allocate at least 15 percent of their national budgets to lighten the disease burden that women carry, there is little to show on the ground.

According to Save the Children, only six out of 53 African Union member states have so far met this commitment. They are: Rwanda, Botswana, Niger, Malawi, Zambia and Burkina Faso.

Despite the devastating impact that genocide had on the Rwandans, the country has become a model example of prioritising the health of women and children.

Consequently, according to UNFPA, the maternal mortality rate in Rwanda dropped from 750 per 100,000 live births in 2005 to 540 in 2008. Government statistics now show 383 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Philips says, “Malawi is one of the pioneer countries devoting 15 percent of its budget to health, saving an estimated 13,000 lives.”

Kenya is one of the countries lagging behind in this commitment with a paltry budget allocation of about five percent and the results are as expected. In the recent MDG progress report of 2010, Kenya is one of the countries which has made the least progress in achieving MDG 5.

Say Badoo: “Against this background, the connection between aid and saving lives is clear. Aid effectiveness is about delivering social services that enable people to live decent lives and exploit their potential.”

Mothers dying while giving birth in a shanty in Old Fadama or the Jamestown slums in Accra, Ghana or Kibera slums in Kenya or Kyalisha in South Africa is a reflection that African heads of state are not taking the health of women and children seriously.

“When we say that this is the HLF 4, it all sounds so technical and elitist, but what the ordinary, poor persons really need is to experience how healthy aid can improve their lives, can give them better quality livelihoods and save dying mothers and infants,” Philips said.

Excerpt:

By Protus Onyango and - -
NAIROBI, Nov 10 2011 (IPS)

Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya’s Supreme Court Nancy Baraza, who made history as the first woman appointed to the post, has begun overhauling the country’s judiciary.

Deputy Chief Justice of Kenya's Supreme Court Nancy Baraza has begun overhauling the country's judiciary. Credit: Protus Onyango/IPS

Baraza has warned judicial officers resisting reforms that they risk disciplinary action and even retrenchment.

“We shall implement radical but necessary reforms that are going to be able to bring effectiveness, fairness, eliminate corruption and instill discipline among (the judiciary’s) officers,” Baraza told IPS.

The Supreme Court is composed of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, his deputy, Baraza, and five other judges. It was created to spearhead the implementation of the country’s new constitution, which was signed into law in 2010, and to establish an independent judiciary.

Baraza said that a staff audit will soon be conducted to determine the qualifications and competence of judicial officers and to establish the staffing needs of the judicial system.

“Radical transfers of judicial officers may be on the way to break up entrenched cartels that are frustrating changes in the judiciary. There are some officials who may want the old order to continue. But we will push for the necessary reforms to make the judiciary meet the expectations of Kenyans. Those resisting changes will have to fall by the wayside,” Baraza said.

The deputy chief justice has served as the executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission for many years and as the chairperson of the Federation of Women Lawyers – Kenya, which champions women’s rights.

Baraza said there was a need to clear the backlog of over one million cases in the courts in the next six months. She said the Kenyan High Court has 2,015 pending criminal appeal cases, some of which have not been heard for 20 years because files have gone missing. The Kenya High Court has jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, interprets the country’s bill of rights and the constitution, and is an appeals court for the country’s subordinate courts.

“We must find a solution immediately and have a remedy for all the parties involved,” she said.

The judge added that since she was appointed, the judiciary has so far digitised over 60 million pages of cases from 1999 to 2010 at the High Court.

She said key to the reform agenda included establishing 14 new courts in remote parts of the country and computerising all court operations. She promised that the public would be able to access case information through SMS soon and that the Supreme Court would soon be a paperless court. In addition, High Court and Court of Appeal cases will be allocated electronically.

Vice Chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) Professor Christine Mango said that Baraza has proved her mettle by stamping her authority to rid the judicial system of corruption. The JSC appoints the judges.

“When we shortlisted her for the post, some people made noise saying that she has a soft spot for gay (men) and lesbians and would use her position to entrench their ideals in our constitution. She has proved them wrong by upholding professional integrity and her opponents are now happy that she is steering the judiciary in the right direction without bias or favour,” Mango said.

Baraza is presently pursuing a PhD thesis at Kenyatta University on gay rights.

Also elected alongside her as the country’s only other female Supreme Court judge was Nancy Njoki Ndungu. A former member of parliament, Ndungu was also a commissioner at the Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review, which drafted Kenya’s new constitution.

But as the two women settle down in their new offices, some hope they will use the court to advance the rights of sexual minorities in Kenya.

In conservative Kenya lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are subjected to discrimination. The Catholic Church opposed the appointment of the two women and said: “We need people with a judicial philosophy that reflects natural law, the Kenyan religious and African cultural values, including our universal respect for life…” Baraza said her PhD thesis on the rights of gay men and lesbians in Kenya was not complete but that she had established that health services were non-existent for gays. “Those who say I’m supporting them are jumping the gun. I have gone into the unknown. I have no findings yet,” she said.

However, the Chairperson of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya Maq Gitau said the organisation was happy with the appointment of both women as it now meant they had an avenue to address their issues.

“We have been condemned for our position in society but we are now happy that the constitution grants all of us rights,” he said. Gitau says his organisation has already met with Baraza about being recognised and they “were well received”.

Meanwhile, Ndungu said she wanted to reform the judiciary and “correct all the imbalances” in Kenya.

“My new posting is a challenge, which I believe can be surmounted if all Kenyans and all organs of government work towards a common goal; a goal to reform the judiciary, correct all the imbalances and give the people of Kenya the justice they have long fought for,” Ndungu told IPS.

“This is a tough job for us and Kenyans expect us to deliver justice in the most expeditious way. The job does not lie with us alone. It lies with all Kenyans. They should keep us on our toes, audit our performance and safeguard their constitution where all enjoy their rights,” Baraza said.

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet and - -
MONROVIA, Nov 8 2011 (IPS)

Liberians headed to the polls in what appeared to be modest numbers Tuesday morning for a presidential runoff that has been marred by an opposition boycott and the deaths of at least two demonstrators at an opposition rally.

U.N. armored vehicles enter the compound of the Congress for Democratic Change after the first round of shooting. At least two demonstrators died. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

In Monrovia, polling centres that saw long lines for the first round witnessed markedly fewer voters as they opened at 8am.

Burnnies Korbor, 20, who voted at a high school in central Monrovia, said she believed the low turnout demonstrated that voters were “scared,” but added that she had no worries about coming out to vote for incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

“She’s doing well in the country,” Korbor said. “Right now there’s no war, nothing. Everything’s calm.”

On Friday, Winston Tubman, the CDC’s presidential candidate and a former diplomat, announced that his party would not participate in the runoff, citing what he said were irregularities in the first round. Although the CDC has stood behind its boycott call, his name still appears on the ballot.

Tubman placed second with 32.7 percent in the first round. Sirleaf, who was named a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in October, earned 43.9 percent, but needed at least 50 percent to avoid a second round of voting.

Election monitors commended the Oct. 11 ballot as largely free, fair and transparent. The European Union, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States all weighed in with condemnations of the CDC boycott over the weekend. The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply disappointed” by the CDC’s position, adding: “The CDC’s charge that the first-round election was fraudulent is unsubstantiated.”

Aaron Weah, programme associate with the International Centre for Transitional Justice in Monrovia, said Monday evening that it was unclear how the boycott and subsequent violence would affect Tuesday’s vote, which the National Elections Commission said would go ahead as scheduled.

While acknowledging Liberia’s conflict-ridden past, Weah said violence had rarely occurred alongside democratic processes that have been widely viewed as credible. In that respect, he said, “there is no precedent” for Monday’s shootings.

He added that he suspected that the police and politicians shared the blame for Monday’s deaths.

“Today is a lesson that we haven’t broken strongly yet from our past,” he said. “Politicians are still trying to put ordinary people in harm’s way.”

Justice Minister Christiana Tah said at a press conference Monday evening that “unconfirmed reports” indicated that one person might have died. But IPS witnessed at least two dead bodies at the CDC compound on Monday afternoon, one of whom was shot in the head at close range after Liberian police stormed the compound with their guns drawn.

United Nations peacekeepers who arrived on the scene could be seen struggling with the Liberian police and trying to bring them under control.

Since the 2003 conclusion of Liberia’s brutal 14-year civil war, which claimed more than 250,000 lives, the U.N. Mission in Liberia has overseen the restructuring of Liberia’s police force, according to an International Crisis Group report released in August, which noted that the continued presence of U.N. peacekeepers “has been the main guarantor of peace.”

“The national security sector is now able to cope with some threats, but continued international presence is imperative in view of the failings of the police and their very limited reach outside the capital,” the ICG report said.

Tah said at the press conference that she had received reports on Monday of gas stations being looted, police officers being stoned and government and U.N. vehicles being damaged.

She also accused CDC leaders of spreading “inflammatory utterances,” and said such conduct was at least partly responsible for the violence.

“You cannot incite people, especially with disinformation, and that has led to the kind of problem that we have today,” she said.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents and - -
KINSHASA, Oct 28 2011 (IPS)

Women make up just 12 percent of the roughly 18,000 candidates who will stand for election to parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Nov. 28 elections.

The leading parties are doing little to ensure greater numbers of women are elected to parliament, but Congolese women are acting for themselves. Credit: Aubrey Graham/IRIN

And there are just five women in the 108-member Senate, representing 4.4 percent, while the provincial legislatures have a total of 43 women representatives, or 6.8 percent of a total of 632.

Leading parties ignoring parity

The Southern African Development Community’s Gender Protocol, adopted by member states including DRC in 2008, calls for 50 percent of decision-making positions to be held by women by 2015.

The Protocol commits governments to not only raise public awareness of the link between good governance and equal representation of women in decision-making, but to take legislative and other measure including affirmative action. But there are precious few signs that the leading parties are committed to meeting these goals.

In his campaign platform, announced in September in Kingakati, near Kinshasa, President Joseph Kabila – who is running for re-election on Nov. 28 – described DRC as an “emerging” nation, possessing a reserve of intelligence and know-how, and a regional power at the heart of Africa, but said nothing explicit about addressing women’s demands.

The same can be said of the programme put forward by the principal opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi, head of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress party, who has stressed patriotisim, national unity, development and change to improve governance of the country.

Françoise Ikwapa, from the League of Women for Development, Education and Democracy, believes that the platforms of the two leading presidential candidates guarantee nothing for gender equality and parity, even though Article 14 of the constitution requires the government to work towards this.

Women need better representation

Congolese women face major challenges, according to Jacquie Rumbu, director of the National Agency for Combating Violence Against Women and Girls, confirmed the numbers. “DRC is characterised by a feminisation of poverty and armed conflicts have aggravated existing inequalities.”

Despite the presence of the U.N.’s largest peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Congo (MONUSCO), armed groups including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (an exiled Rwandan rebel group known by its French acronym, FDLR) and the DRC’s own armed forces, are accused of continuing to commit rape with impunity, particularly in the east of the country.

An article in the February edition of a magazine published by MONUSCO said, “Around 200,000 women were raped in DRC over the last 12 years of war.”

On other fronts, early marriage and inadequate access to healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth puts women’s lives at risk.

“In DRC, the maternal mortality rate is 549 deaths for every 100,000 live births,” says Dr Protais Musindo, Assistant Director of the National Programme on Health and Reproduction, referring to the last demographic and health survey, carried out in 2008.

Confident women stepping forward

Women candidates are increasingly finding their voice on these and other issues as various non- governmental groups have redoubled their efforts to increase the number of elected women, including setting up women’s leadership circles and an electoral clinic which supports candidates in their campaigns. Several forums were organised with this aim across the country between 2010 and 2011.

“Once elected as a member of parliament, I will try to propose laws that will enable the economic independence of women and fight against poverty,” says Georgette Biebie, a candidate in the constituency of Kikwit, in the southeast of DRC. She is a candidate for the Alliance for the Renewal of the Congo.

Interviewed by IPS in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, Biebie also promised to be an active participant in parliament in order to spur the government into action to reduce maternal mortality and more effectively apply laws that protect children, women and people with disabilities.

Biebie adds: “I’m going to try to take action in the fight against violence against women, in the struggle against climate change, and to gain access to Green Funds to encourage women to develop their agricultural output while protecting forests.”

Jeanne Lembwa Kabange, a candidate standing for election in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi for the Movement for the Integrity of the People, plans to lobby for legislation that protects women, but says women should not see men only as opponents. “Women must not neglect their male partners. Together, they will develop the country through complementary action,” she says.

Chantal Malamba, an Action for Development Party candidate in Mabimba, in the southwest, says if she is elected, she will prioritise the questions of livelihoods, security and development. “DRC faces serious problems of access to water and electricity, aside from the thorny problems of poverty and unemployment.”

Mixed response from voters

Asked what she thought of the promises made by these female candidates, Yvette Mova, a housewife in the Kinshasa district of N’djili, says women candidates’ plans of action are attractive.

“Women mustn’t go backwards, because they are just as capable of working hard as men. I will vote for one of them on Nov. 28. I would even have wanted us to have a female candidate for president of the republic to make changes in this country. But there isn’t a candidate for this post,” she tells IPS.

Solange Mukwanga, a vendor in the Liberté market in the Masina district of the capital, is less enthusiastic. “I don’t have confidence in women. They are vain and too weak despite their programmes,” she says.

For Didier Mboma, a civil society activist, women candidates stand a good chance in the elections. “They can readily win seats if other women, who make up more than 51 percent of the electorate, choose them. Some men could also vote for them if they can be won over,” he tells IPS.

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet, Stephen Binda, and - -
MONROVIA , Oct 18 2011 (IPS)

Former warlord Prince Johnson, who placed third in Liberia’s election last week, has endorsed the re-election bid of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who was named a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize just days before the vote.

The most recent results from the National Elections Commission (NEC), representing 96.7 percent of total votes cast on Oct. 11, show Johnson with 11.8 percent nationwide. Johnson-Sirleaf is in the lead with 44 percent – she needed more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff. The leading opposition candidate, Winston Tubman of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), is in second place with 32.2 percent. The results are, however, not final.

Johnson, most famous for overseeing the torture and execution of President Samuel Doe in 1990, said in an interview with a community radio station in his native Nimba County on Monday that he would be supporting Johnson-Sirleaf.

Johnson-Sirleaf, 72, will compete with Tubman in a runoff scheduled for Nov. 8.

It remains to be seen how much impact Johnson’s endorsement will have in Nimba, this West African nation’s second most-populous county. Johnson-Sirleaf’s Unity Party earned 25.5 percent of the vote in Nimba in the first round, while Tubman earned just 2.8 percent.

On Monday, Johnson said he believed his supporters were waiting for him to tell them who to vote for, referring to himself several times as a “king-maker”.

The build-up to his endorsement comes amid criticism from the opposition about the manner in which the results have been tallied. On Saturday, nine opposition parties – including the CDC and Johnson’s National Union for Democratic Progress – said they would be pulling out of the election in response to “massive fraud” and threatened not to accept the result.

“We direct all of our party agents assigned at NEC in all capacities to withdraw effective immediately,” the parties said in a statement. “If the process continues we will not accept the results.”

Tubman has since said he would participate in the runoff.

Johnson said Monday that he was convinced there had been widespread irregularities.

“There was cheating,” he said. “There was rigging. Many ballots were tampered with. We have several tally sheets in our possession that clearly indicate that something went wrong.”

NEC has denied allegations of wrongdoing, and a host of international observers have commended the voting process.

The Atlanta-based Carter Center described the vote as “peaceful, orderly, and remarkably transparent” in a statement released Thursday.

“Although the process of tabulating final results is ongoing and preliminary results have not been announced, the electoral process to date is a positive sign of Liberians’ commitment to democratic development,” the statement said.

The Carter Center cited “a number of minor procedural irregularities,” but said none would undermine the integrity of the vote.

“Observed irregularities included polling places where secrecy of the ballot was not strictly maintained, inking procedures undertaken out of order, and ballot papers folded improperly,” the statement said.

Despite his stated concerns about the process, Johnson said any resulting violence would be uncalled for.

“Whatever went wrong should not in any way allow any of us to be so angry to bring about any form of action that would destabilise peace in the country,” he said.

Johnson-Sirleaf delivered an address Monday condemning minor criminal acts reported since the vote, including the torching early Saturday morning of an office belonging to her Unity Party.

International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who was in neighbouring Ivory Coast over the weekend as part of an investigation into the post-election violence that followed that country’s disputed vote last year, issued a warning to Liberia’s political class.

“My office is closely monitoring election-related developments including in neighbouring countries such as Liberia, which could affect stabilisation throughout the West African region,” he said. “We will pay close attention to the actions and statements of the political class, and in particular to the presidential candidates, including after the elections. Resorting to violence will not be tolerated.”

Addressing the factors he would consider in making his endorsement decision, Johnson also raised the prospect of war crimes prosecutions – but he was referring to those covering Liberia’s 14-year civil conflict, which ended in 2003 after claiming more than 250,000 lives.

Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended in 2009 that the country establish a war crimes tribunal and listed Johnson among those who should be prosecuted.

The commission included both Johnson and Johnson-Sirleaf on a list of people who should be banned from politics for 30 years on account of their alleged ties to warring factions. The commission’s recommendations have not been implemented, and the political bans have been deemed unconstitutional by the country’s Supreme Court.

On Monday, Johnson criticised leaders of the CDC – including Tubman and his running mate, former international football star George Weah – for past statements indicating their support of prosecutions.

“When you start arresting people to prosecute you could be bringing us back to zero ground,” he said.

“Frankly speaking, I can’t have my people voting for them,” Johnson continued. “The thing we’re talking about here is nationalism, patriotism. That’s what we are talking about.”

He later added: “We’re not afraid of a war crimes court but we are afraid of bogus charges levelled against us.”

Johnson also said the opposition CDC had failed to promote residents of Nimba County into leadership positions; something he said could hurt its chances in the county.

Excerpt:

When Al-Shabaab militants called the Somali national women’s basketball team captain, Suweys Ali Jama, and told her she had two options: to be killed or to stop playing basketball, she decided that neither was really an option at all.

The Somali national women's basketball team is in training for the Arab Games in Qatar. Credit: Shafi'i Mohyaddin Abokar/IPS

“I will only die when my life runs out – no one can kill me but Allah … I will never stop my profession while I am still alive,” Jama told IPS.

“Now, I am a player, but even if I retire I hope to be a coach – I will stop basketball only when I perish,” Jama said.

The Al-Qaeda-linked military group controls large parts of Somalia and occupied almost half of the country’s capital, Mogadishu, until its surprise withdrawal on Aug. 6. However, the group’s presence in the city remains as Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack on the capital on Oct. 4, which killed at least 70 people.

Now Jama and members of her team have received death threats from the Islamic militant group, which views women’s participation in sport as “un-Islamic”.

In August 2006 the Somali Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a group of Sharia courts, issued an order banning Somali women from playing sport calling it the “heritage of old Christian cultures.” At the time the ICU controlled Mogadishu, but lost control of the city in December 2006.

Al-Shabaab, which was the armed wing of the ICU, has not altered their stance on women playing sport.

Aisha Mohamed, the deputy captain of the national women’s basketball team, said the militants also threatened her.

“‘You are twice guilty. First, you are a woman and you are playing sports, which the Islamic rule has banned. Second, you are representing the military club who are puppets for the infidels. So we are targeting you wherever you are,’ Islamists warned me during phone calls. But I am still clinging to my profession,” Mohamed told IPS.

Mohamed is one of the prominent national team members who belong to the Somali military sports club, Horseed. Mohamed’s mother is a former member of the women’s national team and she has been playing the sport since she was a child.

Basketball is the second-most popular sport in Somalia after football and, aside from handball, is the only other sport that Somali women play. However, women earn meager salaries as professional basketball players.

“I am a human being and I fear, but I know that only Allah can kill me,” 21-year-old Mohamed said echoing Jama’s sentiments.

So the team is training for December’s Arab Games in Qatar inside the safety of the bullet-ridden walls of the Somali police academy’s basketball court.

On a day with a clear blue sky overhead the women, dressed in loose fitting tracksuits and T-shirts and wearing headscarves, sprint from one end of the court to another amid the presence of hundreds of policemen.

When they are done they line up to take shots at the basketball hoop. All week they train for two hours a day here and only take off on Thursdays and Fridays – the Muslim weekend.

In the evening when the women leave the safety of the training base they swap their training gear for the anonymity of the traditional Islamic dress and veil. They also wear a Yashmak, a small piece of cloth to cover their faces.

Somalia’s first women’s national basketball team was formed in 1970 and participated in African and regional competitions over the years despite never winning a tournament, according to the National Olympic Committee President Aden Hajji Yeberow.

But the 2006 ban on women playing sports halted the growth of women’s basketball in this East African nation said Somali Basketball Federation Deputy Secretary-General Abdi Abdulle Ahmed.

“The Islamist ban led to some women (quitting the sport), because of fear,” Ahmed told IPS.

President of the Somali Basketball Federation Hussein Ibrahim Ali said that whenever women’s involvement in basketball grows, something occurs to set the sport back.

The 2006 Islamist ban, which lead to nearly two hundred women quitting the sport because of fear of reprisals, was one such incident. The two decades of civil war in the country, was another. Since mid- July a severe drought has affected the country, with famine declared in regions of southern Somalia.

Ali added that lack of sponsorship and insecurity were the biggest killers of sport in Somalia.

“So when the world knows that Somalia has undergone such hardships and our women are playing in an international tournament, this would really be great publicity for the whole country and, in particular, for the basketball federation,” Ali said.

The women’s coach Ali Sheik Muktar said that he is hopeful that his team will be successful in the upcoming Arab Games.

“To have a women’s team means a lot to Somalia,” Ali said.

By Robbie Corey-Boulet and Stephen Binda
MONROVIA, Oct 11 2011 (IPS)

Liberians cast their ballots Tuesday in an election that has so far been described as orderly and peaceful, though concerns persist that a disputed result could anger voters and fuel minor unrest.

Supporters from President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's Unity Party during the last campaign rally on Sunday. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

Her top rival that year, former international football star George Weah of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), claimed the election was stolen – despite affirmation of the results from a range of international observers – and refused to admit defeat.

This year, Weah is running for vice president under CDC presidential candidate and former diplomat Winston Tubman, but the allegations of fraud have not gone away. The CDC campaign theme song, “It will not hold,” condemns “the rigging of the election” and accuses President Johnson-Sirleaf’s Unity Party of “depending on cheating.”

At the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) polling station in downtown Monrovia on Tuesday, Emmanuel Kollimealyne, an officer with the Community Watch Forum of Liberia, said he had visited four polling stations in the morning and had found the process to be peaceful.

“I think I’m confident now that since the conduct of the campaign was very peaceful, the elections will be peaceful,” he said. “In Liberia we are more mature now.”

But he said there were still doubts that the CDC would be able to accept defeat. “I think it comes from 2005,” he said. “Also, this year they are pre-empting that they will be cheated. They are starting to (sound) the alarm earlier.”

The first voter in line at the YMCA, having arrived at 5am, was Teddy Tubman, the 25-year-old nephew of Winston Tubman.

“I want this election to be peaceful, free and fair,” Teddy Tubman said. “There should be no cheating.”

Asked how he thought the CDC would respond to a loss, he said: “Well, in 2005 the opposition decided to accept the election result because of peace, because of the people. We don’t want this election to repeat what happened in 2005. Any case of cheating might erupt in violence.”

The campaign period came to a close on Sunday, with the parties holding competing rallies in two stadiums in Monrovia. Though large groups of supporters of the CDC and Johnson-Sirleaf’s Unity Party occasionally encountered each other in the streets, the marching and slogan-shouting generally remained good-natured.

Political observers are expecting a close race that could head to a runoff in early November. The National Elections Commission has said results will be announced by Oct. 26, though preliminary results are expected sooner.

CDC Chairman Geraldine Doe-Sheriff has said the party would release its own results, a possibility that has sparked alarm among election monitors. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s former head of state and head of the Carter Center’s 55-person international election observation mission in Liberia, said such a move would be illegal.

“It is not right. The only person to announce the result is the chairman of the National Electoral Commission,” Gowon said. “If they do it, it is against the law and I hope there is a process whereby such a thing can be dealt with. But it will not be accepted as the result.”

Gowon also said the election was going “exceptionally well” despite light rainfall around midday. “People have turned out in great numbers and enthusiastically,” he said. “It has been going well so far and we hope that it will continue to go well in all places.”

Winston Tubman cast his ballot at around 10:30am at a high school in central Monrovia. “Liberians are peaceful people who are seizing the ballot boxes to do what is necessary so that we can get back on a normal path,” he told reporters.

Asked whether he would win, he responded, “Sure, and in the first round.”

But Mother Ainoson, a 56-year-old supporter of Johnson-Sirleaf, said she believed the incumbent would prevail, and that any allegations of fraud that might ensue would be unfounded.

“If you look at the whole aspect, people have security at all of the polling stations, so who will bypass that and cheat?” she said. “So I want to say that everything will be fair.”

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet
GRAND GEDEH COUNTY, Liberia, Oct 10 2011 (IPS)

As Liberia gears up for Tuesday’s presidential and legislative elections, officials stationed near the border with Ivory Coast have expressed concern that insufficient border security – a problem highlighted by two recent cross-border attacks – could fuel electoral violence.

Bleblocoula Sylvain (foreground) lost eight members of his family during a March raid in Diboke, Ivory Coast. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 72, of the Unity Party, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, is seeking a second term of office. The incumbent president is running against 15 presidential candidates, including one from the Congress for Democratic Change, which initially earned more votes than her in 2005 (she later won in a runoff).

There is no credible polling in the West African nation, but observers expect the race will be close, potentially resulting in a runoff in early November.

The campaign period has been marked with divisive rhetoric and talk of vote stealing that some observers have warned could spill over into violence depending on the result.

Last year’s disputed election in Ivory Coast sparked a conflict between forces loyal to ousted President Laurent Gbagbo and his successor, Alassane Ouattara, that claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and sent a flood of refugees into Liberia. Liberian mercenaries were also recruited into the fighting, and there are reports that Ivorian Gbagbo supporters have resettled on the Liberian side of the border.

Corinne Dufka, a senior West Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), said that while she believed Liberians were committed to maintaining peace, it was important to remember the extent to which past conflicts “have reverberated across each country’s porous borders, causing significant flows of arms, combatants and refugees, and untold human suffering.”

Thomas Kahn, an immigration official stationed at the Behai border crossing in Grand Gedeh County, in eastern Liberia, recommended that the government double the present number of security forces in order to prevent the cross-border trafficking of small arms. He also noted that during the election some security forces would be called away from the border to man polling stations elsewhere in the county.

“Over the past months there has been a problem in Ivory Coast, so we need more manpower at the border now,” Kahn said. “It is a security risk.”

Jerry Zeah, the town chief of Behai, also said he believed there was insufficient security in the area to ensure the safety of residents.

Last month, HRW documented an attack allegedly perpetrated by Gbagbo supporters based in Liberia that killed 23 people in two villages located 25 kilometres south of the Ivory Coast town of Tai. The attack was similar to a cross-border raid carried out in July that killed at least eight people in Ivory Coast.

According to HRW, the attacks are believed to have been launched by youth from Ivory Coast “who served as pro-Gbagbo militiamen during the country’s six-month post-election conflict” and are now based in Liberia. The victims, meanwhile, “tended to support” Ouattara.

Women and children were among the victims in both attacks.

In a statement detailing the July attack, HRW said: “One witness described attackers sticking a gun barrel in the mouth of a man whom they’d trapped; they then shot him. A Burkinabé man living in the area was found with his throat slit.”

“These armed groups appear determined to wreak havoc on a population that has already suffered greatly from Côte d’Ivoire’s deadly post-election crisis,” said Daniel Bekele, HRW’s Africa director. “United Nations peacekeeping missions in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia need to assist state authorities in preventing more bloodshed.”

Despite this call from HRW, Napoleon Viban, the acting head of the Liberia peacekeeping mission in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh’s capital, said it was up to Ivory Coast authorities to investigate the attacks – even though the perpetrators are believed to be in Liberia.

Beyond the logistical challenges of an investigation by Ivory Coast authorities, HRW said there was a chance the Ivorian armed forces would commit rights abuses during the course of an investigation, noting that torture and extrajudicial killings were “common during the conflict.”

Several residents of Tai, the Ivory Coast town located near the site of the attacks, said that after the Jul. 18 attack, Ouattara forces “detained a local pro-Gbagbo village leader and fired between his legs during questioning.”

“Côte d’Ivoire’s armed forces must ensure that those who commit attacks, whatever their political affiliation, face their victims before a court of law, and not be subject to the summary executions that too often marked the Ivorian crisis,” Bekele said.

Concerns about the tactics of Ouattara’s forces resonate with Bleblocoula Sylvain, a 28-year-old Ivory Coast refugee who now lives in the Grand Gedeh town of Tuzon. Sylvain lost eight members of his family during a March raid in Diboke. He said he had no intention of returning to Ivory Coast under Ouattara.

“People loyal to him still hold arms,” Sylvain said. “He’s the one to rule the country, but he killed a lot of people. I don’t ever think this government will maintain peace.”

HRW said the border “is notoriously difficult to monitor, because of its length and the thick vegetation that marks the region.” The statement noted that both the U.N. and the Ivory Coast government had agreed to send more forces to the area following the Sep. 15 attack.

Viban noted that the mission was “part of the joint border patrol.” He also said that while the primary goal of the mission was to bolster the capacity of Liberian security forces, the mission “will always intervene in line with its mandate.”

He said that while he believed the situation at the border remained “calm,” even in light of the recent attacks, in the event of electoral violence the U.N. in Liberia will “work with the government to quickly come in when human lives are at stake.”  

Excerpt:

By Robbie Corey-Boulet
MONROVIA , Oct 9 2011 (IPS)

As the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Liberian President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf a joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, opposition party supporters were flooding the streets of Monrovia to demand that she be voted out of office in the upcoming election.

Opposition party supporters demanded that Nobel Peach Prize winner Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf be out of office. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

The Nobel committee announced that the prize would be divided into three equal parts. Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian peace activist who organised a women’s movement calling for an end to civil war in the West African nation, was also named a winner, as was Tawakkul Karman, a Yemeni journalist and activist who has played a prominent role in that country’s Arab Spring protests.

But in Monrovia, the focus Friday was squarely on Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state who is running for a second term in a vote scheduled for Oct. 11. The prize was awarded on the same day that supporters of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), the leading opposition party, marched in support of political change.

In a statement, the Nobel committee said Johnson-Sirleaf had “contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women.”

On the contrary, the CDC has consistently accused Johnson-Sirleaf of bringing war to the country, citing her early financial support of former President Charles Taylor, now on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity at The Hague.

Taylor launched a coup in 1989 that plunged Liberia into 14 years of civil conflict that claimed more than 250,000 lives. In 2009, Liberia’s South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission report included Johnson-Sirleaf on a list of 49 politicians who should be barred from politics for 30 years owing to their ties to warring factions. Johnson-Sirleaf issued an apology to the nation shortly thereafter, saying she only supported Taylor in the hope that he would overthrow dictator Samuel Doe.

In an interview late last month, however, CDC presidential candidate Winston Tubman highlighted the president’s ties to Taylor, saying: “The government that we are seeking to replace is a government that oppressed the people. It is a government that brought war.”

Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist who has previously worked for the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank, has been accused by her opponents of courting international favour at the expense of voters back home.

Speaking to IPS by phone on Friday, Tubman said the prize was further evidence that the views of the international community did not match those of Liberians.

“If the international community feels that she deserves such a prize, they should watch out for today’s march, because the CDC is prepared to vote her out of power peacefully,” he said.

TQ Harris, a former independent presidential candidate, struck a similar note in an SMS text message sent to supporters and journalists. “This explains why Liberians have yet to get a war crimes court… the international community has an agenda that is not in line with ours,” he said.

Thousands of CDC supporters turned out for Friday’s rally marking the end of the party’s campaign, dancing and drinking in the streets, shouting slogans and brandishing banners. While waiting inside Antoinette Tubman Stadium for the arrival of Tubman and his running mate, international football star George Weah, 36-year-old voter David Mzor described why he thought the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Johnson-Sirleaf was inappropriate.

“I don’t think President Sirleaf deserves it because she has not been able to reconcile the Liberian people. She’s not a reconciler,” he said. “She helped to put our future way back. That was not the right way to remove (dictator Samuel) Doe. There were other alternatives.”

Thomas Queayahn, 19, who was also among the CDC supporters in the stadium, agreed. “She was a fighter before she was a leader,” he said of the president. “She brought war to the country.”

The president’s many supporters take the opposite view, praising her for restoring peace and stability against significant obstacles.

As he watched the CDC marchers go by Friday from his stall on Benson Street, petty trader Prince Worzie hailed the president as a peacemaker. “She has brought peace to Liberia,” he said, adding that he also commended her efforts to promote women within her government. “That alone justifies that indeed she should deserve the award.”

John Ballout, a senator with Johnson-Sirleaf’s ruling Unity Party and a member of her campaign team, said the attempt to paint her as an instigator of the war was a political tactic on the part of opposition leaders “who want to shift the discussion.”

“Yes, she has been very supportive of all of the struggles to resist dictatorship in this country,” he said. “It’s not that she’s been supporting conflict or war – she’s been supporting resistance.”

*With additional reporting by Stephen Binda and Saye Messah

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
MIDRAND, South Africa, Sep 30 2011 (IPS)

African women who bear the brunt of the continent’s conflicts now demand to play a defining role in peacekeeping.

President of the PAP Women's Caucus, Mavis Matladi says it is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier during conflict in Africa. Credit: Saaleha Bamjee

Under the auspices of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), the WPAA meeting emphasised the urgent need for better female representation at national levels, where women can actively take part in decisions to prevent war and mediate conflict.

The two-day conference in Midrand from Sep. 29 to Sep. 30 comes ahead of the second session of the Pan-African Parliament in October.

Gender-based sexual violence, which has become a characteristic of armed conflict, is closely linked to gender relations within that culture, said Francoise Labelle of Mauritius who is second vice-president of PAP.

“It is only if women can play a full and equal part in the mediation processes that we will be able to build a foundation of peace,” Labelle said.

This year marks the 11th year of United Nations’ resolution 1325, which addresses women’s rights in war conflict, peace negotiation and reconstruction processes.

It also urges increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in conflict resolution and peace processes.

However, there has never been a female U.N. chief peace negotiator and women constitute less than eight percent of negotiating delegations in peace processes mediated by the U.N., while less than three percent are peace agreement signatories.

Women and young girls remain disproportionately affected during and after conflict.

“It is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier during conflict,” said President of the PAP Women’s Caucus Mavis Matladi of South Africa.

“There is probably not a single African woman who has not witnessed violence against another woman. It is the truth that men fight wars and the women are the victims; whether by way of infrastructure breakdown, being forced to turn to sexual exploitation for survival or the after-effects of stigmatisation, forced pregnancies and STDS (sexually transmitted diseases),” she said.

Matladi said that although governments on the continent have shown commitment to the resolutions, there has been less emphasis on the roles women can play before, during and after conflict.

“Women usually play these parts informally, but formally there is little recognition. This exclusion leads to a failure to address women’s issues,” she said.

Marie Louise Baricako, the Chairperson of the Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), an international non- governmental organisation working on issues of gender, peace and development, said that the problem of rape and sexual violence being used as a weapon remains a neglected topic.

“It goes unpunished, and unrecognised. The perpetrators remain free, bringing in a new culture of rape and sexual violence; the Pan-African Parliament must do something about this,” she said.

The WPAA heard the testimony of a rape survivor who was targeted during post-election violence in Kenya.

The post election period of 2007 to 2008 left more than 1,100 people dead, 3,500 injured and up to 600,000 forcibly displaced. According to the International Criminal Court, during the two months after the disputed election results, “there were hundreds of rapes, possibly more, and over 100,000 properties were destroyed in six of Kenya’s eight provinces.”

The court is currently prosecuting six people accused of instigating the post-election violence.

The rape survivor described how she was gang-raped, violated with metal implements, had acid poured over her and was left for dead while her house burnt in front of her.

“I was in a bad state, my body was rotting. I couldn’t wear proper clothes because they would stick to my skin. But God has created me a new skin.

“I now have the strength to speak out and face women who’ve been raped and tell them to come out and stand their ground,” she said. She also lauded the efforts of women parliamentarians who are working to end the atrocities perpetrated against women.

U.N. Women Regional Programme Director Nomcebo Manzini said the work of the WPAA should move beyond sitting and listening to the testimonies of those brutalised by conflict. “We should be saying no to war,” she said.

To this end, under the auspices of the Pan-African Parliament, the resolution to form the Initiative of African Women for Peace (IAWP) was agreed upon in principle.

This delegation of women representing each of the continent’s five regions will be tasked with promoting democracy, peace and security and will also lobby at international institutions such as the U.N., African Union and World Bank.

IAWP will also actively seek the support of like-minded associations, civil society and African women activists.

Premier of the North West province in South Africa Thandi Modise said that while policies looked good on paper, they were failing on the ground.

“Governments have ratified but the implementation is lacking. It doesn’t matter how many seats we occupy, if these women don’t speak for women, we might as well not have them. There are women who can lead these countries in Africa; we are the consciences of our nations and this continent. Is it not time we spoke up collectively in one big voice?”

Goodwill Ambassador to the World Health Organization, Dr. Gertrude Mongella of Tanzania and the first president of PAP, urged the meeting to not subscribe to conflict for the sake of democratisation.

Excerpt:

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Sep 28 2011 (IPS)

Africa needs to remain focused and continue following the late Professor Wangari Maathai’s initiatives for environmental sustainability in order to address climate change across the continent, environmentalists say.

Nobel Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai campaigned to save the Mabira Forest Reserve. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Maathai, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004, was founder of the Green Belt Movement , which aimed to reforest Kenya, stop soil erosion and provide firewood for families by paying poor women to plant trees. She passed away on Sep. 25.

“In the current era of climate change, the professor has left behind adaptation actions that we must implement in order to save the poorest of the poor that solely depend on the environment and natural resources,” said Gaster Kawuubye Kiyingi, the national project manager for Tree Talk Plus , a network of organisations engaged in the development and sustainability of the forestry sector in Uganda.

Kiyingi said some of these adaptations include campaigning for forest-based enterprises and the sustained use and planting of more trees.

Since its inception in 1997 the Green Belt Movement has directly planted over 30 million trees in Africa and assisted nearly 900,000 women to establish nurseries and plant trees to reverse the effects of deforestation.

The United Nations estimated that by the time of Maathai’s death over 11 billion trees had been planted, especially in Africa, by different organisations through her campaign.

Kiyingi said Africa needs to stay focused on the late professor’s initiatives for environmental sustainability because it is key to attaining the Millennium Development Goals – eight time-bound goals tackling poverty and its various dimensions that the U.N. member states agreed to in 2000.

“There is an urgent need for Africa to address issues relating to environmental laws and governance, law enforcement and trade in natural resources. They are a ‘cancer’ eating at the very core of our leadership, and it is what Maathai (fought against),” he told IPS.

According to Jan Vandenabeele, the executive director of Better Globe Forestry Limited, a Kenyan afforestation company, there remains a need for civil society and social organisations to join hands to plant more trees and harvest them sustainably. But, he said, Kenya may be close to achieving Maathai’s dream.

“In Kenya the new constitution is very clear that every piece of arable land should have at least 10 percent of forest cover. If this is implemented, then we will be living the dream of the late Professor Maathai,” said Vendenabeele.

He added that for Africa to realise the dream of a green continent there needs to be more investment in environmental research.

Dr. Maxwell Kinyanjui of the Woodlands Trust 2000, a Kenyan-based organisation that provides afforestation and allied services to those involved in the tree industry, said that in order to address the issue of deforestation in Africa, leaders and related organisations must begin by addressing energy sources.

“Charcoal production is one of the major causes of deforestation in Africa. But until farmers invest in sustainable charcoal production, people will continue cutting down trees that were not originally planted for the sake of charcoal production,” he said.

Land grabbing is another problem that continues to affect forests in Africa. Maathai had always been steadfast in protecting natural resources, not only in Kenya, but also in other African countries. In Uganda she campaigned to save the Mabira Forest Reserve.

“I remember Professor Maathai for her efforts to protect Karura Forest on the outskirts of Nairobi city. The forest land had already been (claimed) by individuals linked to the former political regime between 1998 and 2002. But she protested until all the people who had been allocated land by the then government left,” said Paul Barasa, a former senior corporate affairs officer at the Kenya Forestry Research Institute.

Maathai, a professor of veterinary anatomy, also prevented former Kenyan former President Daniel arap Moi from erecting a 62-storey building on a recreational park.

Now Uhuru Park is the largest public park in Kenya. It is adjacent to the city and is usually bursting with activity. Couples row boats on the lake, hundreds of children play on the grass while their parents relax under trees. Thanks to Maathai’s campaigning it is one of the most serene areas in Nairobi.

Kiyingi says more needs to be done to save the trees and forests of Africa.

“Each African country needs to have proper policies that can protect tree cover from illegal logging and encroachments. But the sad thing is that the very leaders who are supposed to protect the forests are the same people who grab forest land, or conspire with grabbers,” said Kiyingi.

Kiyingi said that there are currently several tree planting initiatives in Uganda, most of which are linked to Maathai’s Green Belt Movement.

“Such efforts must be sustained at all costs because the environment is our livelihood,” he said.

Maathai’s idea of providing incentives for people to plant trees needs to be replicated in order to realise the dream of a green Africa.

“The idea of undertaking tree planting as an income-generating activity will be sufficient motivation for tree planting across Africa and as a result, there seems to be a ray of hope in re-greening Africa.”

Excerpt:

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Sep 7 2011 (IPS)

Agnes Kalunda’s doctor feared that because of her slight frame there was a high chance of her developing complications during delivery.

Turkana Women in Kenya. Less than half of all Kenyan women give birth in a medical facility. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

“My baby was almost falling off the bed when a woman in labour on the neighbouring bed shouted to attract the nurse’s attention. Other women in the ward were crying for help,” the 19-year-old Kalunda told IPS, adding that nurses did not bother to attend to the women in labour. “A nurse came to attend to me after I had already delivered.”

It is this lack of commitment from health workers, experts say, that are among the reasons why Africa may not succeed in achieving Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 on improving maternal health by 2015 by reducing maternal mortality by three quarters.

The MDGs are eight time-bound goals tackling poverty and its various dimensions that the United Nations member states agreed in 2000.

MDG 5 was one of the issues discussed at the ‘Multi Stake Holders Policy Dialogue’ of African policy makers, medical experts and development partners, which took place in Nairobi from Aug. 31 to Sep. 2.

Studies conducted by the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) in East, West and Southern Africa found that most countries are struggling to provide universal access to reproductive health. And only three countries in these regions are on track to achieving MDG 5.

“We can say that only three African countries could be on track to achieving the goal of ensuring safe motherhood in the region. They are Eritrea, Rwanda and Ethiopia,” said Dr. Eliya Zulu, the Executive Director of the AFIDEP.

Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa, had the highest rate of success and reduced maternal mortality by 70 percent, from 930 deaths per 100,000 women in 1990 to 280 deaths per 100,000 women in 2008.

Uganda registered reasonable progress towards achieving MDG 5, reducing the maternal mortality rate from 670 deaths per 100,000 women in 1990 to 430 deaths per 100,000 women in 2008.

However, in Kenya maternal mortality has increased from 380 deaths per 100,000 women in 1990 to 530 deaths per 100,000 women in 2008.

“Unlike other countries in East Africa, Kenya has not had political will for health care in general. This has seen the figures move in a negative direction,” Zulu told IPS.

Uganda’s success in reducing maternal mortality has been attributed to the direct involvement of President Yoweri Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni.

Also, since 2006 funds have been allocated in the national budget to mitigate maternal mortality, and there is a legislative and advocacy initiative by the Ugandan parliament.

“We also have a maternal mortality audit, where all deaths are reported to the Ministry of Health … this is used to learn how such deaths can be avoided in the future,” Dr. Collins Tusingwire, the senior medical officer in charge of integrating reproductive health and HIV/AIDS services in Uganda’s Ministry of Health, told IPS.

In Kenya, however, findings from a survey conducted by the Kenya Service Provision Assessment (KSPA) in June found that 64 percent of all women who gave birth in public health facilities across the country were not given necessary medication. More than one third of all women who wanted to give birth at medical facilities complained of being neglected or mistreated by medical practitioners.

Also, only a mere 43 percent of all pregnant women in Kenya give birth under the supervision of a professional healthcare provider.

In Rwanda, traditional birth attendants play a significant role during delivery, especially in rural areas. However, this has contributed to maternal mortality, especially when traditional birth attendants attempt to handle complicated cases instead of referring them to professional midwives.

But Dr. Odette Nyiramilimo, a physician and Rwandan politician, told IPS that traditional birth attendants offered some services to expectant mothers that they did not receive in hospital, like taking care of the mothers’ personal comfort.

“All these small but very important things are sometimes ignored in many public healthcare facilities,” Nyiramilimo told IPS.

In West Africa Ghana has reduced maternal mortality by 44 percent from 1990 to 2008.

Experts say this is because of government’s commitment to effective policy, free antenatal care and delivery services, and expanded national health insurance schemes, which cover both formal and informal workers.

The country has a national policy known as the Community-based Health Planning Initiative – which aims to provide healthcare to those in rural areas.

“Communities in remote rural areas benefit from mobile community-based healthcare provided by a resident nurse, as opposed to conventional facility-based services,” Dr. Gloria Asare, the director of Ghana Health Service’s Family Health Department, told IPS.  

Excerpt:

While many scientists, academics and politicians still theorise about ways to adapt to climate change, a South African civil society organisation has launched a hands-on project that mobilises communities to take easy steps to reduce carbon emissions.

A lot of water is wasted through unmonitored irrigation. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Called the Project 90 by 2030, it encourages individuals, organisations and companies to change the way they live and operate by 90 percent by the year 2030. The idea stems from the suggestion environmental activist George Monbiot makes in his book “Heat” that industrialised nations need to reduce their carbon footprint by 90 percent by 2030.

“It’s a goal-oriented, praxis-oriented approach. It’s actually very simple,” says Project 90 by 2030 director Brenda Martin.

The project’s main purpose is to challenge South Africans to change the way they live and how they relate to the environment, she explains. “As the biggest carbon emitter on the continent, South Africa has the biggest responsibility in Africa to fight climate change,” Martin notes.

With the firm belief that every person can make a small contribution to a healthier environment, Martin suggests that individuals start by reducing their carbon footprint by just 10 percent a year and “keep at it, until they reach 90 percent over several years.” It’s about setting achievable goals, she explains.

Still, Martin is keenly aware of the urgency of preventing further climate change. “If we move as slowly as we do now, we will run out of time to reduce carbon emissions,” she says. “But I do believe that we can make a change. There are sufficient clean energy supply options available to us.”

To set an example, the Project 90 by 2030 initiative has built 15 renewable energy demonstration sites throughout the country over the past four years. The sites showcase affordable, practical solutions, such as biogas digesters, solar panels and solar water heaters. This way, the organisation wants to demystify renewable energy generation for the public and show how renewable energy can provide sufficient, reliable and cheap energy that will not impact negatively on professional activities.

Energy can be saved through solar-powered water tanks. Credit:Kristin Palitza/IPS Buy this picture

“We want to show people what they can do to reduce climate change on a day-to-day basis,” explains Martin. “Everyone can and must do something. While decision makers continue to deliberate, we are getting on with it.”

One of the demonstration sites is the Johannesburg Zoo, which installed 15 large solar panels on the roof of its education centre to reduce its carbon footprint.

“At the moment, the solar power is fed into the electricity grid, but in future, we hope to make the centre entirely carbon neutral,” says the head of the Zoo’s green team, Lorna Fuller.

The zoo is also running its restaurant with the help of a biogas digester. “We feed kitchen scraps and animal waste into the digester to convert it into gas that we use for cooking in the restaurant,” explains Fuller.

Participating in the initiative was a no-brainer for the zoo management, Fuller says, since “we worry about the impact climate change will have on the environment and the habitat of animals.”

Since the zoo has half a million visitors a year, Fuller hopes that its environmental showcase will find many imitators. “We show visitors how it all works. Some people visit the zoo especially to look at our green installations,” she says.

Project 90 by 2030 is also running 30 school clubs where children get involved in simple, hands-on climate change projects, such as energy saving drives or recycling projects. The only condition: the projects need to have a wider impact than just on the school. They need to benefit the entire community around it. “That’s how we ensure we achieve a broad effect on large groups of people,” Martin explains.

Once projects are up and running for several weeks, the pupils learn how to assess them and measure how much energy, water and carbon emissions have been saved.

“We decided to work with school children to help create a next generation that is more aware of climate change and what can be done,” says Martin. “We want to shape young people and encourage them to create a better world.”

At the Springfield Convent Senior School in Cape Town, a group of pupils started their Project 90 by 2030 involvement with a ‘green audit’ to assess their school’s electricity and water usage as well as how much waste they produce.

The outcome was worrisome, and the learners decided to make some important changes to how their school is managed: they installed low-flow showerheads, geyser blankets as well as a water metre for the river that flows through the school ground, which they use to irrigate the gardens. They also started to recycle waste and use less paper.

“We put an emphasis on individual actions that become a lifestyle and have a collective effect,” says the schools head of geography Fiona Smith, who facilitates the school club. Many of the pupils have also begun to implement similar initiatives in their homes.

Says Smith: “We hope our pupils will grow into adults that treat our planet with more care.”

By Rosebell Kagumire and - -
LIRA, Uganda, Aug 12 2011 (IPS)

Ester Abeja has experienced both physical and emotional atrocities. She was captured by Uganda’s feared rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and was forced to join them. But not before the soldiers made her kill her one-year- old baby girl, by smashing her skull in, and then gang raped her.

Ester Abeja, who was abducted by Lord's Resistance Army says it is important for sexual violence survivors to have a face. Credit: Rosebell Kagumire/IPS

In Ogur, Lira in northern Uganda, Abeja has come to a temporary medical camp run by Isis-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE), a women’s organisation working with women in conflict and post-conflict settings.

The camp is specifically for women with reproductive health complications, which they have mostly sustained from being raped during the almost two decades of war.

For most of the women here it is the first time they have been offered special medical attention since the war ended in 2006, and for many it is the first time they have been treated by a doctor. It is also the first time that many of these women have ever spoken out about the violence they had to endure.

Abeja is one of the many women struggling to survive the horrors of the war. Her home is a few kilometres from Barlonyo, where the LRA massacred over 200 people in a single attack in February 2004.

The LRA fought in the north and north eastern parts of Uganda for 23 years. The war, which forced close to two million people into internally displaced persons camps for decades, was the most brutal that Uganda has faced since independence from Britain in 1962.

Thousands of people died as a result and the war was characterised by its use of child soldiers and the conscription of civilians into the rebel group. The LRA were forced out of the country in 2006 and are currently operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and western South Sudan.

Abeja was captured in 2002. She was a wife and a mother of six children when the LRA abducted her with her youngest daughter and her son.

“When they abducted me I had my one-year-old baby girl and the boy. A few kilometres away from home, they forced me to kill my child,” she says tearfully. “I hit her head on the tree and she died. The rebels immediately began to rape me.”

Abeja can’t remember how many men they were; she says there could have been 10 to 15.

“The group that captured me raped me right after (I killed) my child. They even pushed different objects inside me as they raped me. Others were cutting (me) with machetes as some raped (me),” Abeja says as she shows the scars that remain on her arms and thighs.

She doesn’t know what happened to her son or if he’s still alive.

Abeja was sick for many weeks in the bushes of what is now South Sudan. Once she recovered she had a man waiting to be her ‘husband’. Like many abductees, Abeja had to kill or be killed. In her four years with the LRA she tells IPS she can’t recollect the number of people she was forced to kill, but she puts the number at more than 40.

Abeja was one of the lucky few that escaped. She returned home in 2006 with a boy who is now about five years old.

Since the war ended in 2006, people went back to their original homes and depended on emergency aid.

A recovery and development plan was put in place in 2009 by the Ugandan government but this has not covered the emergency medical needs of the population. Most of the money went into building new blocks of health units and rehabilitating the destroyed ones.

It is not surprising that of the 400 women screened here at the Isis-WICCE medical camp, many are found to have pelvic inflammatory diseases.

Dr. Tom Charles Otim, a lead gynaecologist at the camp, says Abeja has lived with a prolapsed uterus for years now.

Uterine prolapse – the descent of the uterus into the vagina or beyond – is one of the long-term complications associated with sexual violence.

In Abeja’s case, her uterus is hanging out. But she allows her photo to be taken saying it is important for sexual violence survivors to have a face.

She and 39 other women are referred for further treatment to a regional hospital many kilometres away. She will need surgery, which costs about 200 dollars, to remove her uterus.

Like the many women who were raped during the war, Abeja not only has to live with the physical scars of the rapes but the psychological effects as well. She and women like her have to endure intense stigma from the community.

Her husband rejected her after she returned, and left her to raise their four surviving children and her child from the war.

As Abeja struggles to narrate her story, fighting back the tears she wonders: “Do they think I wanted to be abducted and raped by the rebels? Do they think I wanted to kill my own child?”

Otim tells IPS that women like Abeja need more support than just surgery.

A majority of the women seeking medical treatment at the camp have chronic pelvic pain as a result of pelvic inflammatory infections.

“The infections are high here; because of the war, the women were not able to access medical care early,” says Otim.

“This has had an effect on the women’s sexual lives and the majority of them have painful sex, and sometimes they don’t want to have sex but they have to because their husbands don’t allow (them to refuse).”

Many women who have come to the camp have fertility problems. Otim says pelvic pain takes a long time to cure and the women will need about 40 dollars for more follow-up visits at regional health centres, which are usually more than 40 kms away.

“Women cannot claim to have peace if their reproductive health is still an issue they are trying to contend with and struggle with on a daily basis,” Isis-WICCE’s programme manager Helen Kezie-Nwoha tells IPS.

She says because of the sexual violence behind these reproductive health complications, women in northern Uganda need a specialised programme to provide them with the needed health services.

“Reproductive health issues are not easily spoken about, it is not something women will come out in public and speak about,” Kezie-Nwoha says. But “we have built confidence over years of working with these women; that’s why the women can be able to open up and talk about the wartime rapes.”

She says government needs to rethink its approach in post-conflict northern Uganda by putting human security needs first.

The district health officer in Lira, Nelson Opio, tells IPS that most of the reconstruction in the health sector has largely concentrated on building structures, and cannot address the immediate medical needs of a post-conflict community.

“When war ends, there’s a silent war that has to be fought,” he says. “Politicians here think they will just put up structures so they can say ‘This is what I did during my time’ and ignore people’s real needs.”

Most health centres in the district have no medical officers, while the entire district has only two gynaecologists.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
LUSAKA, Aug 12 2011 (IPS)

Although there is a female presidential candidate contesting Zambia’s Sept. 20 general elections, her prospects are not strong. And in fact, fewer women overall are likely to be elected into public office this year, analysts say.

A poster asking people to vote for Edith Nawakwi, the only woman presidential candidate. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

Only the Forum for Democratic Development (FDD) nominated a woman, Edith Nawakwi, to contest the presidential race. She is the only woman out of the 15 presidential candidates. Initially there were 17 candidates, however, two have since dropped out.

In the last parliament, there were 22 women out of 158 members in the National Assembly, accounting for a 14 percent female representation.

The ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was the first to publish its list of parliamentary candidates on Jul. 20, and it only had 19 women out of 150 candidates.

The main opposition parties, the Patriotic Front and the United Party for National Development, are yet to publish their lists, but women’s rights activists feel there will not be much of a difference.

Emily Sikazwe, the executive director of Women for Change, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the economic and political empowerment of women, told IPS that this year the prospects for women being elected look bleak.

“Already, all the political parties have adopted few women,” Sikazwe said.

In September, Zambia will hold tripartite elections to choose a president, 150 members of parliament and councillors.

When the registration for presidential election candidates opened on Aug. 7, scores of women turned up at the Supreme Court, the venue for the nominations. These women were from different walks of life, but they had one common purpose: to cheer on FDD’s party president, Nawakwi – who is the only female presidential candidate.

Among those who came to offer solidarity to Nawakwi was women’s rights activist Beatrice Grillo, the chairperson of the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Council (NGOCC), an umbrella body for women’s organisations.

“We have been looking forward to this occasion. We will support her not because she belongs to any party, but because she is a woman. We want to see an end to the poverty that is in this country. We want the women of Zambia to stop struggling. Those are the issues we are looking for and that is what she has promised,” Grillo told IPS.

Grillo was adamantly confident that Nawakwi and other women contesting various positions in the elections would perform well. She said the NGOCC has even come up with an election fund to support women who will be running. The fund will support female candidates in acquiring campaign material. The candidates will, however, not be given cash.

“We have campaign teams that will be going out to campaign for all women from all political parties,” said Grillo.

But not all women share Grillo’s excitement about Nawakwi’s presidential candidacy. Some feel the struggle for women’s representation has been lost before it has even started.

Although the exact figures have not yet been compiled following delays by some of the parties to announce their final lists of candidates, a number of sitting female MPs were dropped and replaced with either male or female candidates.

In Zambia, political parties do not conduct primary elections to choose candidates for parliamentary elections. That task falls to the national executive committees of the parties, which are male- dominated.

“Some women who were in the previous parliament worked hard in their constituencies, but they were replaced. This presents a challenge for us having to (work) with new people over and over again,” Sikazwe said.

Even Nawakwi’s nomination has not really inspired Sikazwe.

“Symbolically, yes, we say we are happy she is filing. But we know she is not winning. There is currently a lot of hate language and this does not inspire women to participate,” added Sikazwe.

But Nawakwi told IPS in an interview immediately after filing her nomination that she was in the race to win it.

“Nothing and no one will stop me now,” said Nawakwi. “I believe that Zambia will only be saved by a woman and that Zambia is ready for a woman president. As soon as the men heard I was contesting, they all panicked. I will work and deliver like I delivered when I was minister of finance.”

With slightly over one month left before the elections, Sikazwe said it only makes sense now for the women’s movement to start preparing for the next elections in 2016.

“We cannot resolve that (under-representation of women) now, but it is a challenge for us to start working and make sure that come 2016, we will be ready. In the next five years we will have to work hard in addressing these issues. Watch us after five years.”

Sikazwe said in a number of cases, political parties were also causing unnecessary tension among women by replacing experienced female candidates with inexperienced ones.

In her view, this is one of the many schemes by men to cause confusion among women.

“This is how men make women fight, replacing females with females,” said Sikazwe. “This is a bitter lesson for us as women. A lot of women gave themselves to (their) political parties, but they have been slapped in the face.”

In July, the former gender minister and member of parliament Sara Sayifwanda said women were to blame for their poor representation as candidates because they only contested posts in a few constituencies in the country.

She told reporters that women ended up competing for only a few available seats.

Excerpt:

By Eprahim Nsingo
LUSAKA, Aug 10 2011 (IPS)

In Zambia’s highly patriarchal society Edith Nawakwi, 52, has broken a few records on the political scene over the last two decades. And she broke another one on Sunday by being the only female candidate to file for nomination to run for president in Zambia’s upcoming elections.

Edith Nawakwi is the only female candidate to run for president in Zambia's upcoming elections. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

All candidates are required to file nomination papers with the country’s Supreme Court to get legal confirmation that they are standing as a presidential candidate. Come election day on Sept. 20, about 17 candidates will battle it out to lead the country. Nawakwi is well-known in Zambian politics. In 1997 she became the first woman in southern Africa to be appointed as a minister of finance. The former member of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) left it in 2001 when she and other officials opposed then President Fredrick Chiluba’s bid for a third term.

They formed the Forum for Democratic Development (FDD) and Nawakwi was elected as the party’s first vice president. In 2005 she became the first Zambian woman to lead a political party when she was elected president of the FDD.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: You have just filed for nomination as a presidential candidate. What was going through your mind? A: As I went to file my nomination, as I walked up to the Chief Justice, I asked myself ‘Why am I doing this?’ I was (asking) myself ‘am I equal to the task?’ But when I looked at my supporters and their excitement, it helped me appreciate the trust. I believe Zambia is ready for a woman to be president. Only a woman can bring about real change in this country.

Q: What can be done to change the mindset, the negative perception and stereotypes about women? A: Zambian women have the same rights as men, and running for political office is not an exception. When I took over as minister of finance people had all sorts of negative questions because I was a woman… I was minister of finance during one of the most difficult phases in the history of our country, but I managed to contain the situation.

I was minister of finance at a time when Zambia was at its lowest. I remember there was a day when I was required to effect payment for half a million dollars and the government did not have any money. We had to borrow from one of our commercial banks. We were trying to liberalise the economy but we had no income in the country. I was privileged to be one of those who managed to push through the structural adjustment programme.

Liberia has had the best leader (President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf) post conflict to manage that economy. And it is not just about the economy, but people’s attitudes as well. I believe that if Africa believed that one of its major assets is women, we would be much better.

Look at what is happening in Libya, Somalia and all the carnage… who is making those decisions? The motherly instinct of a woman would not allow such, as mothers our stomachs move when we see such carnage.

I believe that with women in charge, we would not be seeing most of the conflicts we are seeing in Africa today.

Q: You are the only woman who has filed for nomination as president. You are also the only female president of a political party in Zambia. Is this a sign that women are not yet ready for the challenge? A: We have to start somewhere, and this is what we have been discussing with other women. I am a product of the women’s lobby myself… in a highly patriarchal society like ours, you have to break that mind-set that women cannot do certain things. I was democratically elected as president of our party at a convention that was contested by five men and they all confirmed that I was better than them. Having broken that barrier, I see more of our (women) colleagues coming in.

Q: What is it that you are going to do differently during this campaign? A: Nothing and no one will stop me now. I believe that Zambia will only be saved by a woman and that Zambia is ready for a woman president. As soon as the men heard I was contesting, they all panicked. I will work and deliver like I delivered when I was minister of finance. The current leadership belongs to the liberation struggle era. We need leadership for the 21st century!

Our agenda when we get into government (will) be to provide a constitution that provides for the rights of all individuals, including women and persons with disabilities.

Q: In terms of policies, what are the major highlights of your manifesto? A: We are pushing for the decentralisation of political and economic power, to ensure that our people are empowered to drive development.

I am a passionate believer in the power that the country has in its people… our people’s quality of life continues to decline, yet we are one of the richest countries in the world. There is no deliberate policy to put the ordinary Zambian at the centre of any economic policy.

This is because we have an over centralised government and this has been the case since the colonial days when resource allocation was done in line with (what) had been used in Britain. This unfortunately resulted in corruption. Resource allocation is centred in the hands of a few … we need political and economic decentralisation.

If you have decentralisation, even members of parliament will now be interested in serving their people at the local level because that is where the resources will be directed. You will see that most of the world’s successful economies have been decentralised.

Q: How do you intend to make decentralisation work in Zambia? A: I think that for purposes of accountability and transparency there is a need to make sure planning is influenced from the district. We would want to have the minister of finance to come up with budgets for districts, which then coordinate the allocation of resources.

Excerpt:

Only six sub-Saharan African countries have failed to reduce the number of women dying in childbirth over the last two decades. High-spending South Africa is among them, with maternal mortality rates more than quadrupling since 1990. Human Rights Watch researcher Agnes Odhiambo says this is largely due to a lack of accountability.

Maternal mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole have been reduced by a quarter compared to 1990 levels. But the continent’s most developed economy is moving in the opposite direction: South Africa’s maternal mortality rate in 1990 was 150 per 100,000 live births; in its 2010 MDG progress report, the country reported this had risen to 625 per 100,000.

“HIV is a big factor in maternal mortality in South Africa,” says Odhiambo, adding that improved reporting means deaths that might have gone unrecorded in the past have also been added to the total.

“But even with all that, the kind of negligence that is happening in our facilities… from what women were saying, substandard care is a big problem and that is an issue that we truly have to think about.”

Health workers failing patients

The survey, ‘Stop Making Excuses: Accountability for Maternal Health Care in South Africa’, reveals a picture of serious neglect, including women in labour being sent home from hospitals without being examined, women ignored or made to wait for hours – even days – by nurses when they asked for help, women being physically and verbally abused by staff, and others forced to change their own sheets or carry their newborns around the hospital while still weak from giving birth. Women with HIV and those from other parts of Africa also reported experiencing discrimination.

“For me, that is failing women,” says Odhiambo. “You fail women when a woman loses her baby and you don’t even bother to explain to her what caused the death of that baby… Or when women are made to clean up their own blood, or when women are forced to sleep (in the same bed) with their baby barely three hours after a c-section, when they’re not yet strong enough.”

The provincial secretary for the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) in the Eastern Cape, Xolani Malamlela, acknowledged that health workers’ performance sometimes falls short, but said the union’s assessment is that the problem begins with poor management of health institutions.

Malamlela says that health workers are frequently overworked and are not always paid on time, leading to a demoralisation of staff. He also says procurement policies that have centralised control of stocks of medicine and equipment in the provincial capital have deprived individual hospitals of the capacity to manage vital supplies.

“But we cannot deny that you might here and there find those reckless staff… and we must also play our part in encouraging our members not to deal with patients in a very reckless manner,” he says.

Managers failing patients and health workers

Odhiambo’s report is critical of a failure to act on complaints – not only in sanctioning individual health workers but in recognising system-wide problems that contribute to abuse and neglect. She points out that South Africa’s health authorities are negligent on another level, in failing to collect appropriately detailed information about maternal mortality that would guide policy.

The country has not conducted a Demographic and Health Survey since 2003, for example. Cost is cited as the reason for the delay, but countries with lesser resources have more up-to-date statistics.

“Our health systems are challenged,” says Marion Stevens, a midwife and member of Women in Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health. She says the main factor in maternal deaths is HIV/AIDS, but argues that the national health department’s focus on the pandemic is poorly executed.

“Accountability is an important issue, because it asks the question why. With all the resources that are being spent on AIDS, why are we not looking also at women’s health, and in particular at maternal mortality as a related issue?”

The focus on AIDS, she says, has come at the cost of considering a continuum of health care. For example, women are told not to go for antenatal care until they are 20 weeks’ pregnant because clinics are overwhelmed by other demands.

“So for women who are ill when they’re pregnant, if they want to get well, or if they are HIV-positive, or if they want to choose to have an abortion, then they essentially come in very very late, and that’s problematic.”

Stevens says the health department has designed a powerful new strategy for sexual and reproductive health rights which provides for greater accountability and integrating issues of HIV and AIDS into a holistic view of women’s health, but since it was completed in May, the document has been sitting on someone’s desk.

Restoring accountability

Odhiambo says that South Africa’s health system lacks adequate monitoring by patients. “A lot of monitoring of what is going on has been done from a provider point of view, but I think there’s a need to bring in patients to say what is not working for them.”

She envisions that this could help to break down the barrier between health workers and users of the system. “Health workers are feeling targeted by this notion of patient complaints, but they’re feeling targeted because the mechanism is not being used in the way it should.

“If patient complaints are implemented properly, then health users and health workers should be friends, because health users are complaining about the problems they’re facing in different facilities, as are health workers and nurses, so the two can really join forces and push the government to make the changes needed so that you’ve got happy users and happy providers.”

By IPS Correspondents
HARARE, Aug 3 2011 (IPS)

The four armed robbers who gang raped her may be serving time for their crimes, but six years later justice has turned out to be a myth for Mildred Mapingure.

Deputy Minister for Women's Affairs Fungayi Jessie Majome says legal protection for abused women remains a ‘pie in sky'. Credit: Angela Jimu/IPS

It is illegal to terminate a pregnancy in Zimbabwe unless the ‘pregnancy endangers the life of the mother and/or is a result of unlawful penetration (rape)’, according to the Termination of Pregnancy Act. And abortion is only allowed in the first trimester.

When Mapingure realised the inevitable had happened two months after being raped, prosecutors rushed the application for a termination of pregnancy order through the Chinhoyi regional magistrate’s court in Mashonaland West.

But long court delays resulted in the order being granted when she was eight months pregnant. Mapingure had no option but to give birth.

Four years later, and with the assistance of the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA), she has sued government for 52,000 dollars for wrongful birth and child maintenance.

“Until now, I am still waiting to hear the outcome of my case. And as my boy is growing up, his needs are also increasing. I am unemployed and not married but am still expected to provide for him. I haven’t paid this term’s school fees,” said Mapingure.

She declined to discuss her feelings for her son at length, insisting she loved him despite the circumstances surrounding his conception.

But Mapingure’s case is not the only one of failed justice in this southern African country.

Director of ZWLA, Emilia Muchawa, told IPS that for anyone to access justice in Zimbabwe, resources and family support are paramount.

“In any jurisdiction, adequate finances are key for one to access court justice. In Zimbabwe, it is even more difficult for women to access justice because women neither have those resources nor do they have access to free legal aid. Courts are far-spaced making it worse for women seeking to get justice for whatever wrong they have suffered,” she said.

She said the few brave women who have approached the courts for justice are hardly represented, while the men they seek justice against have legal representation because they can afford to hire lawyers.

“Court procedure and court language are a hindrance to women in Zimbabwe, the majority of whom are less educated than men. We have received reports of women who have been turned away at the entrance, before they have even lodged their cases, by mere court guards,” Muchawa said.

Women are required to go to a magistrate’s court for maintenance order applications, the distribution of a deceased’s estate, custody and guardianship of minor children, and protection orders. Divorce and property distribution is done at the High Court

“After being turned away for simple things like court dress code (for wearing jeans, slacks, short dresses), most women never come back again. And because the courts are far removed from the general populace, bus fare becomes a hindrance,” said Muchawa.

She said a woman’s family had to be supportive but, because of cultural beliefs and a conservative upbringing, most women face resistance when they seek justice through the courts.

In May a law officer in the Attorney General’s office, Wallen Chiwawa, accused his wife (whose name cannot be published because of a court order) of infidelity and physically tortured her.

However, ‘after a dialogue between their families’ she withdrew the charges.

“The case of Chiwawa’s wife is a good example of how women are pressurised by their families or communities to let culprits off the hook. Because of the docility of women, cultural pressures have presided over injustices they suffer mostly from these same families,” said Muchawa.

Deputy Minister for Women’s Affairs Fungayi Jessie Majome, who is also a member of parliament and practicing lawyer, told IPS that court procedures and court officials who “carry patriarchal baggage remain a challenge for women who use courts to seek justice.”

“Babies and children are not allowed in court. And most women who seek justice at the courts have suckling babies or toddlers whom they can’t leave alone,” the deputy minister said.

She said she once represented a physically abused woman who ran away from her husband with her twin 10-month-old babies.

“She was not allowed in court with her babies as she sought a protection order. And this is just one woman who had me as a lawyer. What happens to the rest of the women like her?” asked Majome.

Besides that, women are required to pay administration fees to obtain protection orders in Zimbabwe. And in a country where, according to the World Bank, 96 percent of people are unemployed, this is difficult.

A protection order application form consists of 17 pages and an applicant is required to make four copies of it. The cost of photocopying that document and the additional five-dollar duty stamp ensures that legal protection for abused women remains a pie in sky, said Majome.

She said some court officials, including magistrates, are also a hindrance to women seeking justice.

“In early 2000 I handled two cases of a teenage girl and middle aged woman who had been raped and fell pregnant. The magistrates who heard the cases separately kept delaying granting (the) termination orders.

“The Termination of Pregnancy Act gives magistrates exclusive discretionary powers to order termination and I think sometimes these powers are abused to serve personal beliefs and convictions at the disadvantage of the affected women,” she said.

But she said government plans are at an advanced stage to set up a family court that would be sensitive to women.

Director of women’s rights organisation Musasa Project, Netty Musanhu, said despite receiving training some court officials are gender insensitive.

“You will hear the presiding officer chastising a woman during a (domestic violence) trial (saying) ‘I have no time for tears.’ That alone can ensure women don’t come to court seeking justice,” said Musanhu.

Research conducted by Women and Law Southern Africa (WLSA), an organisation dealing with human rights, showed that women are frustrated by financial, geographical, cultural and social factors in using the higher echelons of the courts.

“Problems emanate from the structure and nature of (the court) system in its form. Maintenance matters, domestic violence and administration and distribution of deceased estates remain the major points where women seek justice,” said WLSA national coordinator Slyvia Chirawu.

Excerpt:

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Jul 29 2011 (IPS)

Governments, especially in Africa, need to have strong accountability measures in place in order to effectively reach women in rural areas through gender responsive budgeting.

This was one of the recommendations in the Global Call for Action plan drawn up at the end of an international high-level meeting on gender responsive budgeting held in Kigali from 26 to 28 Jul. The meeting was held in conjunction with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (U.N. Women) and the European Union.

Delegates also agreed that there was a need to strengthen the skills, competencies and abilities of local government leaders. In addition, the enhancement of national statistical systems was needed to provide accurate data about various aspects of gender. The document, which is yet to be released, also said that the livelihood of marginalised women in rural areas needed to be improved by increasing their access to land ownership and property rights.

Rwanda has been called a role model for other African countries in promoting gender equity at all decision-making levels, as here women outnumber men in parliament. The country’s constitution also guarantees a minimum of 30 percent female representation at all levels of leadership.

Rwanda is involved in a three-year pilot programme, Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD), dedicated to improving women’s access to resources and services at local level through gender responsive planning and budgeting. GELD is organised by U.N. Women and the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

“Rwanda records female-dominated occupations at various levels of decision-making, but women also need to engage in other economic careers such as the construction and transport industries,” said Suzanne Ruboneka, a women’s rights activist based in Kigali.

Women comprise 54 percent of Rwanda’s population of nine million. Although there are no statistics available on the number of businesses owned by women, government acknowledges that the majority of employees in both the formal and informal sectors are women.

The regional programme director for U.N. Women, Diana Ofwona, said it is important to further promote gender equality through women’s ownership of development initiatives, such as microfinance schemes. She said it was a way to increase efficient coordination in gender responsive budgeting.

Fatuma Mukakarara, president of a Muslim women’s cooperative in Nyagatare, in northeastern Rwanda, said women’s involvement in financial services ensures that there is greater transparency.

“We are part of the management team in these financial services cooperatives (and) this contributes to ensure that there is greater transparency and accountability,” she told IPS.

She said that through her experience in managing a microfinance business she knows that rural women can play a principal role in managing financial resources.

“But sometimes women experience difficulty while applying for a loan from (a) microfinance (institution). This can be because of a lack of self-esteem for many,” Mukakarara said.

Ofwona said that what was mostly needed was adequate planning to integrate equity in managing and sharing resources.

“This includes removing some barriers which sometimes restrict women from equitably accessing local facilities (such as transport and microfinance schemes) … particularly in rural areas,” Ofwona says.

Economic analysts say the collection of statistical data on gender issues is still a major challenge for some countries.

“Once there is available data about gender, this would enable countries to determine what progress has been made towards achieving their targets (with gender responsive budgeting),” said Bernard Kayinamura, an economic expert based in Kigali.

Kayinamura said that, for example, the disaggregated data on secondary school pupils studying science subjects could not explain why the number of girls studying the subjects was not increasing.

“Thus there are sometimes missing figures which should be used (by decision-makers) in reviewing policies, procedures, practices and targets,” he told IPS.

Since 2009 Rwanda’s government and civil society organisations have embarked on a national campaign dedicated to training rural women in the administration and management of microfinance schemes. However, there are no available figures about the number of women who have undergone training.

Excerpt:

By Abdurrahman Warsameh
MOGADISHU, Jul 28 2011 (IPS)

As the first of food aid from the United Nations World Food Programme was airlifted into Mogadishu on Wednesday, it came too late for Qadija Ali’s two- year-old son Farah.

A mother and daughter who survived the dangerous journey from south Somalia to an aid camp in Mogadishu. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

He died in his mother’s arms as Ali and her eight other children made the 16-day epic journey from their drought-stricken village in Wanlaweyn district, Lower Shabelle, in southern Somalia to Mogadishu.

“I carried him a whole day while he was dead thinking he was alive and just asleep. We did not have anything to give him. No water or food for three days,” an emotional Ali tells IPS at Badbado Camp on the outskirts of the Somali capital.

Ali’s family had 50 head of cattle, 20 goats and five camels before the onset of the current drought in southern Somalia that has raged for two years. Her family was one of the well-off ones in the region, where ownership of numerous livestock, the mainstay of a rural economy, is a sign of wealth.

“It started with (a) shortage of rains for the first three seasons and then no rains followed. Grass dried up, wells and rivers dried up. Our animals began dying one after another as there was no pasture or water for them,” Ali recalls as she carries one of her remaining three young sons who is weak and malnourished.

Camp Badbado, which in Somali means ‘rescue’, is the city’s largest settlement for the drought displaced people from southern Somalia. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says that it is currently home to an estimated 28,000 people, approximately 5,000 families.

Ali’s entire family is not with her, however. Her husband remained behind in their village to look after the family’s remaining belongings. Ali is not aware of her husband’s fate. But she made the arduous journey along with hundreds of other families to escape the severe drought and famine in search of aid.

But aid has come too late for some.

Many children arrive at the camp too weak and malnourished to be saved by doctors. Some children have gone for days without food and water.

Most of the children are too small for their age with a three-year-old having the frame and stature of a one-year-old.

“They come here very weak from hunger and exhaustion. Two or three children and adults die every week in Mogadishu, but we have no exact statistics as camps are located in diverse places in the town,” Muna Igeh, a nurse at Badbado, tells IPS as she weighs one of the dozens of malnourished children at the camp.

Daahir Gabow, a father of seven, had to watch as two of his children succumbed to severe malnourishment just after they arrived in Mogadishu.

He says doctors and nurses at Banadir Hospital, one of Mogadishu’s main health centres, did everything they could to save the life of his second child, a girl, but “fate had its way”.

He says his family had tried to “weather” the drought but could not this time and had to leave their home in search of aid.

“We tried to weather the drought as we did many other times but our livestock could not survive until the rains arrived. Many of our neighbours began leaving after losing all their livestock, so we decided it was time to go,” says Gabow as he prepared for the burial of his daughter who died of malnutrition complications.

“We walked for 21 days. (We) ate (and) drank what we could find and slept where the sun set on us. This is not what I have seen or (what) my father told me happened in his lifetime. (These are) testing times so we have to be patient and strong,” Gabow says.

Elhadji As Sy, the regional director of UNICEF (the U.N. children’s fund) for eastern and southern Africa, called the famine “a child survival crisis”.

Somalia is the country worst affected by a severe drought that has ravaged the Horn of Africa, leaving an estimated 11 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are all also facing a crisis that is being called the worst in 60 years. Last week the U.N. declared a famine in parts of southern Somalia.

The agency estimates that in total 2.23 million children in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are acutely malnourished. The U.N. says it has delivered 1,300 metric tonnes of supplies to southern Somalia, including therapeutic supplies to treat over 66,000 malnourished children.

Meanwhile, people are still fleeing their homes in southern Somalia. The U.N. says almost 100,000 displaced people have arrived in Mogadishu, with nearly 40,000 of those in the past month.

“Over the past month, UNHCR figures show that nearly 40,000 Somalis displaced by drought and famine have converged on Mogadishu in search of food, water, shelter and other assistance,” says Vivian Tan, UNHCR spokesperson in a statement on Tuesday.

The U.N. estimates that the number is growing by the day, with daily arrivals averaging 1,000 in July.

Local non-governmental organisations are providing much-needed humanitarian aid but camp residents say the aid is limited and Somali government officials are echoing calls for more assistance.

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) on 27 Jul. began its first airlift of food aid to Mogadishu, the first such shipment since the Islamist extremist group, Al Shabaab, banned international aid agencies from operating in regions it controls.

The WFP flew in 14 tonnes of ready-to-use food supplements for malnourished children at the camps in Mogadishu.

Spokesman for the agency, David Orr, told reporters at Mogadishu airport that more aid will be flown in over the coming days.

Excerpt:

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Jul 28 2011 (IPS)

It is becoming increasingly difficult for second-hand clothes traders like Susanne Jabavu to do business because of rising costs to import bales of clothing from neighbouring countries.

High import and customs tariffs have become a huge stumbling block for second-hand clothes traders. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

Import and customs tariffs have become a huge stumbling block for Jabavu, whose income solely comes from selling second-hand clothes and other cheap merchandise sourced in neighbouring countries.

It costs her around 20 dollars per kg to import second-hand clothing, and a bale can weigh anything up to 60 kgs.

Previously, Jabavu says she paid about a quarter of what she has to pay now and at any given time she imports up to five bales worth anything between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars.

Jabavu is one of many Zimbabwean women who have set up stalls in flea markets across the city where they sell cheap, second-hand clothing and Chinese imports preferred by the country’s low-income earners. But this sector is facing an uncertain future as Zimbabwe’s economic reconstruction efforts continue at a snail’s pace.

“The money demanded at the border for us to bring the bales (of clothing) is just too much and it does not make sense to make these long trips to Zambia and Mozambique when you won’t be able to pay the duty,” Jabavu says.

Jabavu has an option of travelling very cheaply by train but she says this means spending long periods travelling, which is bad for business, so she opts for going by road.

“If I am lucky, I can get a lift with those truckers who demand 100 dollars if am travelling from Mozambique. But other private transporters demand more,” Jabavu says.

“We have tried (among the traders) to pool resources to assist each other with paying (the import and customs tariffs) but this has proved difficult because not all of us always have the money,” she says.

The prohibitive duty tariffs introduced in 2010 are seen by many in Zimbabwe as part of government”s effort to promote local manufacturing as the country’s focus on economic recovery is increasingly being directed at the local textile industry, a one-time major employer.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti has made the resuscitation of the country’s textile industry one of his top priorities.

Both government and textile industry officials say the sector faces total collapse as major firms in Bulawayo have shut down. The “unsustainable and unfair” competition presented by second-hand clothes and Chinese imports are among the major causes for this.

According to the ministry of industry and commerce, more than 100 companies have closed in Bulawayo in 2011 as the Zimbabwean economy continues to implode. This includes many textile industries and even previous major employers, Cotton Printers and Security Mills.

“Some traders I know have decided to smuggle in bales of clothing because they cannot afford the duty,” says Janet Sibamba, another second-hand clothes trader.

“But a lot of these bales have been confiscated by the customs people so it is making our efforts to work very difficult,” she says, adding she still has to contend with high transport costs of up to 200 dollars to haul her bales from surrounding countries into Zimbabwe.

Traders like Sibamba buy second-hand clothing and cheap Chinese goods from Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

However, it has become common for the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) – the country’s customs duty collector – to auction confiscated bales of second-hand clothing at border towns.

ZIMRA raids flea markets demanding proof that the second-hand clothes and other goods on sale were brought into the country legally.

Customs officials who spoke to IPS said their warehouses are stacked with second-hand clothes after importers failed to pay duty on the items.

“We know this is one of the means of earning a living for many women, but because these are for resale in the country, they must pay the required tariffs,” said one official.

While the ministries of women and gender affairs and the Small to Medium Enterprises push for the economic empowerment of women, the high import tariffs has made this difficult.

“There are obviously serious implications for women who cannot continue to earn a decent living because of these tariffs. And for us as country that already has a very low employment rate, it is difficult to imagine how women are going to (be) integrated into the mainstream economy,” says economist Johnson Samuriwo. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions says the country’s unemployment figures are hovering around 90 percent.

“Yet there is a fine line the government must bestride, which on one hand is to promote local industry and on the other is to create conditions that economically empower women who we know survive mainly on the informal fringes of the economy,” he said says

“Government must not make knee-jerk responses to issues but must create platforms where all sectors of the economy (can operate) without compromising (each) other. I believe it is about uplifting people’s lives and if women feel they are not getting any support, that could have implications on how people vote, for example,” Samuriwo says.

The National Union of the Clothing Industry (NUCI) – which ironically claims women as the bulk of the textile workforce – has been lobbying government to curb the importation of cheap Chinese and second-hand clothes, citing massive redundancies in the sector.

“Our people (in the clothing industry) are suffering immensely because of these second-hand clothes as everyone is now buying a shirt for one dollar, meaning that what we are manufacturing will never be bought,” says Simbarashe Mutambanengwe of NUCI.

A shirt in formal retail outlets can cost anything from 30 to 50 dollars.

“It has simply meant employers cannot continue (employing) our members and government just has to act on this. We need to survive,” he says.

For women like Jabavu who have never known formal employment, it could mean pursuing other avenues to earn a living.  

Excerpt:

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Jul 26 2011 (IPS)

Rwanda is the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, with women occupying 45 out of 80 seats. However, despite this, experts say that the country still needs a gender equality perspective on how national resources and programmes are implemented.

Rwanda wants women to access financial services and to gain skills to play a role in managing and allocating these resources. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

Since 2009, the country has been part of a three-year pilot programme, the Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD), which is organised by U.N. Women and the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

It is dedicated to improve women’s access to resources and services at local level through gender responsive planning and budgeting. GELD runs in four other African countries as well: Mozambique, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

But two years on, despite Rwanda’s efforts to make the budget gender responsive, civil society activists say social norms are still affecting gender equality, especially in rural areas.

This includes the ability of rural women to find employment. In many areas communities believe that a woman must only fulfill a domestic role and “give service” to her husband, and should not be employed.

“There have always been reported cases related (to) cultural norms in rural areas where young girls are sometimes excluded from” inheritance, said Zaina Nyiramatama, the executive secretary of Haguruka, a local non-governmental organisation advocating the rights of women and children.

While it is illegal to deny a woman or girl the right to inherit, punishable by a fine or a prison sentence, women and girls are still denied the right because of their gender.

However, government and civil society are working to sensitise local communities about the importance of this.

The issue of bringing a gender perspective to how government resources and programmes are implemented was the key focus of an international high level meeting held in Kigali from 26 to 28 Jul. The meeting is being held in conjunction with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (U.N. Women) and the European Union.

Senior officials from a number of developing countries around the world and U.N. experts discussed the intricacies of their national strategies to ensure that local development is more gender equitable and supportive of the most excluded socio-economic groups.

Nyiramatama said that though women’s political participation and leadership is visible in Rwanda, there is also a need to look at promoting women’s economic empowerment through giving rural women access to microfinance services.

While Rwanda’s national policy emphasises that microfinance schemes for women should be decentralised to local areas, details about their daily management has always remained unclear.

In July 2009, government established the Women’s Fund, a credit scheme for women in Rwanda. Since then, at least 7,000 women have received assistance for micro and small enterprises from government, international donors and NGOs worth around 900,000 dollars, according to the central bank.

However, the regional programme director for U.N. Women in Rwanda, Diana Ofwona, observes that the allocation of funding should be done alongside equipping local administrative leaders with skills about gender responsive budgeting. This is because gender response budgeting is not only about accessing financial services, it is also about the equity role that women should play in managing and allocating these resources.

Both Ofwona and Nyiramatama agree that gender response budgeting is a paradigm on how women can play a major role in the social and economic transformation in a country like Rwanda, where 57 percent of the population live below the poverty line.

According to government statistics, 52 percent of Rwanda’s population are female, and a large portion of them are widows and/or single women, mostly engaged in income-generating activities on a full-time basis.

“The ownership of microfinance cooperatives (by local communities) is still a major challenge to strengthening rural women’s leadership in farming and other income-generating projects,” Ofwona said.

Residents in Bishenyi, a village 25 kilometres south of Kigali, say that two years ago a microfinance scheme was established to offer loans to the general population, but mostly targeting rural women farmers. However, it failed after six months because of mismanagement.

“We still think there is the possibility that (microfinance schemes) for women (will fail) if no adequate measures are adopted,” said 42-year-old farmer Tatiana Kankwanzi. She was referring to the fact that women needed to not only be beneficiaries of microfinance grants, but should also be part of the financial management and budgeting.

“Do you think these microfinance schemes have really benefitted women?” she asked IPS.

Rwanda has long been beset with problems related to a lack of expertise. Notably local authorities lack management skills to identify priorities and allocate resources.

Norah Matovu Winyi, the executive director of the African Women’s Development and Communication Network, a regional platform dedicated to sharing experiences, information and strategies among African women, said that the approach of gender responsive budgeting should be to know how public funds are raised, how they are used and to ensure that they reach target beneficiaries.

“It is imperative to diversify financial resources while associating gender-related issues with the needs and interests of the poor (and) other marginalised groups,” she said.

Policymakers argue that the approach of gender responsive budgeting is not merely about creating a special cooperative or financing schemes dedicated for women.

“People should not be confused about the term ‘gender’, but the main objective is to ensure that boys and girls within the existing revenues, expenditures and available financial resources are benefiting equitably,” Zohra Khan, an international expert in gender, told delegates at the meeting.

Excerpt:

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jul 25 2011 (IPS)

For the first time ever, the Kenyan finance minister has allocated almost four million dollars, about 3.6 percent of the primary education budget, to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls.

One of the many self-employed women who can access microfinance credit through the Women Enterprise Fund. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

In their persistent lobbying, the women parliamentarians brought to the fore a problem that could have continued to hinder the education of young girls. Thirteen-year-old Dorothy Akinyi, a standard seven pupil from Kibera, which is arguably the largest slum in Africa, stays at home every time she menstruates.

“Without sanitary pads life at school is difficult. We are subjected to very embarrassing and humiliating incidents, especially from the boys. Tying a pullover around your waist to hide the soiled patch behind your uniform in case the tissue leaks is a dead giveaway. We choose to stay at home,” explains Akinyi.

But the situation is bound to change for Akinyi and other girls like her – although only if the money allocated for the sanitary wear is spent efficiently. If the funds are used effectively they will help ease the situation, but the money is still not sufficient to provide sanitary wear for all girls in need, and there are calls for partnerships with the private sector.

“This is gender responsive budgeting at work. Being sensitive to the distinctive needs of men and women, while allocating and spending public funds,” explains Jacinta Nyachae, executive director of Kenya Aids Law Project and an advocate of human rights.

Her comments come just as Rwanda prepares to host a global high level meeting on increasing accountability and developing effectiveness through gender responsive budgeting in Kigali from 26 to 28 Jul. The meeting is held in conjunction with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and the European Union.

But girls are not the only ones to have benefitted from a gender sensitive strategy. In a move that has seen women break down socio-political economic barriers, the planning and budgeting for the establishment of the ministry of gender and children affairs remains government’s strongest show of its commitment to address gender inequality.

“But gender planning and budgeting is not enough, the rampant corruption across various government ministries is a clear indication that there’s need for tracking and monitoring how these funds are used,” explains a source from the G-10 alliance, which is a coalition of women organisations fighting for women’s rights.

The source adds: “The Women Enterprise Fund suffered allegations (that) needy women (could not) access the fund. The same can be said of education bursaries and money channelled through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF); various audits into the CDF kitty have revealed massive corruption.”

The Women Enterprise Fund (WEF) was set up by government in December 2006, as a gender responsive strategic move towards addressing poverty through the socio-economic empowerment of women by creating an avenue for them to access microfinance credit previously out of reach of marginalised women. Treasury allocates about 24,000 dollars to each of the country’s 210 constituencies for women to access in the form of loans.

Corruption is an issue that Kenya is struggling to deal with. At the moment, 31 civil society activists have been remanded in a Nairobi cell after being arrested Jul. 18 during a long-drawn vigil to have the minister of education, Professor Sam Ongeri, resign over massive corruption allegations.

Several other ministries have also been implicated in corruption, which is a clear indication that gender planning and consequent budgeting are not enough. There is a need for checks and balances to ensure that the public funds are used for the projects they were intended for.

Although the issue of transparency and accountability is yet to be mainstreamed alongside the gender mainstreaming process, various attempts to lift the plight of women have been partially successful. While the Women Enterprise Fund has been accused of not reaching all the women who need the money, it has made a difference to the lives of many.

“The establishment of the Women Enterprise Fund to enable women to access macro finance has seen women in the informal sector become economically empowered,” explains Dr. Wilfred Subbo, a university lecturer on Gender and Development in Nairobi.

“This is important because poverty is gendered. Men and women experience poverty in very different ways. Research has shown that there are more women living in poverty than men because more women are illiterate, thus limiting their chances of exploiting employment opportunities that can afford them (a) decent living,” he adds.

He says structures were needed to audit the money as it was being spent, and not after, in order to immediately deal with any financial inconsistencies.

“How do we know for sure that the four million dollars currently allocated to the Women Enterprise Fund will reach the economically marginalised women it is intended for?” he asks.

The national budget is an opportunity for the government to show its commitment in raising and spending resources.

“Gender budgeting response doesn’t mean that the treasury develops two budgets, one for women, and the other for men. It means that the government shows an awareness of the fact that some problems are (particular) to men and others to women,” Nyachae expounds.

She further adds: “Women face serious reproductive health problems that can incapacitate them. The budget should reflect these challenges as it did by allocating some funds to deal with these challenges.”

She was referring to the current national budget allocation of about two million dollars or 0.2 percent of the health budget for the improvement of testing for and treatment for cervical and breast cancer. It was also the first time the ministry of finance had made such an allocation.

“Cervical cancer continues to be a leading killer disease even though it is the most preventable and treatable form of cancer. Statistics from Kenyatta Hospital show that at least 2,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed every year with a similar number dying from the disease annually,” explains Dr. Brigid Monda, a gynaecologist and lecturer in Nairobi.

Kenya has a population of 10.32 million women aged 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Current estimates indicate that every year 2,454 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 1,676 die from the disease. Cervical cancer ranks as the second-most frequent cancer among women in Kenya according to the World Health Organization Information Centre on Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and Cervical Cancer.

Gender responsive budgeting is a reflection of gender sensitive planning and practical solutions towards ensuring that gender inequalities in all facets of society are addressed.

“Integration of all into the mainstream development process is in itself a realisation of the objective to achieve sustainable development. It is also a means to bridge the development gap between men and women. It can also create transparency and accountability because women have been found to be efficient and effective implementers of public funds and resources,” Subbo says.

Excerpt:

By Souleymane Faye
DAKAR, Jul 22 2011 (IPS)

Bineta Diop, director of the non-governmental organisation Femmes Africa Solidarité, is at the forefront of the fight for better protection of women in conflict zones and their integration in peace processes.

Bineta Diop (l.) with Asha-Rose Migiro, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Credit: Ryan Brown/UN Photo

Q: In June, several governments from Africa, the Americas and Europe adopted an action plan to implement the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa. How do you see this action plan being put into practice? A: The international conference in Dakar was not just another conference. It had a clear objective… The Declaration, adopted by the African Union in 2004, has already come into in force in some countries. Rwanda, for example, is actively implementing it, as is South Africa.

But if we truly want to see this decision translated into reality, what is needed is an implementation framework with measurable indicators and a budget.

Civil society, governments and the United Nations must work together around an action plan which will speed up implementation of this declaration…

The experts have done their work: now it’s for the politicians to see what needs to be done with this declaration. This was the impetus behind all of our work during the international conference in Dakar.

Q: The fight for equality between men and women is a huge project. What are the priorities, in your view? A:It is a question of ensuring that the concerns of women are taken into account in policies and programmes. I am not sure that men can usefully represent women and express their needs…

Women’s leadership has to be felt directly in decision-making mechanisms. For this to happen, women must speak about their issues themselves. This is what is at the centre of the fight for equality between men and women.

In my view, the priority is attend to the most disadvantaged women, and those who are victims of violence in conflict zones. The priority is to help those without voices to be heard.

Q: Do you think that if women enter spheres such as the army, that opportunities to better prevent and resolve conflicts will follow? A: It’s important to have women in the army… To open the army to women is ensure a role for them in human security and to open the way for solutions to insecurity and conflict. We are working on the challenges of integrating women into the army, and helping countries to draw up action plans.

We have drawn up plans to implement 1973’s U.N. Resolution 1325, which calls for women to go into the heart of military, judicial and political structures to transform them.

Q: In gender advocacy, the issue of representation of women is often raised. But does this not risk overshadowing other issues such as conditions for rural women? A: The concerns of rural women are at the heart of the fight. Rural women, it’s for them that we must act above all. They must be given the same tools as men… we must improve their access to credit, to land, to health services and protection from early marriage.

That’s what we are doing with Femmes Africa Solidarité. We work with women living in conflict countries, trying to bring these states to improve their political and economic systems. Without this, I don’t think that we can truly transform society.

Q: Despite the many declarations and protocols that have been adopted, are both conditions for women and their representation in decision-making not still weak? A: If you look at the progress made between the adoption of the Beijing Platform in 1995 and now, you will see that there have been notable advances. This cannot be denied. We cannot say that the Beijing Platform has been ignored…

And Resolution 1325 has allowed women to sit at the negotiating table at the U.N. It has enabled women to engage in dialogue with the Security Council on fundamental questions. This resolution allowed women like me to sit down with the U.N., with the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and speak of peace, and women’s security. Alongside Mary Robinson, the former Irish president, we have influenced the Security Council…

But there is still so much to do.

I agree that rural women continue to suffer, despite the strong performance that has seen women become more than half of the Rwandan parliament.

Certainly, steps are being taken very slowly. But women are not sitting back with their arms folded, even if economic and political power remains with men. And It is on these very questions that they must be challenged.

But we don’t do it by taking up arms. We are in the midst of challenging men to share the cake: political and economic power.

Excerpt:

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jul 14 2011 (IPS)

Even at the best of times, obtaining a title deed from the ministry of lands is a difficult process. But as the minister of lands admitted on Jul. 13 that his office is rife with corruption, the disorganisation of this office means Kenyan women are no closer to owning land.

The economy of most African countries depends on women who are deprived of the right to own land says Mwanahamisi Salimu, from Oxfam, Tanzania. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

But, right’s experts say, Orengo should have addressed corruption a long time ago and it only delays women’s access to land.

“It was very progressive for the minister to admit that corruption is rife in the ministry. But that has a negative impact on the struggle to have more women own land. Fighting corruption will take centre stage while land ownership for women will seem like a non-issue,” said Grace Gakii, a gender expert in Nairobi.

“The ministry should have already moved forward to address other key issues such as women and land ownership. Already the constitution states that women too can own land and even inherit, but unless the ministry throws its weight behind the clause, the number of women owning title deeds will not improve,” said a source from the non-governmental G10 alliance, a coalition of 10 women organisations who campaign for gender-sensitive policies, particularly through land decentralisation

The situation is worse for poor women who lack the economic muscle to fight for land ownership against a backdrop of gender-insensitive customary laws that continue to sideline them. Consequently, women still hold a negligible percentage of land title deeds. In Kenya, only a paltry three percent of women have land title deeds and in Tanzania only one percent own land.

“The economy of most African countries depends on women who are deprived of the right to own land. They toil all day on land that they have negligible control over. They sustain the breadbasket regions of many countries that are dependent on agriculture but their labour is unacknowledged and poorly remunerated,” says Mwanahamisi Salimu, from Oxfam, Tanzania.

According to Elizabeth Nzioki, who has conducted research on women and land in Kenya: “A key development in Kenya land tenure reform was the issuing of title deeds in the name of the “head of the family”. The problem with the legislation is that the titled land is being transferred almost exclusively to male individuals.”

The situation becomes very complicated when a married couple separates because in Kenya, the Marriage and Property Act is silent on how land should be divided under these circumstances. In a separation or divorce, because title deeds are in a man’s name, he is usually awarded ownership of the property.

“In Tanzania the situation is not any different, with only about one percent of women with title deeds. It means that the rest of the female population, who form the bulk of the labour force in agriculture, break their backs but have no say in proceeds from the farm,” Salimu expounds.

She further says that the situation is worse among conservative tribes such as the Chagga who reside in the Kilimanjaro region in Tanzania. Among the Chagga land is only exclusively allocated to men and this has grave cultural implications.

“A piece of land is also a burial place. If a woman dies unmarried she is buried in the public cemetery, which basically means she will be ‘forgotten’. (It is) a possibility that most Chagga women will do anything to avoid, including getting married for it and withstanding unimaginable levels of abuse from their husbands,” Salimu says. For the Chagga, being ‘forgotten’ in death is akin to being buried like an animal, and people who are buried in public cemeteries are perceived as outcasts.

But even in countries where the number of women who own title deeds is high, like Zimbabwe, the situation is not ideal.

“In Zimbabwe where 20 percent of women own land, women rarely profit from it. One needs capital to earn money from land,” explains Elizabeth Mpofu the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Small Organic Farmers’ Forum (SOFF).

Across Africa, there are highly progressive statutory laws that allow individuals, including women, to own and profit from land. However, traditional practices and laws override them.

“Traditional laws rule, especially in countries like Malawi and Tanzania where the greatest percent of land, as high as 80 percent in Malawi, is owned communally,” explains Maggie Banda, a lawyer with the Women’s Legal Resources Centre in Malawi.

In Kenya women with no male children are traditionally barred from owning land, as was the case with Miriam Njoki.

“A woman owns land through her male children. Giving birth to six girls and no boy was like an abomination among my in-laws and I was subjected to insults and ridicule. My husband left me for another woman and my girls got nothing from his three acres (over one hectare),” Njoki says.

Although there are a vast number of cultural reasons that have continued to bar African women from controlling and profiting from land, women are no longer accepting harmful traditional practices and attitudes as the norm. In Kenya, the concept of ‘Chama’ has revolutionarised the financial situation of thousands of women. Chamas are group saving schemes where women save money to buy land for members.

“Through this strategy, I now have half an acre (about 2,000 square metres),” explains Njoki.

In Zimbabwe, women have joined the SOFF and use affordable organic inputs, which allow them to make a profit.

“We use indigenous seeds, manure, anthills and so on. In fact, we are now at a point where we are developing indigenous seed banks for sale. We will also soon begin selling other organic inputs, such as anthills, to make money,” Mpofu explains.

In Tanzania, there are extensive campaigns with various stakeholders to ensure that all women, especially in rural areas, are aware of their right to own land. “These women are slowly exploiting various means of controlling land by negotiating with their partners for more say,” Salimu says.

In Malawi, women are working in groups and together are able to control and profit from land by leasing the land or owning it.

Of course these strategies pose various challenges. “Management is an issue because most of the members do not understand the concept of running a farm like a business. They have grown used to running a farm as if it were just a way of life; tilling, attending to the crops and harvesting without thinking of money matters because the men handle that aspect,” Banda says.

Excerpt:

By Louise Redvers
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 13 2011 (IPS)

Domestically abused women who are financially dependent on their abusers can now report the crime with the assurance that they will be able to get financial and medical support from the state, thanks to the country’s new law on domestic violence.

Domestic abuse is now illegal in Angola. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

Until now domestic violence had not been illegal in Angola – and on the rare occasions it reached court, it was prosecuted under rape, assault and battery laws.

The law, which was signed into the statue books on Jul. 8, guarantees support to victims, through safe houses, medical treatment and financial and legal help. In addition, violence has been designated as a “public crime”, which means anyone can report it to the police, not just the victim.

“Giving other people the right to report domestic violence also helps because victims can be ashamed of their situations and may not want to speak up about what is happening to them,” Suzana Mendes, editor of the Luanda-based private weekly newspaper Angolense and a leading member of the Angolan Forum of Women Journalists, which has lobbied extensively for the new law, said.

The fact that anyone can report domestic violence, and that victims will get financial and medical support is crucial to the new legislation’s impact, Mendes said. However, no details have been given about the amount of money that will be made available to victims.

“With domestic violence there are so many factors you need to take into consideration,” she explained.

“For many victims they are trapped and unable to report their problems because they are financially dependent on their abuser. Now, they can contact the police and know that they won’t be left vulnerable,” Mendes said.

The legislation, some 10 years in the making, articulates new definitions of domestic violence, which include withholding food from a child, failing to adequately support a pregnant woman and sexually abusing a minor or elderly person in your care.

“This is very good news. We have spent many years fighting for this legislation and it has not been easy.

“We had a big job to prove to society that the law was necessary, to explain what domestic violence was. Initially some people saw this law as being something that was un-African because it interfered with families, and others saw it as anti-men,” Mendes said.

Traditional marriages with girls under the age of 14 have also been outlawed and there are new laws around family finances, giving women more rights to inheritance and family money.

Sizaltina Cutaia, from the Angolan office of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, also welcomed the legislation.

But she said it was not guaranteed that the pledges made in the law would be supported in practice.

“As a country in general we do not have very good records in terms of law enforcement and there too many examples to show that,” she told IPS.

“I think that the adoption of the law is a great starting point but there needs to be resources allocated to provide training to police officers (both male and female) as well as to educate the population, particularly women and girls, about the content of the law and the processes that one needs follow in order to report violence.”

There are no concrete statistics for levels of domestic violence in Angola, partly because until now there has been no legal definition, and any incidents that are reported have been recorded as normal assaults.

However, in one survey carried out in 2008 by the Angolan Women’s Organisation (OMA), the women’s wing of the country’s ruling party, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, in just one district of Luanda, researchers counted some 4,000 incidents over 12 months – roughly 10 attacks a day.

And another study, referred to in the 2009 United States State Department Human Rights report on Angola, recorded 62 percent of women living in poor suburbs of the capital to have experienced some form of household violence.

Despite this perceived high rate of incidence, there are no formal support networks and just a handful of safe houses in the capital Luanda run by the OMA. Few women bothered to report domestic violence as they believed that prosecution was unlikely and would only complicate matters further.

Cutaia admitted domestic violence was endemic in Angola and hoped that the new legislation and an accompanying civic education programme would start to tackle that.

“When I was growing up, domestic violence was all around me and I remember a neighbour being very badly beaten and a guy standing by saying that sometimes men beat women to show them that they love them,” she recalled.

And added: “When you are a teenager and hear these statements, you believe them. And also, there is a tendency for victims to be asked what they did wrong, as if they deserved it in someway.”

A 2009 study by the South African Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) observed that the legacy of Angola’s three-decade civil war, which only ended in 2002, had left engrained violent tendencies within its people.

Cutaia said too much of Angola’s ills were blamed on its history of conflict, but Mendes suggested the entrenched poverty the war had left behind definitely puts pressure on families.

“When you are living in a place with no water, no electricity and you have no food, life is very hard,” she said.

“Many families are living in poor and cramped conditions and with little space to relax and this can make life very hard and make people start to be angry.”

While celebrating the new legislation, Mendes agrees with Cutaia that it is only the beginning.

“Now we have the law,” she said. “But it is only the first step. We need the media and civil society to make a big campaign to tell people about it and explain to people about their rights.

“It’s important this happens countrywide and that any publicity material is translated into all languages, not just Portuguese, to make sure we reach all communities, not just those people in the urban centres, but the people in rural villages too.”

Angola’s minister for women and family promotion, Genoveva Lino, who has led the fight to criminalise domestic violence for a number of years, described the new legislation as a “victory for all Angolans” that would “help build stronger and more stable family units.”

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
JUBA, Jul 12 2011 (IPS)

Violence against women is rampant, devastating and tolerated in South Sudan and the new country needs to address these gross human rights violations and train people, especially soldiers, to respect women’s rights.

Soldiers are accused of perpetrating gross human rights violations against women in South Sudan. Credit: Protus Onyango

“I have worked with many women and girls who have been abused. They are beaten by their husbands, raped by the rebel soldiers and they suffer in silence,” says Loise Joel, a human rights activist who runs the non-governmental organisation Human Rights for the Vulnerable, in Central Equatorial State in South Sudan.

In a civil war that lasted over 21 years, women and young girls have been the victims of the worst human rights abuses. And as South Sudan and the world celebrate the birth of a new nation, it is incumbent on the new government to speedily address the gross human violations to cultivate hope among the survivors. “Violence against women and girls is pervasive, devastating, and a tolerated problem in Sudan, a legacy of Sudan’s brutal civil war, during which it was commonplace. As violence increases in the region, so will rape and sexual abuse, yet assistance for survivors and prevention services are critically scarce,” says Susan Purdin, who oversees International Rescue Committee (IRC) programmes in South Sudan.

Violent conflicts continue to rage between North and South Sudan in the contested border states of South Kordofan and Abyei. But there are also internal threats to the safety of women and girls in South Sudan, including ethnic and tribal fighting, and even the Southern army, which is known for its use of excess force to wipe out rebels.

“Southern Sudan is being born into crisis. Widening violence is triggering more displacement, threatening the lives of vulnerable civilians and hampering access to communities in need while an existing humanitarian emergency grows worse,” Purdin says.

Anim Yei was abducted by rebel soldiers and forced to live in the bush for two years while the soldiers repeatedly raped her before she escaped. She says government should set up a tribunal to gather information on the extent of human rights abuses against women and to punish the perpetrators.

“It is dehumanising to talk about what happened to me and others who fall victims to violence in our country. The government should set up a commission where security of the victims is guaranteed so that we can speak out not fearing for our lives,” Yei says.

Yei is not the only one. Of the many women that Joel has worked with, most fear for their lives and do not report abuse.

“They have no avenues to report as they fear more violence from their husbands or the soldiers. Society also looks down on them. They need to be taught that these are human rights violations and that courts exist to prosecute the offenders,” Joel says.

A report by Leora Ward of IRC’s Women Protection and Empowerment Technical Unit, found that violence against women is highly prevalent in South Sudan and most victims suffer in silence. Almost 52 percent of victims of violence do not report the crimes. Psychological violence is the most reported at 31 percent, followed by physical violence at 29 percent.

According to the report, violence against women is also due to tribal clashes and cattle raiding.

“In the past, tribal clashes in the (Lakes State) region resulted in the burning of villages, displacement of families, rape and beatings. The killing of women and children may result in greater retaliation and higher death tolls,” Ward says.

She adds that now violence against women has taken a turn. “Women have pointed out that high bride prices has resulted in high violence against women,” Ward says.

Ward explains that men who are unable to pay high bride prices may rape women in order to marry them. She says that men are also angry about paying high bride prices and as a result treat their wives as property and may beat them out of anger and resentment.

The IRC report says that safety and security problems identified by women in the Lakes region include economic violence, early or forced marriage, domestic rape, sexual violence, cattle raiding and tribal clashes.

The research notes that there is an overall lack of health services available to the victims and clinics cannot adequately respond to rape, unwanted pregnancies, STI and HIV infection.

Purdin says government should prevent, deter and respond to violence and threats against women.

“There should be gender-specific laws protecting women and girls. Education for women and girls needs to be a priority so that it can be part of the economic and community development taking place in the new Southern Sudan. Access for education for women and girls will address the power inequality or imbalance between women and men,” Purdin says.

Fikru Abebe, director of the Sudan Southern programme at Plan International, says his organisation supported post conflict rebuilding development work that assisted children and youth.

“Enhancement of girl child enrollment in schools and youth skills development remain a focus programme that significantly contributes to stabilisation and peace building as many of the youth engaged in skills development are demobilised soldiers,” Abebe says.

* The final paragraph of the story has been changed by request of Plan International sources.

Excerpt:

By Rosebell Kagumire
KAMPALA, Jul 8 2011 (IPS)

When Valente Inziku’s wife, Jennifer Anguko, went into labour they had decided she would go to the local referral hospital just to ensure a safe delivery.

An elderly woman holds up a poster at the Constitutional Court where the maternal health case was postponed. Credit: Rosebell Kagumire/IPS

“We attended antenatal clinics and each time they advised us to be near the health center when the delivery time comes. We did just as we were told and when we arrived the services were not provided,” Inziku said.

He had arrived at the hospital after his wife did and found her bleeding. “All the nurses were telling me was I had to clean the blood myself. I had my sister so we cleaned the blood,” said Inziku. “It was purely negligence of the nurses I kept calling them and they would tell us it is not yet the time for her to deliver the baby.”

So Inziku and his sister literally sat down holding his wife as she bled to death. “She died in my arms. She told me: ‘We have children, we have love but all this seems nothing if we have no help.’” Inziku said.

Inziku says the only doctor appeared 12 hours after his wife was admitted. “When the doctor finally arrived he told me it was too late and he asked why the nurses had called him,” Inziku said.

Inziku, a primary school teacher, is now left to look after their three children, all under the age of 10, alone.

Inziku is part of a group that has petitioned the Uganda Constitution Court to pronounce the escalating maternal deaths in Uganda violates the Constitutional rights of Ugandans.

The case was brought to court in March by the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development together with three individuals: Professor Ben Twinomugisha, a lecturer at Makerere University; and two health activists, Rodah Kukkiriza and Inziku.

They want government to address maternal mortality and compensate the families that have lost mothers to negligence or poor services.

In the petition, the activists argue that by not providing the essential services for pregnant women, and many others, the government of Uganda is in violation of the fundamental obligation of the country to uphold the Constitution and defend, protect and promote the right to health and the right to life.

“I am here today because I want the court to know there’s an injustice going on. I have pain in my heart,” said Inziku.

The court was scheduled to hear the petition on Jul. 7 but the case was postponed because they did not have the required quorum of five judges.

Noor Nakibuuka Musisi, the programme coordinator at Centre for Health Human Rights and Development said securing a court declaration would be a great start in getting government to act.

“We want a declaration that the non-provision of essential services in the government facilities is a violation of the right to life,” she said. “The reason many women die is because there are no maternal kits, there’s no blood in hospitals and we have poorly paid health workers not behaving in the most ethical way.”

In June the Ugandan government announced an increase in the health budget for the 2011/12 financial year. It increased from 270 million dollars to 412 million this year.

However, Francis Runumi, the commissioner of health services and planning at the ministry of health said most of the budget was going to infrastructure and would not address the human resource crisis that has contributed to maternal mortality figures.

Still activists question the political commitment and health sector accountability. Recently government spent 760 million dollars on fighter jets and other defense equipment, which many question as a priority for Ugandans.

Robinah Kaitiritimba, the executive director of the Uganda National Health Consumers Organisation, part of the coalition that brought the case to court, said Ugandans must fight for their rights.

“There are no rights which are given on a silver platter, we must continue to fight and ensure our government responds to the cries of mothers and families.”

Maternal death in Uganda has remained high over years, every day at least 16 women die in childbirth. Uganda’s maternal mortality figures are at 435 deaths of every 100,000 live births, which translate to 6,000 deaths annually. Also child mortality remains high with infant mortality rate at 78 per 1000 births.

Most of the maternal deaths in Uganda are preventable and mainly caused by the massive shortage of trained and motivated professional health workers to attend births, lack of access to emergency obstetric care for responding to emergencies, lack of access to quality antenatal care, and lack of access to family planning services.

The gap in access to life-saving HIV treatment and malaria prevention and treatment are also major causes of maternal deaths.

Excerpt:

A successful entrepreneurial programme in the north of Namibia that infuses farming practices with gender-responsive environmentalism may serve as a model for other countries on the African continent.

Victoria Mulunga is a participant in the CES programme in Namibia. Women take an interest in topics like conservation farming and drip irrigation. Credit: Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

“Rural women in Africa are burdened with providing for the household. They are the farmers, working the fields, cooking and trying to make a modest cash income on the side,” says Marie Johansson, the chief executive officer of Creative Entrepreneur Solutions (CES) in Ondangwa, Northern Namibia, in southern Africa.

“You see a woman, sitting at a service station selling bread and it seems like a nice way to make an income. But poverty profiles show that she gets up at three in the morning to prepare the dough, then she makes breakfast, then she bakes the bread, then she works in the field for a couple of hours, before walking the 10 kilometres to the service station.

“There she sells bread all day long, maybe making an overall profit of five Namibian dollars (0.75 U.S. dollars). After that, of course, it’s back home to cook, clean and prepare for the next day, all the way up ‘til bedtime at midnight.”

For women already locked into a harsh existence, floods, droughts and higher temperatures are unwelcome guests that affect harvests and their ability to provide.

Says Johansson: “Men do mostly not have this vicious cycle of working and sleeping, so they tend to pay less attention when land issues are discussed in climate change adaptation workshops. But the women will say that the first thing they want to do is to secure the household staple food production, no matter what.

“A woman tends to take an interest in topics like conservation farming and drip irrigation because for her it is vital to get as much food from her land as possible. ‘How do I plan my farm with these floods?’ ‘Should I maybe diversify into rice production?’ These are the questions they face.”

With a handful of other women Johansson started Creative Entrepreneur Solutions in 2007. She helped poor women in the townships to strengthen their small informal enterprises, or start new ones.

In 2009 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) approached CES to roll out a community- based adaptation programme in 20 communities in five Namibian provinces. The programme has been extremely successful.

“Our approach works because it is a bottom-up approach. If the donors walk out tomorrow, it will still work. Most donor-funded or government-initiated programmes fail because they don’t ask the people what they want and create no sense of ownership.”

Instead, CES started self-help groups modelled on initiatives in India. Communities organise themselves in cooperatives to tackle climate change issues, or build up savings for business ventures.

“Our approach is twofold,” explains Johansson. “Yes, we want to improve food security, but if there is an opportunity to create an enterprise at the same time, why not? We are interested in helping aspiring entrepreneurs to put their ideas into practice.”

So, the women engage in conservation tilling and improved irrigation methods for their dry-land crops and, in the process, start to farm differently.

Namibian women are trying out new farming techniques to generate bigger yields. credit : Servaas van den Bosch/ IPS

“Women now grow different plants that are better suited to different climatic conditions or have more market applications, or they switch to aquaculture. Climate change also brings possibilities. The recent floods have really opened people’s eyes to fish farming and they are now establishing ponds and dams. They also have started using energy-efficient stoves and they practise water harvesting.”

Can programmes like this have a spill-over effect into the Southern African region? “I would think so,” argues Martha Mwandingi, the Namibian head of energy and environment for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Mwandingi oversees several large programmes relating to climate change adaptation, biodiversity and ecosystem management, including the project run by CES.

“Countries can adapt projects and tailor them to their own circumstances. Or ideas can be used straightaway, such as the climate change information toolkits that we developed for communities.”

“Climate change impacts most heavily on women because of the multiple roles they play in a household, from farmer to provider to being the managers of the country’s national resources,” says Mwandingi.

“Climate change compounds the burden of women because of the perpetuation of discriminatory gender-specific roles. All over the world global warming affects people, but especially the most vulnerable. Women belong to that group.”

Mwandingi thinks more research is needed on the involvement of women in the climate change decision-making process. “There might be a gap there. I would love to see some studies on this. How many women sit on Namibia’s National Climate Change Committee, for instance? Or how many women are part of the delegations to the climate talks and the subsidiary technical committees?

“On the other hand, looking at Namibia, we have some powerful women in this field. The ministers of environment and finance – two vital departments – are both female, as are many directors of government agencies or significant research institutes.

“But it deserves a closer look. How are women for instance involved in the various climate change science centres across the Southern African region? And how does that involvement affect the decisions about the type of data to gather and what models to draw up?”

Mwandingi proposes that the Global Gender and Climate Alliance established at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali in 2007 should be revisited on a regional level. According to its website, the alliance “works to ensure that climate change policies, decision-making, and initiatives at the global, regional, and national levels are gender responsive”.

By Miriam Gathigah
KIAMBU COUNTY, Kenya, Jun 21 2011 (IPS)

Without a college education and against the backdrop of limited job opportunities, it was not easy for Salome Wairimu to find employment.

Each day ushered in more worries and uncertainties, sometimes she would have work but often days would go by before she had an opportunity to make money.

The single mother of two from Kiambu County, in Central Kenya, led a financially uncertain life before the Women Enterprise Fund (WEF) provided her with an opportunity that transformed her financial situation.

Official government statistics show an estimated 40 percent of Kenyans are unemployed. Millions survive by doing occasional work – non-permanent manual work.

The situation is worse for women in rural areas. High numbers of rural women are illiterate and at least 70 percent work as small-scale farmers, providing the bulk of Kenya’s food supply. Their wages are dismally low and often uncertain.

Wairimu, who also lives in a rural area, also faced an uncertain future. She completed high school with a grade that allowed her entrance to college but her peasant parents could not afford the fees. So she began plaiting women’s hair to earn money.

“While in high school I would plait my schoolmates’ hair for a few coins. On completing school and with no employment and even worse, no capital, I couldn’t set up a salon,” Wairimu explains.

For six years she worked from her home. But it was not a regular business and she had difficulty attracting new customers.

“It was very frustrating because why would they come to my house instead of going to the salon where there are facilities to wash and dry their hair before braiding? I needed a work station and equipment to diversify my services.”

In 2007 Wairimu attended a women’s group meeting and learnt about government’s drive to empower women economically through the WEF.

Women could apply for loans that would be repaid in instalments over a predetermined period. And after they successfully completed paying the first loan, women would be eligible for a second and even a third loan of greater amounts.

“I was not very excited then because there were all these rumours about this initiative being a government ploy to woo women voters. But I continued attending the meetings and I was convinced that it was a good idea. They required no collateral, so it was very enticing.”

Together with nine other women, Wairimu formed a group to access the money, one of the Fund’s requirements. Each woman had their own business venture but received about 600 dollars each. They paid the loan back within the first year and qualified for a second loan of the same amount.

“Being from the rural area, it meant that I could afford to rent a commercial room in town and pay rent for the first three months, including the deposit,” Wairimu says.

She adds that it was something she could not have done without the loan. “With a strategic place to attract customers, I began expanding my client base. With the profit I made, including what little was left from the loan, I bought equipment to diversify my services.”

Wairimu’s group is only one of the 3, 913 groups that received loans since the inception WEF. She has now managed to change her family’s circumstances from being poor, to comfortably middle-class.

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By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jun 21 2011 (IPS)

As an estimated 3.7 million dollars continues to sit idle in the Women Enterprise Fund (WEF) kitty, the very women the fund was meant to benefit have complained about the difficult requirements that need to be met in order to access the money.

Self-employed women can benefit from the Women Enterprise Fund. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Asked whether she presented a business plan to the WEF constituency offices, Wambui says that she does not know how to draw one up. Without being able to meet this requirement of the fund, Wambui and other uneducated women cannot make use of an opportunity that could transform their economic situation.

The WEF was set up in December 2006 by government and was intended to address poverty alleviation through the socio-economic empowerment of women. This was after government had noted that a vast number of women were “unbankable” and marginalised in the economy.

“These women also lacked access and control over assets, making them ineligible for credits from the bank,” explains Dr. Winfred Mwai, a lecturer of gender and development in Nairobi. “In fact, figures from the ministry of land show that only a paltry three percent of women have title deeds: no bank would touch the remaining 97 percent.”

There are two ways to access the WEF. Women can apply for loans through microfinance intermediaries such as banks, non-governmental organisations and savings and credit organisations. Women can apply as individuals, companies or as groups and up to about 6,500 dollars can be borrowed over three years at an interest rate of eight percent per year. To access this women have to be 18 years and over, have a bank account, and have a business already running or a viable business plan.

Women can also access the money through the Constituency Women Enterprise Scheme. Funds are not available to individuals and one is required to be in a group of at least 10 people and the group should have existed for three months prior to the loan application. Loans are interest free but have an administration fee of five percent. About 600 dollars per member is available and the members do not need to run the same business.

But meeting the requirements has not been an easy task for some women. Stella Omollo from Nyanza region was only able to access the fund after a long wait.

“It is true there are women who want the money but can’t meet the requirements. There are those who have no idea what a business plan is and run whatever business they have as a way of life and not really with a business mindset,” Omollo says.

Omollo also did not know how to draw up a business plan until she asked her nephew, a college student, to help her. Omollo, however, says it is the responsibility of the fund officials to ensure that women are adequately trained and know how to access the funds.

“Indeed we are trained before accessing the money, but the information is generally inadequate and only benefits women who are quick to understand issues. Most of the target group for the fund have no proper education and are in the informal sector,” Omollo says.

Wambui agrees: “What’s the point of a one-off session for women in the informal sector? We need consistent training, perhaps once every three months to keep us on track.”

When the fund started each of the 210 constituencies in the country were allocated the equivalent of 12,000 dollars; but this has now been doubled to meet demand through an increased national budgetary allocation.

The Fund’s CEO, Samuel Wainaina, has heard the complaints about women having a hard time accessing the money available.

“There have been complaints relating to lack of information on where to access disbursed funds, particularly among rural women. There is need for more information,” Wainaina admits.

The WEF report also admits that more training is needed for women, especially on how to write business plans.

Of the 210 constituencies only Wajir South, in northeast Kenya, is yet to exhaust its first allocation. In Nairobi, about 80 percent of the money available has already been accessed by women.

Another major problem has been the misinformation that was spread about the Fund by various leaders. As a way of getting votes, many told women that the money available from the WEF is not a loan but a stimulus package from the government. In fact, just after the 2007 elections, the loan defaulters almost brought the Fund to its knees. But the Fund managed to recover 70 percent of the loans.

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