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African women continue to suffer from violence and inequality
March 11, 2008 | Tagged Africa, Women | Leave a Comment
By Meryam
In his message marking International Women’s Day on March 8, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon noted that the most important element in achieving the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty and other social ills by 2015 is investing in women. “No measure is more important in advancing education and health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS, or as likely to improve nutrition, or reduce infant and maternal mortality,” he said.
And yet, women continue to suffer the most, whether in times of conflict, economic hardship or a lack of basic services. In fact, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, while “Public outcry and headlines tend to concentrate on egregious cases of female genital mutilation, punishment of rape victims, sexual slavery, and degrading treatment of all sorts,” it is ‘lower intensity’ discrimination, often sanctioned by law, that condemns millions of women to daily hardship and suffering. This takes the form of little freedom of movement, inability to own or inherit property and unequal education and employment opportunities.
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and its Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which enshrine and pledge protection for the whole spectrum of women’s rights, are widely ratified in the continent, however, discrimination and harmful practices such as human trafficking, violence in armed conflict, and female genital mutilation persist. Africa is lagging in both meeting the millennium goal targets, as well as improving the lives of women.
The most crucial elements hindering women’s potential to improve their lives in the region continues to be inadequate sexual and reproductive health care and education. Says Jane Godia, writing in The Standard, “Today as you read this story, there is a woman dying at the backstreets of a major town as she tries to procure an unsafe abortion. She had been forced to “hide” because of restrictive laws, policies and practices that have limited her rights to choose. These laws have taken possession of her body to the point that she cannot freely make decisions regarding her femininity.”
An estimated 5.5 million unsafe abortions occur annually in Africa. Many of these are from unintended pregnancies, such as “in the case of Akinyi, a Form Three student who was raped and impregnated during the political skirmishes in Kibera [a slum in Nairobi, Kenya]. The rapists thought Akinyi deserved to be violated at that particular time simply because she refused to acknowledge their greetings. But as they raped Akinyi, who has since been expelled from school and her chances of continuing with education are slim, they did not realise that she had abstained from sex and was waiting for the right time and right person.”
Rape is used as a weapon in conflict ridden areas throughout Africa and the developing world. Godia writes that the February 2008 Third Africa Conference on Sexual and Health Rights held in Abuja, Nigeria “was told that in Darfur, women and girls are the ones who go out to fetch water and firewood. In the process they are raped. Men in Darfur do not go out because they will be killed and will not come back. The women go out because they will be raped and come back.”
HIV/AIDS is another serious issue affecting African women, who are twice as likely to contract the disease than men.
Promoting gender equality and empowering women—which is the third of the millennium goals—involves much better planning and implementation of the various regulations and schemes in place in various countries. It also requires a interdisciplinary approach: education, health and economic policies need to be integrated in order for them to be effective. One of the initiatives taken by south African countries to improve women’s rights is ‘gender budgeting’, which assesses and implements national policies and budgets from a gender perspective. According to Laeticia Mukurasi, the African Development Bank Gender Specialist, southern Africa is by far the best performer in Africa on the third of the millennium goals. North Africa and East Africa follow.
