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SMILE, WOMAN OF AFRICA, SMILE!
A. N. Kithaka
This week holds two important events for African women. The 25th
of November marks the start of the 16 Days of Gender
Activism Against Violence, an international campaign meant
to raise awareness about gender violence, strengthen the
work of local organisations and demonstrate the solidarity
of women around the world. Incorporating the International
Day Against Violence Against Women (November 25th) and
International Human Rights Day (December 10), the goal of the
campaign is to link violence against women to the fact that it is
a human rights violation. November 25 is also especially
important for African women, as it is the day that the
Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa comes into force.
Having been ratified by the requisite 15 African countries,
this extremely important and progressive treaty has the
potential to liberate and empower all African women to know
and utilise their rights. That’s why A.N. Kithaka, in the
article below, makes an eloquent plea for Kenya to ratify
the protocol. Extolling the advantages that the Protocol will
have on African countries, Kithaka argues that the work done by
numerous groups around the globe is imperative to gender rights,
and to leaving behind violence against women as a things of
the past . below Kithaka’s article are a list of resources
on 16 days and the Protocol - suggested websites, further
reading, blogs and events.
Women of Africa, we have cause to celebrate; the long awaited
ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of the African Woman by
the requisite 15 member states has just been announced. The
Protocol will come to force soon (November 25). Those states
that have deposited their instruments of ratification with
the Executive Council will be at liberty to incorporate its
provision into their domestic laws.
It has been a long journey; a journey and a battle well fought by
national, regional and international lobby groups. Most of us were
not aware of this but we are glad that their collective and
consistent lobbying, cajoling and canvassing has finally born
fruits. The Second Summit of the African Heads of
Governments and States sitting in Maputo, Mozambique finally
adopted the Protocol as a supplement to the African Charter
on Human and People’s Rights. The only rider was that it
had to be ratified by 15 states out of a possible 53 member
states. The fifteenth state to deposit its document of
ratification with the Executive Council did so on the 26th
day of October, meaning that within 30 days from this date, the
Protocol will come into force! It has been correctly taunted as
the Green Card that will usher us to a new era. It not only
guarantees us a wider spectrum of human rights specific to
our needs as the much oppressed and repressed creature of
the old (and new!) millennium, but also allows us to seek
redress in the yet to be constituted African Court of Human
and Peoples Rights. Unfortunately, Kenya is yet to ratify
the protocol, perhaps due to the present national
preoccupation with the referendum. Nevertheless, it will not be an
up hill task to nudge the government towards the right
direction - it appears malleable.
The big question is, how soon will women in Kenya join the proud
list of those countries that have chosen to give their women
an early Christmas gift by ratifying the document? How long
will the women in Kenya have to camp on this renegade side
of the Red Sea as they wait for the magic word 'ratification'
to part the raging waters and usher them to that other side
where gender discrimination, repulsive FGM, forced marriages
and widow inheritance, domestic and sexual violence, etc.
are a thing of the past? Not long, I hope.
We must join hands to lobby for this ratification at all costs.
Only then can we rise and say “Eureka!” Otherwise we may
as well be content to sit on this side for an eternity, as
we watch our sisters from Cape Verde, Mali, Malawi, Lesotho,
Comoros, Libya, Namibia, Rwanda, Nigeria, Djibouti,
Mauritius, Senegal, South Africa, Benin, Togo and Gambia
take the first steps into the soggy sea bed to personal
freedoms.
After ratification and domestication; we must move to the next
important stage: that of educating the masses on its benefits,
without forgetting to bring on-board our dear fathers, brothers,
husbands and sons. Some of the opposition being waged against the
Wako Draft Constitution is because it promises equal inheritance
rights to women, especially married women. One would think that
the Draft is introducing new concepts into our legal
jurisprudence, yet the Succession Act has been around since
1981!
Most women have refused to enforce their rights, even when assured
that the law is on their side. Others do not want the incessant
fights over meager family resources with hostile male relatives;
visits to infamous land offices make many cringe. They prefer to
hide behind the mask of traditions as they denounce their
shares in favour of their brothers.
Men fear losing control over their mothers, sisters, wives and
daughters. They subscribe to the primitive belief that the only
way to subjugate and subdue a woman is by denial of basic
rights and freedoms; and application of gender-specific
violence; rape and physical assault being the most popular
today. In our mother's days, denial to basic and secondary
education was the weapon of choice, and being forced to
resign from paying jobs in favor of 'staying-at-home –
to-take-care-of-the-children' edicts. Even today's educated man
wants to confine his woman to that perpetually smoky room
called the kitchen (after work, that is!).
Dissenters are deserted, attacked, maimed and killed with impunity.
Those lucky enough to escape and fend for themselves are given
cold treatment by a society that brands them prostitutes,
husband grabbers and social failures. Any property they
acquire in their single state will be grabbed or inherited
by their estranged husbands, brothers, uncles and fathers.
Any children they leave behind, especially girl children,
are mistreated, forced to leave school and become house
girls, or married off to total strangers who profess kinship to
their parents. Sometimes they are shunted off to rural areas
where they are forced to undergo abhorrent traditional rites.
Would it not be better for governments to facilitate the
fostering of such children so that they can continue to live
in the manner and style they were accustomed to when their
mothers were alive?
That is why advocacy groups must do more than just lobbying for
adoption of international legal instruments; they must help women
from rural areas apply them to improve their lots and those of
their children. Atieno from Ahero, Wanjiku from Waithaka,
Kalekye from Katse and Naliaka from Narok must be
facilitated, both materially and intellectually, so that she
is aware of her basic human and women’ rights and how
these can be enforced at the national, regional and
international courts of justice. Let us gang up and apply the
shock therapy to disgorge men from their entrenched
prejudices; let us wean them from the present retrogressive
and chauvinistic mindset that has been passed from
generation to generation.
In his play, ‘Measure for Measure’, Shakespeare introduces a
character called Angelo. He is the law enforcer who brokers no-
nonsense deals when it comes to matters of justice. He refuses to
temper justice with mercy and holds that the law must be obeyed to
the letter - at the beginning of the play, anyway. What happens
later is for the curious to find out. He is famously quoted
as pontificating that 'we must not make a scarecrow of the
law, setting it up to catch birds of prey till custom
finding it harmless makes it their perch and not their
terror'.
Our advocacy skills and efforts must translate to visible changes
in the lives of our people; they must not remain mere 'open
sesame' to donor funds; let us canvass for enactment of laws,
but let us not leave them to be mere scarecrows that are set
up to frighten birds of prey, and…men!
* A. N. Kithaka is an Advocate in Kenya.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
Supporting organisations of the campaign for the ratification of
the Protocol on the Rights of Women
African Centre for Democracy And Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS) www.acdhrs.org/
Akina Mama wa Afrika www.akinamama.org/
Association des Juristes Maliennes http://www.justicemali.org/ajm.htm
Cellule de Coordination sur les Pratiques Traditionelle Affectant
la Sante des Femmes et des Enfants
Coalition on Violence Against Women www.covaw.or.ke
ECOTERRA International http://www.ecoterra-international.org
Equality Now-Africa Regional Office http://www.equalitynow.org/english/index.html
FAHAMU http://www.fahamu.org
FAMEDEV-Inter-African Network For Women Media, Gender and
Development
FEMNET - African Women's Development and Communication Network
www.femnet.or.ke
Foundation for Community Development, Inter-African Committee on
Harmful Traditional Practices (IAC)
Oxfam GB http://www.oxfam.org.uk/
Sister Namibia
Union Nationale des Femmes de Djibouti
Voix de Femmes http://www.voixdefemmes.org/
University of Pretoria Center for Human Rights http://www.chr.up.ac.za/
Women's Rights Advancement and Protection Alternatives
Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) http://www.wildaf.org/
Resources
16 Days of Activism Against Gender
Violence www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/home.html
Peace Women http://peacewomen.org
Akina Mama wa Afrika http://www.akinamama.org/
Equality Now http://www.equalitynow.org/english/index.html
FEMNET http://femnet.or.ke
Feminist Africa http:/www.feministafrica.org
Blogs
Feminist African Sisters http://feministafricansisters.blogspot.com/
Diary of a Mad Kenyan Woman http://madkenyanwoman.blogspot.com/
Black Looks http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks
Further Reading
Women Building Peace http://www.international-alert.org/publications/121.php
Trafficking in Women and Children in Africa http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/
African Experiences of Transnational Feminism www.feministafrica.org/2level.html
Pambazuka News Special Editions on the Protocol
Protocol on the Rights of Women in
Africa: A Pre-condition for Health and Food Security http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=190
The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Red, Yellow and Green
www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=213
Challenges of Domestication: The Protocol To The African Charter
on Human and People’s Rights on The Rights of Women in
Africa www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=222
Pambazuka Profiles on the Protocol
Land Rights - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30397
Women and Sustainable Development - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30299
Women in Armed Conflict - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30122
Female Genital Mutilation - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30050
Trafficking in Women and Children - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29740
Female Refugees - http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29873
Events
Nigeria – Baobab Women http://www.baobabwomen.org/upcomingevents.html
South Africa – Women’s Net http://womensnet.org.za/16Days/calendar.shtml
Agenda in Durban, South Africa Contact editorial@agenda.org.za
Kenya – COVAW http://www.covaw.or.ke/
Ghana – Ark Foundation http://www.arkfoundationgh.org/news/home.htm
International Calendar http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/kit05/calendar.html
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