This is a little long, but definitely worth reading, Ylva
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Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 8:43 AM
Subject: Pambazuka News 231: Smile, Woman of Africa, Smile!

PAMBAZUKA NEWS 231: SMILE, WOMAN OF AFRICA, SMILE!

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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 [log in to unmask]

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) http://
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
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 http://
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/publicatio ns/
121.php
Trafficking in Women and Children in Africa http://www.unicef-
icdc.org/publications/
African Experiences of Transnational Feminism http://
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 http://
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 http://
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 [log in to unmask] 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/cale
ndar.html

[snip]



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