Roadmap to Equality, Issue 14, February 2011

Editor’s Note

Highlights
–  DRC authorising the ratification of the SADC protocol
–  Continental highlights – Boosting economic policies that deliver equitably to Africa’s women

International News
–  10th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, Peacewomen launches ‘Women, Peace and Security Handbook’
–  Gender quotas go to Davos!

Alliance News
–  Staff news and developments
–  Alliance Teleconference, 4 February 2011
–  Country Reports: SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Barometer

Constitutional and Legal Rights
–  Storm over Congolese child brides
–  Red umbrella: Sex workers’ rights=human rights

Governance
–  2011 SADC elections

Productive Resources and Employment
–  National budget gender lens blurred
–  DRC: Gender gaps and economic injustice

Gender-based Violence
–  16 Days is over, and now for the next 349
–  Taking stock of National Action Plans to end GBV
–  Measuring gender based violence
–  Mass FGM ceremonies planned

Health, HIV and AIDS
–  Giving birth, losing life
–  Zero Discrimination by the year 2015

Peace Building
–  Vocational training centres for Women help peace building process in post-conflict DRC

Media, Information and Communications
–  Media’s Role in Marital Rape

Tracking and Ratification
–  The SADC Gender Protocol Ratification Process: Status and Updates
–  The gender divide in Africa – breaking the glass ceiling

Integrated Approach/Monitoring & Evaluation
–  Costing implementation of the SADC Gender and Development Protocol at national levels
–  SADC Gender Protocol Alliance ratification resource kit

SADC Protocol @ Work
–  Malawian women claim equal share of property rights
–  SADC gender protocol demands prosecution for all gender violence

• SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Barometer – Botswana report
• SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Barometer – Mauritius report
• Gender in Media Education: An audit of gender in Journalism and Media Education and Training
• Gender and Media Progress Study Southern Africa
• SADC Gender Protocol Alliance Strategy meeting report
• SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Barometer

Bookmakers and casinos all over Lusaka must be relieved Kezina Malambo never took to gambling. Otherwise, the 20-year old with a shy smile would now be the scourge of every gambling overlord in the Zambian capital. You see Malambo, a Big Issue vendor in Lusaka, has a knack for defying the odds, however insurmountable they might seem. … Read more

Malawi: ‘Nation at a crossroads’

South Africa: ‘This is how detective work is done’

Zambia Women’s Groups demand the arrest of MP: ‘Arrest GBM, demand women’

Zimbabwe sets up Sex Offenders Register

Continental highlights – Boosting economic policies that deliver equitably to Africa’s women
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has teamed up with the African Institute for Economic Development to launch a major programme aimed at boosting policies that deliver equally to low-income women and men in countries across Africa. The “Global Gender and Economic Policy Management Initiative-Africa”, known as GEPMI-Africa, targets government officials, development practitioners, civil society organisations and research institutes to help countries promote gender-responsive policies in specific areas such as health, education and labour…. Read more

Gender quotas go to Davos!
Each year, prime ministers, bankers, business tycoons and other movers and shakers of the global elite gather at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos. And each year, one key thing has been missing: women. Now, in an attempt to improve the traditionally dismal gender balance at this year’s event, the WEF has for the first time imposed a minimum quota of women…. Read more

Alliance Teleconference, 4 February 2011
We would like to schedule our monthly teleconference on Friday, 4 February at 11am. We will soon be circulating draft agenda for your input. Thematic cluster leaders and country focal points please diarise and confirm your availability to Lindiwe on allianceofficer@genderlinks.org.za

Country Reports: SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Barometer
We invite you to view Botswana; Mauritius, Malawi country reports on www.sadcgenderprotocol.org

We are finalising DRC, Madagascar, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe country report. These will soon be accessible on the Alliance website, www.sadcgenderprotocol.org. Notification via email will be circulated when these reports are uploaded.

Red umbrella: Sex workers’ rights=human rights
It might be the rainy season in many parts of Southern Africa, but that’s not why more than 100 red umbrellas were recently on display in Mauritius. On Saturday 18 December 2010, under the initiative of Chrysalide Women’s Rehabilitation Centre, more than 100 citizens gathered for the first time in the yard of the Municipality of Beau-Bassin/Rose-Hill brandishing red umbrellas to commemorate the International Day to end violence against sex workers…. Read more

DRC: Gender gaps and economic injustice
Most news from the DRC is bad. When we hear about women it’s often because they’ve been raped, assaulted or killed. We rarely hear about how women are shaping politics or bringing about change…. Read more

Taking stock of National Action Plans to end GBV
With the support of the UN Trust Fund, Gender Links in partnership with the Network on Violence Against Women that coordinates the GBV cluster in the Alliance will hold an evaluative meeting of national action plans to end gender-based violence from 15-17 February. The meeting will be followed by a meeting to formalise the working of the cluster. It also takes place against the backdrop of the UN Secretary General’s UNite campaign…. Read more

Measuring gender based violence
More than three quarters of South African men have perpetrated violence against women in their lifetime and more than half of women in South Africa have experienced gender-based violence. These preliminary results from a Gender Links GBV Indicators Study have recently been highlighted extensively in Southern African media…. Read more

Mass FGM ceremonies planned
While Tanzania outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) in 1998, mass FGM ceremonies are still going on, in particular in the November-January season. Activists expect over 5,000 girls to be cut over the next several months…. Read more

Zero Discrimination by the year 2015
Windhoek – Namibian parliamentarians, lawmakers from some SADC countries and representatives of civil society organisations (CSOs) are set to meet in Windhoek on 3 February 2011 to discuss how an initiative to advocate for improved HIV prevention in the SADC region can be taken forward…. Read more

The gender divide in Africa – breaking the glass ceiling
International protocols, by their very nature, can be long on optimism and short on pragmatism. So, when the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) set its 15 members lofty targets and a strict deadline with its Protocol on Gender and Development, even the most positive gender activist couldn’t have expected politicians to pay more than lip service to the document’s ‘outlandish’ demands…. Read more

SADC Gender Protocol Alliance ratification resource kit
The Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance will soon be launching a SADC Gender Protocol Ratification Resource Kit. This is aimed at unpacking the issues around process and significance of SADC countries ratifying the SADC Gender Protocol. Three cases studies will be presented on countries that have ratified the SADC Gender Protocol, and their journey to ratification.

SADC gender protocol demands prosecution for all gender violence
Harare – There should be no impunity for the perpetrators of rape and it is important for Zimbabwe to set up a multi-sectoral investigation into politically motivated rape, a human rights group has said…. Read more

The Barometer will enable both state and non-state actors to track progress whether governments are on the way to meeting set targets in the Gen- der Protocol which provides a road map for achieving gender equality in the region.

The new and updated Baro- meter will focus on the articles of the Protocol namely Consti- tutional and Legal Rights; Gender and Governance; Edu- cation and Training; Economic Justice; Gender Based Violence; Health; HIV and AIDS; Peace Building and Conflict Reso- lution; and Media, Infor- mation and Communication.

It is essential that gender and women’s rights activists and governments track the impact of their work in order to measure whether or not they are making a difference. The Barometer is a tool that can be used firstly, to track progress in advancing gender equality in the region and also to hold governments in Southern Africa accountable to the commitments they have made to address inequality through their obligations to international and regional in- struments and in particular the SADC Gender Protocol.

6 February 2011 marks this year’s United Nations-sponsored International Day of Zero tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). As a particularly devastating form of gender-based violence, female genital mutilation adversely affects women’s lives and significantly hinders the implementation and realisation of the SADC Gender Protocol’s target (Article 25) of halving gender-based violence by 2015. The commemorative day should also highlight the Gender Protocol’s commitment “to discourage traditional norms, including social . . . cultural and political practices which legitimise and exacerbate the persistence and tolerance of gender-based violence” (Article 21).

Statistics on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C)
– FGM is internationally recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
– It is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15.
– FGM includes procedures that intentionally alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
– The procedure has no health benefits for girls and women.
– Procedures can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later, potential childbirth complications and newborn deaths.
– FGM is not prevalent in the SADC region but occurs prominently in some parts of the DRC and Tanzania.
– According to Tanzania health statistics, 18% of the female population have undergone FGM.
– The Tanzania Sexual Offences Special Provisions Act, a 1998 amendment to the Penal Code, specifically prohibits FGM. Section 169A(1) of the act provides that anyone having custody, charge or care of a girl under 18 years of age who causes her to undergo FGM commits the offence of cruelty to children.

Source: World Health Organisation and Womens Global Connection

3 February 2011 (Windhoek, Namibia) – SADC-PF, the World AIDS Campaign, and Parliamentarians of Namibia are working with a range of Civil Society Organisations in the HIV/AIDS sector in Namibia to take focused action to cut the HIV infection rate in the country.
In this regard a one day, consultative meeting to launch, profile and sensitise participants about the “50 by 15 – Movement for Prevention” will be held on 3 February 2011. A Round Table discussion has also been convened to decide on productive areas for collaboration for Civil Society Organisations and Parliamentarians in Namibia.

The subject for discussion will be “Zero Discrimination by the year 2015”, with a strong emphasis on building a case for access to Human Rights in the context of HIV/AIDS and Health. For more information, please see the site.

– 14-15 February 2011 (Johannesburg, South Africa) – Gender Links, in partnership with UN Women, the SADC Gender Unit, the
Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance, will convene an expert group meeting to devise a methodology to cost implementation of the SADC Gender and Development Protocol.

– 16-18 February 2011 (Johannesburg, South Africa) – Gender Links with the support of UNIFEM Southern Africa Regional Office (SARO) will convene an evaluative meeting on implementation of the action plans and national strategies to end gender-based violence in SADC countries. The meeting will bring together representatives of gender ministries and gender violence national lead NGOs.

– Centre for Citizen Participation in the African Union (CCP-AU) AGM, 18-19 February 2011, Addis Ababa, Nairobi. SADC Council of NGOs sending a delegation from the Southern Africa Civil Society. Gender Links, on behalf of the Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance.

– 22 February to 4 March 2011 (New York, United States) – The 2011 55th UN Commission for the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from Tuesday, 22 February to Friday, 4 March 2011. The theme for 2011 will be “Access and participation of women and girls to education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.” Find more information on the UN CSW at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw

– 28 March to 30 March 2011 (Johannesburg, South Africa): “365 Days of local action to end gender violence: Halve gender violence by 2015”. Gender Links invites submissions for the Second Annual Local Government and Gender Justice Summit and Centres of Excellence in Mainstreaming Gender Award. The deadline for submissions is on, or before, Monday 14 February 2011 at 17h00. Verification of entries will take place from 14 – 18 February 2011, and those shortlisted will be notified by 21 February 2011. For more information about the Second Gender Justice and Local Government Summit and Awards, contact Abigail Jacobs-Williams at 011 622 2877.