Roadmap to Equality, Issue 13, December 2010
Date: December 14, 2010
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Welcome to the 13th edition of Roadmap to Equality! Keeping you updated on regional developments. In November the SADC Gender Protocol Alliance was appointed to the gender cluster of the SADC Council of Non Governmental Organisations (SADC-CNGO) after an engagement process that started in August at the 6th Civil Society Forum convened by SADC-CNGO. This positive development is a confirmation that the Alliance is doing work which is recognised regionally and it will help strengthen relations with SADC-CNGO. Country launches of the SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Barometer remain high on the agenda as 2010 comes to a close. On 22 November, South Africa Minister of Home Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma launched the Barometer in Pretoria at the beginning of the 16 Days of No Violence against Women Campaign. Malawi is scheduled to launch the regional and country reports on 6 December in Lilongwe. … 
South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has emphasised the country’s commitment to gender equality, noting that the negative reinforcement of gender stereotypes must be tackled in every home. Speaking at the launch of the 2010 SADC Gender Protocol Barometer at the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence launch in Pretoria, she noted that “Gender equality begins in our homes.” … 
Seven SADC members have now completed ratification of the SADC Gender and Development Protocol and two more are nearing completion, according to the head of the regional body’s gender unit. In a speech at the launch of the SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Barometer in South Africa at the ISS meeting Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela revealed that Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have completed ratification processes. … 
One thing I’ve always vowed never to tolerate from my husband is domestic violence. As Nigerian women, we are expected to honour and obey our husbands, but both my parents taught me, from a very young age, “If to obey your husband means constant beatings; it’s a private harm and a public shame never to be tolerated”. Unfortunately, that is not the reality for most women who find themselves doomed to a domestic life of constant violence…. 
The corporate sector must engage more closely in the fight against the global pandemic of violence against women and girls, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in an address at to mark the International Day of No Violence Against Women on 25 November. “Today is a call to action – action to eliminate Violence against Women,” he said. “More and more people realise that gender-based violence is everybody’s problem and that everybody is responsible for stopping it.”… 
Zambia’s Constitutional Review Process began with a lot of expectations and hope from the women’s movement in Zambia, but has ended up being a frustrating experience, according to activists in the country. Some of the submissions made by the women were well captured in the Mung’omba Draft Constitution of 2005 but have been left out of the June 2010 Draft Constitution of Zambia Bill, 2010. The SADC Protocol on Gender and Development in Article 4 provides that state parties shall by 2015 endeavour to enshrine gender equality and equity in their Constitutions and ensure that these rights are not compromised by any provisions, laws and practices. From 2000 Zambia has been undergoing a Constitutional review to repeal the Constitution of Zambia Act, 1991. Every Constitutional review provides an opportunity to ensure that the provisions of the SADC Protocol, and indeed other standard-setting regional and international instruments like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the African Union Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa, are included…. 
More pragmatic measures are needed if southern Africa is to attain the 50% target for representation of women in political and decision-making positions at all levels in line with regional and continental targets. The low number of women who made it into parliament in the recent elections held in some SADC countries in 2008 and 2009 proved a major setback towards achieving the desired goal by 2015…. 
The government of the Republic of Mauritius has for the first time nominated a woman to the post of vice president. After nearly four decades of independence and two decades of Republic, Monique Oh San Bellepeau’s nomination means the island nation now has women in five of the most important political posts in the country. … 
The community of Emfuleni Municipality in Sedibeng is committed to taking back the night. Led by their Executive Mayor Concillor Mshudulu, South African Police representatives and Miss Emfuleni, the community marched along a street they deemed lost to perpetrators of violence. The walk was followed by an interactive event involving a candle-lighting ceremony. A survivor of gender-based violence (GBV), Sweetness Gwabe, spoke of her experience of abuse and how she eventually left her 37-year marriage. … 
Survivors of gender-based violence spoke out against women abuse at a recent book launch of the South African “I” Story experience – Speaking out can set you free. The launch brought together more than 80 women and men at Parktonian Hotel, Johannesburg, on 26 November. The book is an analysis of women’s first-hand accounts of gender-based violence that GL has collected and published in booklets and in media over the years. Survivors of gender violence spoke at the event about their experiences writing their personal story and seeing it published in a book…. 
Less people are becoming infected with HIV and less people are dying according to a UNAIDS report released in time for this year’s World AIDS Day. The results of the 2010 UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic are encouraging and contain basic HIV data from 182 countries, including country-by-country scorecards. It provides new evidence that investments in HIV prevention programming are producing significant results in many of the highest burden countries…. 
Although most countries in Southern Africa are not in a state of war in the traditional sense, there still exists war and insecurities around gender equity and equality in government and governance, economic justice, education, HIV and AIDS. This is the main conclusion of the Institute for Security Studies workshop to launch the Gender, Peace and Security Cluster that developed an action plan for the sector in mid November. … 
When the story about a Jules High School girl being allegedly raped on the school grounds hit the headlines, I had a flash back to my worst moment as a mother of two daughters, then aged seven and ten. One afternoon about 16 years ago my two princesses came rushing back from a Johannesburg school in a tizz because two men had been seen prowling around the girls ablution block. My girls, with whom I had not yet discussed sex, wanted to know the meaning of rape. I found myself unusually stumped for words. It still pains me that my moment to lead my daughters through the rites of passage should have been stolen from me in this cruel way. … 
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