Roadmap to Equality Newsletter December 2015

Date: December 18, 2015

December 2015

Table of contents

Highlights
– Zambia: Girls speak out at the First African Girls’ Summit on Ending Child Marriage
– Malawi: Looking at rights through the eyes of a visually impaired person

Governance
– Southern Africa: Calling for inclusive societies on Human Rights Day
– Zimbabwe: 10 women in politics in Africa you didn’t read about in 2015

Productive Resources, Climate change and Employment
– Global: Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment & Climate Change
– Women’s views missing at COP 21

Gender-based Violence
– South Africa: Pistorius’ conviction a victory for justice this Sixteen Days
– Malawi: Domestic workers denied a childhood and exposed to violence
– Southern Africa: When GBV knocks on activists’ door
– South Africa – Community march against GBV

Health, HIV and AIDS
– Zimbabwe: Mother-to-Child AIDS Transmission Dealt a Blow in Zimbabwe
– Zimbabwe hosts the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa

Media, Information and Communications
– Regional LGBTI workshop on advancing effective communication on LGBTI in East, West and Southern Africa.
– Media: Gender and Media Alliance commits to up the ante in 2016

Visit the Gender Links News Service

Gender Resources

SADC Gender Protocol 2015 Barometer

GBV Indicators Study – Western Cape Province, SA Violence Against Women Baseline Study Zimbabwe

Gender Champion

	Angola
	Botswana
	DRC
	Lesotho
	Madagascar
	Malawi
	Mauritius
	Mozambique
	Namibia
	Seychelles
	South Africa
	Swaziland
	Tanzania
	Zambia
	Zimbabwe

	Editor’s Note

What does a merry Christmas and a happy New Year mean for gender equality? Welcome to the last Roadmap to Equality newsletter for 2015. The Sixteen Days of Activism has just ended. The ultimate answer to this injustice is to have policies and programmes to end gender based violence not reduce it as highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)…. Read more
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	Highlights

Zambia: Girls speak out at the First African Girls’ Summit on Ending Child Marriage UN Women participated and actively contributed to the First African Girls’ Summit on Ending Child Marriage, being held in Lusaka, Zambia, from 24-27 November 2015. … Read moreMalawi: Looking at rights through the eyes of a visually impaired person Last week the world and Malawi commemorated International Human Rights Day: a time, among others, to do some soul searching on the rights of people with disabilities. I am visually impaired. In the early 1990s I enrolled with Montfort Demonstration School for both my pre-school and primary school education. During the pre-school age, I played with toys with my fellow kindergarteners. Getting initiated into braille writing and reading proved to be another joyous moment. … Read more
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	Governance

Southern Africa: Calling for inclusive societies on Human Rights Day “Yes, I am transgender! Where is the problem? Why should people look down upon me? Yes, we organise gay pride march every year, why should be media choose to put only downgrading pictures?”… Read moreZimbabwe: 10 women in politics in Africa you didn’t read about in 2015 President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet notably said, “When one woman is a leader, it changes her. When more women are leaders, it changes politics and policies.” … Read more
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	Productive Resources, Climate change and Employment

Global: Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment & Climate Change A changing climate poses risks for all of humanity. However, for women and girls in particular, many of whom spend a disproportionate amount of time searching for food, fuel and water, or struggling to grow crops the differentiated impact is tremendous…. Read more Women’s views missing at COP 21 Spend any time in UN circles and the g-word is everywhere. Gender is paraded as a significant cross-cutting issue in the new Sustainable Development Goals and in ongoing climate negotiations, touching everything from health and agriculture to sanitation and education…. Read more
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	Gender-based Violence

South Africa: Pistorius’ conviction a victory for justice this Sixteen Days “Justice had prevailed!” So declared social media, Twitter, Facebook and renowned news agencies after the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, South Africa, upheld the State’s appeal of Oscar Pistorius’ culpable homicide conviction, finding him guilty of murder at the peak of the Sixteen Days of Activism…. Read moreMalawi: Domestic workers denied a childhood and exposed to violence Mercy wakes up at 03.00 every morning to start her domestic chores. Despite only being 14-years-old, Mercy* is at the centre of the domestic duties at the home where she works. … Read more Southern Africa: When GBV knocks on activists’ door A good friend of mine, who for her whole professional life has been in the forefront of the war against GBV, recently suffered physical abuse in the hands of her husband. Lo and behold, it has been a case gone unreported…. Read more South Africa – Community march against GBV Gender Links and media partners from across the world on 28 November joined a march against Gender Based Violence (GBV) in Orange farm, a township in the outskirts of Johannesburg. … Read more
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	Health, HIV and AIDS

Zimbabwe: Mother-to-Child AIDS Transmission Dealt a Blow in Zimbabwe SHURUGWI, Zimbabwe, Dec 1 2015 (IPS) – With the battle to combat HIV/AIDS intensifying in Zimbabwe, the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission initiative (PMTCT) has increasingly become a success weapon in the war on transmission of the once dreaded disease to the country’s unborn babies, despite some mothers testing positive for the disease…. Read moreZimbabwe hosts the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa Zimbabwe this December hosted the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA). The conference theme “AIDS in Post 2015 Era: Linking Leadership, Science & Human Rights” engages the whole continent and all stakeholders in the post MDG framework, where sustainability of the response in reaching 90, 90, 90 of UNAIDS will not be possible if Human rights are not key priority for a new vision of leadership in the context of strengthening the application of science based evidence…. Read more
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	Media, Information and Communications

Regional LGBTI workshop on advancing effective communication on LGBTI in East, West and Southern Africa. Gender Links in November held a two day media workshop and seminar on effective communication on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBTI) issues in Africa. … Read moreMedia: Gender and Media Alliance commits to up the ante in 2016 Over 200 participants from 65 countries gathered at the United Nations for the International Development Cooperation Meeting on Gender and Media and the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG) general assembly last week…. Read more
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About the Newsletter

The Roadmap to Equality:
Southern Africa Gender and Development Protocol is a regional e-news- letter that tracks the ratification and implementation of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. It is produced by Gender Links in partnership with the Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance with support from DFID, EU and Norwegian Church Aid.The newsletter will help track progress at a national, regional, continental and global level on gender equality.

The new and updated newsletter will focus on the SADC Gender Protocol namely Constitutional and Legal Rights; Gender and Governance; Edu- cation and Training; Economic Justice; Gender Based Violence; Health; HIV and AIDS; Peace Building and Conflict Resolution; Media; Climate Change; Implementation and the Post-2015 Gender Agenda.

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 newsletter will enable all actors to keep abreast of gender equality across the region and to push the envelope for a strong gender equality agenda globally.