It is not Islam that discriminates against women, argues Khédija El Madani, but rather the interpretation of Islamic scriptures by some scholars. “It is therefore time to return to true Islam, to follow the precepts of the Koran and to act according to the example of our Prophet, who has always respected women,” she says.

If there is one subject that provokes anger, it is that of women’s rights and Islam.

The majority of those from the West and other pro-Westerners present Islam as the enemy of women, and as the religion which denies them their most basic rights. Muslims on the other hand, both radical and moderate, tend to support the view that Islam has uniquely granted rights to women.

Who is wrong? And who is right?

In fact, adherents of both arguments are at the same time both right and wrong. Because, on the one hand, whilst it can be proven that from the time of its revelation, Islam constituted a real revolution in women’s rights by according a dimension of humanity to women that the habits and customs of pre-Islamic Arabia had denied them - this culture recognised the father’s right to determine the life and death of their daughters, and reduced the widow to an object of succession, to be inherited by the relatives of the dead husband. It is equally undeniable that over the course of time, the restrictive interpretation of the place of women in Islam by certain ulemas (Islamic scholars) - sometimes even against the scriptures - has undone women’s rights, one after another.

The theological background

The best proof of this state of affairs is the following thesis supported by a number of Muslim theologians: whereas according to the two monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, it is Eve who is guilty of the Original Sin, and thus responsible for the expulsion of Adam from Paradise; not only does this feature not exist in the Muslim religion, but is also clearly contradicted by the Koran.

Thus the verses of the sura [1], ‘ The Elevated Places’, affirm clearly and precisely, not lending themselves to any ambiguity, that Adam and Eve were tempted at the same time by Satan, and that they both succumbed to temptation, and disobeyed divine injunctions.

- ‘The Devil suggested to both of them…’ (verse 20)

- ‘And he swore to them…’ (verse 21)

- ‘Thus he deceived them into falling…and their Lord called unto them: ‘did I not forbid this tree to both of you? And did I not tell you that the devil is truly a declared enemy of you both?’ (verse 22)

- ‘Both of you said…’ (verse 23) [2]

These examples illustrate perfectly how many Muslim exegetes have distanced themselves from the precepts of the Koran, and to such an extent that they have ended up supporting the opposite of what is stated in the holy book.

Islam, women and the family

This contradiction between Islam, as set out in the scriptures, and their frequently reductionist exegesis, is most vividly translated to the family sphere, and the status of women therein.

Thus it has come about that instead of being revered globally within the framework of the precepts and principles established by the Koran and the tradition of the Prophet Mohammed, the substance of women’s rights in the domestic sphere is considered from a restrictive point of view. Women’s rights have also in some senses been ‘delocalised’: isolated from the harmonious context of Islam’s divine rules and injunctions, and handled independently. One result of this has been the complete distortion and deprivation of the rights that God has accorded to women.

Thus, little by little, in the name of Islam, women have been denied the enlightenment of knowledge, imprisoned within the walls of the home, subjected to the orders of their husbands, and bound to comply with all their whims; or else face renouncement. It is as if women only have duties towards men - whilst conversely, men only have rights. And yet the Koran clearly states that a woman has rights as well as duties (sura: ‘The Cow’, verse 228). Elsewhere, the Koran urges men to treat their wives well:

- ‘Treat them with kindness’ (sura: ‘The Women’, verse 19).

- ‘Keep them in an appropriate manner, or separate from them appropriately’ (sura: ‘Divorce’, verse 2).

It forbids men from bearing prejudice towards women:

- ‘Do not seek to harm them…’ (sura: ‘Divorce’, verse 6).

- ‘Do not abuse them’ (sura: ‘The Cow’, verse 231).

At the same time, the Koran elevates marriage to the status of a solemn bond: ‘The women have received from you a solid pact’ (sura: ‘The Byzantines’, verse 31). Of the same order, the Koran presents the husband and wife as each being clothing for the other: ‘The women are clothing for you and you are clothing for them’ (sura: ‘The Cow’, verse 187). Finally, the Koran places marriage under the seal of ‘affection and divine mercy’ (sura: ‘The Byzantines’, verse 21).

Men, women and equality in Islam

From another point of view, God has placed men and women on a footing of absolute equality, promising Paradise to them both in parallel, as recompense for their good deeds. Men and women are equally threatened with the hell of Gehenna [3] as a punishment for bad actions, as several verses of the Koran indicate:

- ‘Whoever behaves well, whether of the male or female sex, will enter into Paradise.’ (sura: ‘The Forgiver’, verse 40)

- ‘He who accomplishes good deeds, whether he is of the male or female sex…’ (sura: ‘The Women’, verse 124)

- ‘He punishes the hypocritical men and women, and men and women of bad faith.’ (sura: ‘The Victory’, verse 6)

The way in which God treats his creation therefore has nothing to do with biological sex; rather, is uniquely contingent on the actions of men and women, with respect for their social roles.

Moreover, let us not forget that the Koran has bestowed upon women economic rights equal to men by recognising their freedom and ability to manage their property without interference from their fathers, brothers or husbands. In keeping with men, women have been granted political rights by virtue of their being permitted to make allegiances with the Prophet.

In another respect, it is fitting to remember that God created man and woman form the same, unique soul: ‘O my people, fear God who has created you from the same soul’ (sura: ‘The Women’, verse 1). Consequentially, when man debases woman and bears prejudice against her, he is by extension debasing himself, and bearing prejudice against himself. This is why claims that Islam makes of woman an inferior being in relation to man amount to blasphemy: women and men were created equally by God in order to venerate Him. The best amongst His creatures are those who demonstrate piety, irrespective of their sex: ‘The best amongst you are the most pious.’ (sura: ‘The Cleaving’, verse 13)

Conclusion

To conclude, I would strongly affirm that the reasons Muslim women are deprived of some of their fundamental rights are in no way attributable to Islam. On the contrary, they are related to its inaccurate interpretation by certain Islamic scholars. In reality, the quasi-majority of the sexist traditions that are claimed to stem from the Muslim religion bear no relation to it; and, sometimes, even run absolutely contrary to Islam.

It is therefore time to return to true Islam, to follow the precepts of the Koran and to act according to the example of our Prophet, who has always respected women.

* This article was translated from the original French version by Stephanie Kitchen. Please send comments to or comment on line at www.pambazuka.org

Notes
[1] Sura, transliterated from Arabic refers to the books or chapters of the Koran – translator’s note.
[2] The original French translation was by Muhammed Hamidullah with the collaboration of Mr. Leturmy – new edition, 1989, Amana Corporation.
[3] In Islam, this is roughly understood as ‘the place of torment for sinners’ – translator’s note.

Recent efforts to document the real situation of women in Africa have produced some alarming statistics, writes Roselynn Musa, who proceeds to outline the provisions of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa that offer some hope for women on the continent.

Equality is the cornerstone of every democratic society which aspires to social justice and human rights. In virtually all societies and spheres of activity women are subject to inequalities in law and in practice. In Africa, while the causes, consequences and manifestations may vary from sub-region to sub-region, country-to-country, and even province-to-province, discrimination against women is widespread. The situation is both caused and exacerbated by the existence of discrimination in the family, community and workplace and perpetuated by the survival of stereotypes, cultural and religious practices and beliefs detrimental to women.

Recent efforts to document the real situation of women in Africa have produced some alarming statistics on the economic and social gaps between men and women:

- Out of 1.9 million victims of conflict in Sub- Saharan Africa in the 1990s 63% were women and children
- In the Republic of Congo 40,000 women have experienced some form of sexual violence since 1998
- More than half of Africa’s 6 million refugees and 17 million internally displaced people are women
- Between 1990-2005 women occupied 14.2% of parliamentary seats in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 8.5% in Northern Africa
- Literacy rates in Sub- Saharan Africa for young males is 77% as against 68% for women
- The number of women in wage earning employment between 1990- 2003 is 35.8 in Sub-Saharan Africa and 21,5 in Northern Africa, yet women are said to constitute about 70% of the world’s population
- UNAID’s statistics show that in 2003 out of the 23 million adults with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, 57% were women

The United Nations (UN), since its formation in 1945 has been at the forefront of advocacy for equal rights and the enjoyment of rights and freedoms, hence the entrenchment of the principle of equality and non- discrimination in its international and universal human rights instruments. Equality of the rights of women is a basic principle of the United Nations. [1] The International Bill of Human Rights [2] strengthens and extends the emphasis on the equal rights of women. One of the most significant developments in the field of human rights was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in 1948. Based on the equal right of every human being, the declaration proclaims the entitlement of everyone to enjoy human rights and fundamental freedom. [3]

Despite these Provisions women in Africa and elsewhere in the world continue to suffer blatant discrimination in the political, social, economic and cultural spheres. Consequently, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a landmark convention and in fact a global action towards redressing the existing inequalities, evolved with very systematic and far reaching consequences for women’s human rights globally. The convention sets out, in legally binding form, internationally accepted principles on the rights of women.

Why a separate Protocol for women?

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), also referred to as the Banjul Charter, was adopted in 1981 by the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union (AU). This document affirms both individual and collective rights and this distinguishes it from other international human rights treaties. It recognises African values and cultures and also emphasises both rights and duties. It provides for special protocols or agreements, if necessary, to supplement the provisions of the African Charter. [4] This serves as a legal basis for creating the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (The Protocol), which lays down a comprehensive set of rights to which all African women are entitled.

Why then was it necessary to have a separate instrument for African women? The ACHPR, just like other international human rights instruments before it, did not effectively redress the disadvantages and injustices experienced by African women by reason only of their being women, nor was it constructed to take into account women’s situations. Historically, human rights discourses started in the fields of political and civil rights - rights to life, freedom of association, etc. In this regard, the fundamental significance placed on human rights was directed towards the public rather than the private realm. Since men have largely dominated the public domain, this meant two things: that human rights came to be defined by men; and that these rights protected mostly men.

Substantive provisions of the Protocol

Article 2: Elimination of discrimination against women

In many African communities women are denied their basic legal rights, either implicitly or explicitly, including the right to participate fully in politics and the right to own property. Such instances of entrenched discrimination can easily be identified as discrimination. At the same time, not every differentiation will constitute discrimination.

In most African societies, men have used culture and tradition to justify discrimination against women. Male dominated ideologies in Africa have tended to use culture to justify oppressive gender relations. African governments could use the standards of the Protocol to remove all negative stereotyped cultures that discriminate against women and hinder their full advancement.

It is not enough to merely insert anti-discrimination clauses into the legislation. The Protocol also requires State parties to protect women’s rights effectively and provide women with opportunities for recourse and protection against discrimination. They should incorporate sanctions into legislation that deters discrimination against women. States party to the Protocol must take steps to eliminate discrimination in both public and private spheres. It is not enough to strive for equality for women vis-à-vis public authorities; states must also work to secure non-discrimination even within the family.

Article 3: Right to dignity

Every human being has an inherent right to be treated with dignity. This provision makes it incumbent for states to strive to remove the social, cultural and traditional patterns, which perpetuate gender role stereotypes, and to create an overall framework in society that promotes the realisation of full rights for African women. The prevalence of gender- role stereotypes is seen most particularly in the traditional concept of African women’s role in the domestic sphere.

The family as an agent of socialisation assigns different statuses, values and roles to boys and girls. In many countries in Africa discrimination against women starts before birth with parental and social attitudes that promote a preference for sons over daughters. Children of both sexes should be accorded equal opportunities to grow and develop to their full potential as equal partners for sustainable development and peace.

Many African women are denied an education because their role is considered primarily as one of caring for the family. This article therefore seeks to reform social and cultural traditions and practices and creates a common civil system that upholds the dignity of women as equal partners with men in society.

Article 4: The Rights to Life, Integrity and Security of the Person

Despite the efforts of women’s human rights activists, the spate of both public and private violence against women in Africa has not abated. Women are subject to violence and to threats of violence in their daily lives, physically and psychologically. Violence deprives women of their ability to achieve full equality. It threatens their freedom, safety and autonomy. Many cases of violence against women go unreported, particularly when they take place in the home, because of fear or shame. The psychological, emotional and economic conditions of women often alter their perception of reality such that they see themselves as completely helpless and unable to make choices. In some cases the abused women do not even see themselves as victims.

Although governments across Africa are now more concerned with the issue than in the past, few have taken legal, constitutional steps to stop the practice. The Protocol enjoins state parties to 'enact and enforce laws to prohibit all forms of violence against women including unwanted or forced sex, whether the violence takes place in private or public'. Unless this is done African women will not be able to enjoy fully the rights guaranteed in the Protocol.

This article charges state parties to take appropriate and effective measures to address issues of peace education, punishment for perpetrators of violence against women, rehabilitation of victims of such violence, trafficking in women, unauthorised medical and scientific experiments on women, opposition to death penalties on pregnant or nursing women, and to provide adequate budgetary and other resources for the implementation and monitoring of action aimed at preventing and eradicating violence against women.

Article 5: Elimination of Harmful Practices

Some cultures in Africa perpetuate traditional practices that are harmful to the health of women and constitute a direct violation of their fundamental human rights. Examples of such practices include Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), maltreatment of widows, male child preference, domestic violence, early/ forced marriage etc. In this connection, the Protocol has provisions that aim to improve the image and role of African women by improving public awareness through formal and informal education and outreach programmes.

Articles 6 and 7: Marriage, separation, divorce and annulment of marriage

Women are discriminated against in marriage and family law, sometimes as wives and sometimes as daughters. In all categories of marriage in Africa (statutory, customary and religious) the husband is assumed to be the head of the family and the provider (and hence able to make decisions and receive benefits for the family). Wife battering (called ‘chastisement’) is accepted as a norm in some cultures and there is no minimum age for marriage. Furthermore, wives have lesser rights in choice of marriage partner, divorce or child custody and have lesser right to inheritance.

The Protocol provides that women and men should enjoy equal rights and be regarded as equal partners in marriage. Marriage will take place only with the full consent of both parties. Cases of forced and early marriage persist in Africa and the situation of the girl child remains a matter of concern. The Protocol also requires that marriages are registered in accordance with national laws in order to be legally recognised. In cases of separation, divorce or annulment, women and men should have the right to an equitable share of the joint property deriving from the marriage.

Article 8: Access to Justice and Equal Protection by the Law

Some forms of discrimination against women stem from the varying understandings and beliefs about what society or culture prescribes for women. Since most family issues never go to court for resolution, it is the often conservative and restrictive everyday beliefs of husbands, brothers, fathers, cousins, uncles and nephews, which govern women’s lives. In this regard the Protocol provides that women and men are equal before the law and shall have the right to equal protection and benefit of the law. States parties are to ensure effective women’s access to judicial and legal services, including legal aid, sensitise everyone to the rights of women and reform existing discriminatory laws and practices in order to promote and protect the rights of women.

Article 9: Right to Participation in the Political and Decision-Making Processes

Women’s equal rights to participate in decision-making are beyond a question of democracy and good governance; it is also a necessary condition for the effective recognition of women’s interests, without which the objectives of sustainable equality and development will never be achieved. Caution is needed, however, as the participation of women in government does not necessarily translate into pro-woman policies. The value of this aspect of the Protocol is therefore predicated not only on taking part in government, but in doing so in a way that is consistent with the specific needs of women.

Decision-making involvement is imperative to the Protocol, which states that women must be able to participate in government and politics. While women are prominent in grassroots organisations, they are left out of the vitally important decision-making at policy level, and so their specific concerns and needs are ignored.

Article 10: Right to peace

Women are rarely included in decision-making on conflict prevention, resolution and management, or even in peace-building initiatives. Women’s voices go unheard during formal peace negotiations, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, the creation of new constitutions, elections, reconstruction, rehabilitation, and the establishment of judicial systems. This occurs even though the violence perpetuated against women is exacerbated during times of conflict, and they make up the majority of all victims. Women and children are the most vulnerable and at the receiving end of most of the worst excesses and abuses in situations of conflicts.

The Protocol defends the right of women to a peaceful existence and the participation of women in the promotion and maintenance of peace. State parties are to take appropriate measures to ensure the increased participation of women in the peace process through the promotion of a peace culture; protection of refugees, asylum seekers, returnees, and displaced persons; and reduced military expenditure in favour of spending on social development.

Article 11: Protection of women in armed conflict

Conflict is a critical part of transformation and change, restructuring the social relationship between peoples and also within their own groups. Generalised and unnecessary suffering result when latent conflicts escalate into confrontation. Several African countries have been, and some still are, embroiled in war, civil strife and conflict caused by a combination of factors including massive violations of human rights and ethnic violence. These situations usually impact heavily on women and children, resulting in violence, involuntary displacement and flight from their country of origin. Violations of the fundamental rights of women and girls are widespread during times of armed conflict. These include torture, rape and murder and should not be condoned.

Towards this direction state parties are to respect the rules of international humanitarian law applicable in conflict situations and protect women affected by conflicts making sure that perpetrators are brought to justice before a competent criminal jurisdiction. State parties shall also ensure that no child, especially girls under eighteen years take part in hostilities.

Article 12: Education and Training

African women face a sombre scene filled with economic and socio-political problems which hinder their efforts at meeting basic needs. The lack of education for a considerable number of African women prevents society as a whole from facing these problems with vigour and determination. If the situation of women in Africa is to change for the better the quality of education must not only be improved, but women and girls should have easy access to education, while overcoming every hurdle that hinders their active participation in the educational process.

To this regard the Protocol guarantees an education for women and girls with the intention of breaking down social and cultural barriers, which have discouraged and even excluded women and girls from the benefits of regular educational programmes as well as promoting equal opportunities for them in all aspects of life.

Article 13: Economic and social welfare rights

Poverty in Africa manifests itself in various forms and has its origin in a lack of income, the unequal distribution of wealth and income, economic recession, drought, heavy debt burdens and unfavourable conditionalities tied to borrowing from international financial institutions, armed conflict, civil strife, etc. More than a third of the people of Africa are unable to meet their most basic needs. The heavy burden of poverty falls disproportionately on women, especially female-headed households. The feminisation of poverty is an ugly reality. Although generally speaking women constitute more than half of the population, they have limited access to and ownership of land and housing yet they provide the greater percentage of food supply.

Women in Africa need to be empowered to participate in economic structures and policy formulation in the production process itself. Women’s empowerment will enhance their capacity to realistically alter the direction of change for their own well-being and that of society as a whole. In this regard, the Protocol recommends promotion of equality of access to employment and equal remuneration for women and men, and ensures transparency in the recruitment, promotion and dismissal of women. It also combats and punishes sexual harassment in the workplace.

Article 14: Health and reproductive rights

Women’s health and reproductive rights are central to the realisation of their potential. Their ability to exercise control over their fertility is a crucial step in enabling them to make the necessary choices in other areas. Women’s, and particularly adolescent girls’, sexuality and fertility pose a high health risk. They contribute significantly to girls’ inability to attain high levels of education and unsafe abortions lead to maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS.

The subordinate position of women and adolescent girls, with younger women being the least empowered, and their lack of access to information, education and communication, health facilities, training, an independent income, property and legal rights, make them particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection. They lack adequate knowledge about the disease and the measures that have been taken to prevent them from infection.

In this regard the Protocol provides women with the right to control their fertility, choose any method of contraception and to have family planning education, while state parties have, among other things, to protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape and incest and where continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or foetus.

If states are to ensure the equality of women and men in access to health care services as is expected of them they would have to remove any legal or social barriers which may operate to prevent or discourage women from making full use of available health care services. Concrete steps therefore need to be taken to ensure access to healthcare services for all women, including those whose access may be impeded through poverty, illiteracy or physical isolation.

Article 15: Right to food security

The struggle against poverty, the economic empowerment of women and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods for women is a moral, political and economic obligation and the responsibility of national governments and the international community. Women and other people living in poverty represent an under-utilisation of productive potential. Women’s deprived rights to development should be recognised. This requires policies that are gender sensitive, including gender-based anti-poverty policies. Besides income poverty, other areas of deprivation for women include social discrimination, exclusion, desertion, physical disability, vulnerability and deprivation. There is also poverty associated with wars, famine, displacement and refugees, unbalanced trade relations and structural adjustment programmes (SAPs).

Some of the measures recommended by the Protocol to combat this are to provide women with access to clean drinking water, sources of domestic fuel, land and the means of producing nutritious food and also adequate systems of supply and storage to ensure food security. One point that is clear however is that unless states parties guarantee women financial independence, they will not have true equality with men because they will not be able to head their own households, own their own homes, or start their own businesses.

Article 16: Right to adequate housing

Despite the active role of African women in the management and creation of urban and rural environments, they are discriminated against in their access to adequate housing and control of land and property. In some countries, legislation, tradition and harmful religious practices prevent women from inheriting and having control over property and so deprive them of their rights to adequate housing. Considering the challenges faced by women in both rural and urban areas, governments should consider that households and household members move from one end of the continuum to the other and it is necessary to provide infrastructure and services along the continuum without putting undue emphasis on one at the expense of the other.

Compared to men, women are more burdened with the rural-urban linkages. They have to move between the extreme ends of the continuum trying to make ends meet for their households. Supporting women’s efforts under the circumstances requires making their daily routine activities such as ensuring availability of water, energy and food easier, be it in the rural, or urban areas. This assurance makes it possible not only to engage in long term economic planning but also avails time for critical thinking and engagement in the socio- economic and political life of their communities. These measures are required if the states are to keep the promise of the Protocol to provide African women equal access to housing and to acceptable living conditions in a healthy environment.

Article 17: Right to a positive cultural context

African societies are products of historical evolution, enriched by diverse cultures. Individuals within those societies have their collective identities as members of families, communities, religious groups, etc. The delicate balance between the rights of the individual and society and the groups within society should be respected. Women, being among the most vulnerable and marginalised, need to be integrated in order to reconnect them with the community by making all the institutions of society more accessible to them. This article addresses discrimination against women in the private sphere, including discrimination in the area of family law.

In this regard, the Protocol provides that women will have the right to live in a positive cultural context and to participate at all levels in the determination of cultural policies. We should not be oblivious to the fact that this area of discrimination, based on long- standing cultural and religious practice is one of the most difficult areas to penetrate and one of the most resistant to change. Yet the drafters of Protocol realised that change in this area is essential in order for African women to attain full equality.

Article 18: Right to a healthy and sustainable environment

Poverty is a major cause and consequence of environmental degradation and is compounded by scarcity, depletion and the mismanagement of resources. Environmental degradation has had, and continues to have, an adverse impact on the population as a whole. Women experience this impact particularly in the traditional divisions of labour. This has resulted in an increase in their workload of domestic chores. Often, women have no choice other than to exploit natural resources in order to survive even when they know about the importance of protecting the environment and its sustainability.

As the majority of the world’s poor, women play decisive roles in managing and preserving biodiversity, water, land and other natural resources, yet their centrality is often ignored or exploited. This means that a chance for better management of those resources is lost, along with opportunities for greater diversity, productivity for human sustenance and economic development. Moreover, while environmental degradation has severe consequences for all humans, it particularly affects women and children.

Towards this end, states shall ensure greater involvement of women in planning, management and preservation of the environment and the sustainable use of natural resources at all levels.

Article 19 Right to sustainable development

Recently, African governments have slowly begun to see the political and socio-economic participation of women as a key factor and catalyst for the accelerated advancement of women and the society as a whole. In this respect, some African governments have established national machineries to be responsible for coordinating the gender perspective in overall national development activities. However, governments still have a lot to do to see that women fully enjoy their right to sustainable development.

For example, in many countries women still do not have the same property rights as men. Traditional property law often discriminates against women in that only male children are able to inherit the family land and husbands have automatic ownership over all of their wife’s property upon marriage. Similarly, legislation in a number of countries establishes that the administration of family property is to be undertaken by the male head of the family – thereby excluding women.

The Protocol enjoins governments to take tangible steps to ensure the participation of women at all levels of decision-making, implementation and evaluation of development policies and programmes, to promote their access to credit, training and skills development and also to ensure that the negative effects of globalisation are reduced to the minimum for women.

Articles 20: Widows’ rights

The need to address the plight of widows cannot be overemphasised. In many African cultures, widows have suffered from a regressive heritage that results in their being ostracised from their communities at worst or being discriminated against at best. It is not uncommon for a widow to be labelled 'a witch' who is responsible for the death of her husband. She is consequently dispossessed of all her family’s assets, denied property rights, and left to grapple alone with her liabilities.

The Protocol states that widows should not to be subjected to inhuman, humiliating or degrading treatment, that they should automatically become the custodian of their children, unless this is contrary to the children's interests and welfare, and that they should have the right to marry the person of their choice. It also states that women and men shall have the right to inherit in equitable shares, their parent’s properties.

Article 21: Right to inheritance

In adjudicating on inheritance rights for women there is a wide gap in both law and practice. This is especially so where it allows for the application of customary law under which a marriage was enacted which varies from community to community. In most communities, a woman takes nothing with her upon dissolution of marriage. The fact remains that the legal system allowing application of customary law upon divorce puts women in very vulnerable situations because cultural norms are mostly discriminatory towards women. They therefore get a raw deal even when it comes to legal redress because the outcome will be based upon gender- biased cultural practices and the whims and caprices of gender- blind judges who are themselves products of a predominantly patriarchal culture.

The protocol senses the dire need for gender responsive policies to ensure equitable access to and ownership and control of (both movable and unmovable property) as a step towards achieving the goal of women’s empowerment. It will also be a critical step towards ensuring equitable distribution of resources, poverty alleviation and overall national development.

Article 22 Special protection for elderly women

While women can look forward to a longer life than men, they are expected to continue suffering from gender discrimination even in their old age. Widowhood is more prevalent among women because they live longer and usually marry men older than themselves. Women suffer from high rates of disability at older ages because of the lack of good health care, education and nutrition in earlier life.

The rights of elderly women are being violated without them getting any redress in many African countries. Older women are leaving their communities in fear of being killed, and, if not killed, rejected by their own families. It is not uncommon to find elderly women wandering in town and living as beggars with nobody to care for their sustenance.

It is relieving to know that the Protocol puts the plight of this category of women into perspective, recommending state protection for them and ensuring their right to freedom from violence including sexual abuse, discrimination based on age and the right to be treated with dignity.

Article 23: Special protection of women with disabilities

State parties are to take special measures to ensure the protection of women with disabilities and take specific measures to facilitate their access to employment, professional and vocational training as well as their participation in decision- making and also make sure they are free from violence and discrimination based on their disability.

Article 24: Protection of special women

These include women in detention, poor women and women heads of family. State parties are to ensure their protection from marginalisation and provide an environment suitable to their condition and their special physical, economic and social needs.

The African Court

The promises in the Protocol cannot be actualised merely by the enactment of gender- neutral laws alone. Measures have to be put in place to ensure that African women are able to enjoy the promise of the Protocol. In article 27 of the Protocol, The African Court is bestowed with the responsibility of interpretation of matters arising from the application or implementation of the Protocol. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is to take on the duties of adjudicating matters of the Protocol pending the establishment of the African Court. [5] The African Court was constituted in February 2006. However, it is sad to note that of the nine Judges appointed to the court only two are women.

Entry into force

The Protocol entered into force in November, 2006, thirty days after the deposit of the fifteenth Instrument of ratification.[6] Nineteen states have presently ratified the protocol, though a few states did so with reservations. The interdependence and indivisibility of all rights is a long-accepted and consistently re-affirmed principle. In practice this means that respect for one proviso cannot be separated from the enjoyment of another proviso. That means for example that genuine economic and social development requires political and educational development to participate in this process. In as much as states can make reservations to some articles before ratification, universality is a desirable principle that should guide African states in ratifying the Protocol. The fact that states could ratify with reservations is a situation of accepting the better of two evils, while none of them is desirable, the lesser evil can be tolerated. While historical, cultural and religious differences must be borne in mind, it is the duty of every state, regardless of its political economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights. I use this opportunity to call on states that have ratified with reservations to emulate the good example set by the Gambia and lift their reservations.

Conclusion

The concept of equality means much more than treating all persons in the same way. Experience has shown that equal treatment of persons in unequal situations will operate to perpetuate, rather than eradicate injustice. True equality can only emerge from efforts directed towards addressing and correcting these situational imbalances. Overall, therefore, despite regional and individual efforts made by the international community and local and international NGOs to improve the status of African women, only modest progress has been made and the Protocol seems to be the light at the end of the tunnel for African women. The Protocol promises to be an extremely useful framework for advancing the rights of women in Africa. Only time will tell if it will actually fulfil these promises or not. However, we must bear in mind that in the final analysis it is the responsibility of all of us, not just the government and its institutions, to ensure an Africa where women enjoy their full human rights on the basis of equality with men.

* Musa works with African Women’s Development and Communications Network, FEMNET, Nairobi, Kenya

References

A Simplified Version of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 2004, BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, Lagos, Nigeria

Advancing Women’s Status: Gender, Society and Development, Women and Men Together, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

African Union and SOAWR, Breathing Life into the African Union Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa, (unpublished)

African Union, African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights

African Union, Protocol to the Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa

Arusa Mahin Karim, 1998, Human Rights Protection in the African Regional System, Pretoria, South Africa

Asma Abdel Halim et al, Claiming Our Place, Institute of Women, Law and Development, Washington, USA

Barbara K (2002), Gender and Debt, AFRODAD, Harare, Zinbabwe
Edward O. et al, (2000) The Cost of Globalisation, Geneva, Switzerland

http://www.globalrights.org

http://www.international-alert.org

http://www.siyanda.org

http://www.unifem.org

http://www.unifenpacific.org/gender_tradehtml

http://www.unorg/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/armed.htm

Margaret S. et al, African Women and Development (1995), Johannesburg, South Africa

Patricia A. Made et al, Beyond Beijing: Strategies Towards Women’s Equality, 1999, Harare Zimbabwe

The African Union Commission, (2004) The Road to Gender Equality in Africa: An Overview, Ethiopia

United Nations Convention on Discrimination Against Women, 2000, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Kampala, Uganda

United States Research for Social Development, 2005, Gender Equality: Striving for Justice in an Unequal World, Paris, France

Notes:

[1]United Nations Charter
[2] refers collectively to three instruments: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols
[3] Article 2
[4] Article 66, ACHPR
[5] Article 32, The Protocol
[6] Article 29, The Protocol

Hein Marais reviews the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa, describing how “the costs of Aids are being socialised, deflected back into the lives, homes and neighbourhoods of the poor”.

Shelve the abiding fiction that disasters do not discriminate - that they flatten everything in their path with “democratic” disregard. Plagues zero in on the dispossessed, on those forced to build their lives in the path of danger. Aids is no different. In South Africa, where at least five million people are living with HIV, the epidemic is entangled in the circuitries that determine the distribution of power and privilege.

The mainstays of South Africa’s efforts to fend off the impact of the HIV/Aids epidemic are anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy provision and home-based care. While vitally important, each in current form also expresses the kinds of prevailing inequalities that warp society.

Today, of the estimated one million South Africans in need of ARVs, only about 200 000 are receiving such therapy - half of them through the private health sector, which is accessible to a small minority of South Africans. According to Statistics SA, only about 15% of South Africans (and a mere 7% of black Africans) belong to medical insurance schemes.

The bulk of ARV provision will have to occur through the public health sector, which is being pummelled by Aids. According to research by the Human Sciences Research Council in 2003, Aids was responsible for about 13% of deaths among health workers between 1997 and 2001 - when the wave of Aids mortality was still beginning to crest. Yet the need for well-trained health personnel has never been greater. Completing the rollout of the government’s ARV programme will require an additional 3 200 doctors, 2 400 nurses, 765 social workers and 112 pharmacists in the public health system by 2009. Need far outstrips supply.

Meanwhile, care needs surge. At the turn of the century, researchers were already finding that almost one in two patients in public medical and paediatric wards was HIV-positive, and that their hospital stays were almost twice as long as those of non-Aids patients. Staff workloads and stress mounted accordingly.

All this is overlaid with broader inequity. A large share of South Africa’s gross domestic product - about 9% - goes to healthcare. However, the spending occurs in a two-tier system. About 60% of the funds pay for the healthcare of the 15% of South Africans with private medical insurance. Annual per capita expenditure on healthcare in the private sector is almost six times larger than that in the public sector, and fully 80% of specialists and at least 60% of general practitioners now work in the private sector. As a general rule, income determines who gets what sort of healthcare.

It’s obvious that in an epidemic this severe, some form of home- and community-based care is vital; otherwise the sheer volume of care needs would swamp the public health system. This has been an important element of the post-1994 overhaul of the health system. In theory, by creating a “continuum of care” that links contributions and resources from the public health system and others, home- and community-based care would boost the quality, scale and sustainability of the care effort.

The reality is rather more profane. Most of the burden of Aids care is being displaced into the “invisible” zones of the home - and onto the shoulders of women.

As practiced, Aids care in South Africa today relies on retrograde notions of womanhood and domesticity, casting women in the roles of bearers of children, nurses of the frail, guardians of the hearth. Women oblige with extraordinary stoicism and courage. But that does not disguise the fact that home-based care, as currently practiced, codifies and exalts the rampant exploitation of women’s labour, financial and emotional reserves.

This form of value extraction subsidises the economy at every level from the household outward, yet remains invisible in political and economic discourse. If nothing else, home-based care lays bare the coercive subtext that nestles in the notion of “mothers of the nation”.

But life, and the struggles to guard it, go on. Patients and their care-givers must subsidise many aspects of care provision, and bear the costs of not receiving the levels of care and support they require - the consequences of which spill across households and families in the forms of stress, trauma and depression.

Although thrust into the roles of mediators, counsellors and saviours, care-givers often are unable to provide things as basic as pain-killers or a meal. They typically admit to feeling overwhelmed and alone, buckled by emotional stress and fatigue. Aids stigma poisons these experiences even further.

Home-based care appears to be a more “realistic” or “affordable” option because its true costs are hidden, deflected back into the domestic zones of the poor. In doing so, it adheres to the same polarising logic that defines our society.

Not only is this unjust, it also undermines the sustainability of care provision in the face of a crisis set to continue well into the future. Aids is meshing with the routine distress endured by millions of South Africans - but to pummelling effect, as it intensifies those hardships, and drives an even thicker wedge between the privileged and the deprived.

Supported by consistent but modest economic growth, infrastructure development and service delivery have improved markedly since 1994 - but on a scale that does not match mushrooming needs, and on terms that bow to the logic of the market.

With access to secure, paid employment at a premium, and institutionalised forms of support deficient, the poor have to absorb shocks themselves. Their margins of safety are wafer-thin. Savings are very low, debt is high and access to medical and other forms of insurance rare. For many millions of South Africans, a regular, living wage is a comparative luxury. According to the 2005 Afrobarometer survey, four in 10 respondents said they went without food or were unable to buy medicine they needed, three in 10 couldn’t afford to pay for water, and six in 10 went without an income at some stage in the past year. African women are hit particularly hard.

At the institutional level, Aids will leave its mark as higher morbidity and mortality rates translate into increased absenteeism and personnel losses - trends already vivid elsewhere in Southern Africa. Especially vulnerable are those sectors of the state and civil society most closely involved in the reproduction of “human” and “social capital”.

Aids mortality now ranks among the top causes of staff losses in the public education system - which says something in a sector already racked by low morale. More than half the educators polled by the Human Sciences Research Council in 2005 said they intended leaving their jobs. Training capacity lags far behind need, with management and administrative skills replenishment especially weak.

In such a context, Aids is likely to aggravate dysfunction in the public school system. The effects could spill wide. If basic education suffers, the springboard for higher education and skills training weakens - to unhappy effect in an economy that has been geared to rely more heavily on a strong skills base. Channels for quality educational advancement will of course be available - to those who can afford them.

What might this mean for inter-generational social mobility? If the quality of public school education deteriorates further, against a backdrop of continuing marginalisation of the poorest households - and of overall polarisation - social mobility will be hobbled, trapping more in the mire of chronic poverty. Whether South Africa can avert such consequences will help decide what kind of society future generations will inherit.

Overall, Aids will corrode institutions’ capacities to provide predictable, consistent and acceptable standards of service. Already saddled with hulking workloads and compromised capacity, the police, correctional and judicial services seem especially vulnerable to additional debilities. So, too, the many community-based organisations that play vital welfarist roles at local level - many of which rely on a few key individuals.

How does this tally on the bottom line? It seems indisputable that the epidemic will affect the economy - but how and to what extent is not easily gauged. Some estimates seem almost to trivialise the effect of Aids by suggesting a negligible effect on national economic output. Other projections anticipate severe damage.

The disagreements stem from the fact that the estimates rest on varying assessments of the epidemic’s demographic impact, the channels along which Aids affects the economy, and the nature of those effects.

Such bird’s-eye views of economic impact carry some illustrative value, but they provide little substantive insight. As usual, the devil resides in the details. And it’s there that one encounters further evidence of the uneven and discriminatory impact of Aids.

A handful of major companies have introduced high-profile ARV treatment programmes for some of their employees, and some also emphasise prevention. Most companies, though, seem to be taking Aids in their stride. They have considerable leeway for deflecting the effects of the epidemic - and they’re using it.

Companies continue to shift the terms on which they use labour, a trend that predates Aids but is having a huge effect on working South Africans’ abilities to cushion themselves against the repercussions of the epidemic.

For more than a decade, companies have been intensifying the adoption of labour-saving work methods and technologies, the outsourcing and casualisation of jobs, and cutting worker benefits. The effects have been particularly harsh on workers in the middle and lower skills tiers.

Medical benefits are now customarily capped at levels far too low to cover the costs of serious ill health or injury. Companies have been cutting death and disability benefits, limiting employer contributions and requiring that workers pay a larger share of the premiums for the same benefits. A mammoth shift has occurred from defined-benefit retirement funds to defined-contribution funds (the latter offering scant help to workers felled, for example, by disease in the prime of their lives).

The net effect has been a constant paring of real wages and benefits for those South Africans with formal employment - at a time when they and their families are at increased risk of severe illness and premature death. Recall that we’re talking here about those workers with relatively secure, and probably unionised, jobs. Left to fend for themselves are the masses of “casual” workers, and the unemployed.

In such ways, the costs of Aids are being socialised, deflected back into the lives, homes and neighbourhoods of the poor. This amounts to a massive, regressive redistribution of risk and responsibility. These sorts of adjustments are enabling many companies (particularly larger ones) to sidestep the worst of the epidemic’s impact. But many thousands of enterprises lack that evasive agility.

Smaller firms, especially those that rely heavily on the custom of poor households, will be hit hardest, to say nothing of informal retailers, spaza shops and “microenterprise”.

The Aids epidemic meshes with the social relations that reproduce inequality and deprivation, generating a glacial, miserable crush. Aids unmasks the world we live in, and underlines the need for drastic change that unreservedly favours the dispossessed. In a society in which millions are impoverished in the midst of abundance, this crisis demands nothing less than a new strategy - and struggle - for realising social rights.

At the very least, this implies an upgraded social package that slots into an accelerated programme of redistribution and rights-realisation. It would include safeguarded food security, the provision of affordable (that is to say, decommodified) essential services, job creation and workers’ rights protection, and the alignment of social transfers to unfolding needs.

Shirk that duty, and current trends will harden and intensify. For hundreds of thousands of people, Aids is already dismantling the hope of a better life in the most incontrovertible way possible: by killing them. It threatens to steal from many millions more the very idea of a different, better world.

* Hein Marais’s new book, ‘Buckling: The Impact of Aids in South Africa’, is published by the Centre for the Study of Aids at the University of Pretoria. It can be ordered at [email][email protected] or http://www.csa.za.org

* This article was first published in the Mail and Guardian newspaper (http://www.mg.co.za) It is reproduced here with kind permission of the author and the Mail and Guardian

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Last Friday evening, the United Nations adopted a Political Declaration of Commitment on HIV/Aids following a meeting in New York to thrash out a response to the pandemic. While welcomed in some quarters, the declaration has also faced criticism from an African civil society grouping, who described it as an “utter disappointment” and declared a Week of Action - from June 13 to 17 - to mobilize support for previous commitments made by African governments to fighting the pandemic (Please see the HIV/Aids section of Pambazuka News for more details). In the article below, Salma Maoulidi goes beyond showcasing the pandemic in an attempt to “deal with why it is and is allowed to be”.

Tanzania has a national HIV/Aids policy and is in the process of finalizing legislation on HIV/Aids. The expectation is that once the policy and legal framework is set, people living with HIV/Aids and their families will be afforded greater protection. But will a legal framework that solely addresses the public health dimensions of HIV/Aids and not the intimate aspects of personal relationships that maintain the status-quo in power relations between the sexes suffice?

Treating an invisible syndrome

When one reads the alarming statistics explaining the magnitude of HIV/Aids in sub-Saharan Africa one gets an impression that people are dropping down like flies. One would think that as one walks the streets, every other person would be noticeably HIV positive. This, however, is not the case, not because HIV/Aids is not present but because it is rendered invisible - something that makes ongoing efforts to combat HIV/AIDS ineffective, if not difficult.

While HIV/Aids is very much in our midst it remains hidden from many either by choice or by design. It remains hidden by choice because we choose not to see it; or those that are affected by it choose not to divulge their status. It remains hidden by design when those who have it go to extra lengths to conceal their positive status. Also, it remains obscured when the state fails to address the problem at its core, that is confronting the underlying cause contributing to widespread infections rather than its consequence.

I have been following the progression of HIV/Aids since the mid-eighties when the formulation of the first national response against HIV/Aids emerged, but it remained invisible to me until the late nineties. Until then my association with HIV/Aids was based on health statistics and my long association with women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Putting a face to someone living with the virus came much later. But when these live testimonies finally emerged they were persistent in underscoring the pervasiveness of the pandemic. From the outset, it became clear to me that each story of a women who had contracted the virus was peculiar and in most cases did not meet the popular myths around HIV/Aids.

There are many dimensions to the problem that is HIV/Aids, something that is not so clear with prevailing responses against the disease. One can only appreciate the complexity involved in combating the pandemic when one reviews the stories of countless women, men and children infected and affected by HIV/Aids. It is also these stories that inform my political stance on the adequacy of existing HIV/Aids approaches in combating the pandemic.

Protecting the unsuspecting

One of the first cases I came across involved a bright girl, full of life and humour. I met her for the first time when she was ten but looked more like a five year old. She was born HIV positive, a fact that led her father to abandon the family. It was left to her mother and elder sibling to love and provide for her amidst great hardship. Although an innocent child, she was not spared the humiliation meted out on PLWHA’s that resulted from prevalent institutional ignorance about HIV/Aids. Her teachers openly discriminated against her, forcing her to wear a red badge to signify her HIV status.

Fortunately, her mother joined an association of PLWHA which provided her and the family with much needed moral and material support. Her sisters, who were not positive, became peer educators and volunteers for an HIV/Aids community based programme. She thus never saw herself as a victim. She accepted her condition and sought to live to the fullest in spite of the fact that she was positive. Her status was only an issue when it made her too sick to play or attend school. She died before her twelfth birthday, unable to realize her many dreams. Her brave attitude gave us a useful advocacy platform to intensify the campaign for the rights of PLWHA.

Progressively, the reality of HIV/Aids came close to home when a close friend of mine lost her baby girl. Although she had suffered bouts of TB it only became clear that she may be infected with the virus after her very sick daughter was diagnosed with the virus. Indeed it is not exceptional that many women get to know about their positive status in this manner since they do not fit the profile of women who are likely to be infected with the virus in the sense that they are not prostitutes or “loose” women but women who are in stable relationships, the majority having the respectable status of being someone’s wife and, therefore, by local social standards, outside the ambit of the risk category associated with immoral behavior.

Consequently, a significant number of HIV positive women I know contracted the virus as unsuspecting victims. They were brought up to believe that it was enough that they were in a happy, healthy and lasting marriage. The husband’s fidelity was immaterial to complete this equation. On the contrary, the overwhelming perception is that a chaste and faithful wife sufficed to protect the family from ill health and ensure a strong progeny. Increasingly women are finding that an institution that was traditionally meant to provide them with security, stability, health and respect is in fact endangering their lives and livelihoods.

Many of these women are torn between confronting their problem and in so doing drawing attention to themselves, a fact that leaves them vulnerable to public scorn and stigmatization. Importantly, it has the potential to ostracize them from traditional systems of support, especially after their spouse rejects them upon divulging their status. Indeed it is the dilemmas and contradictions women face as the weaker sex that puts them at risk of contracting the virus. Certainly, it is the denial of women’s agency in matters of sexual and reproductive nature that informs women’s social and economic predicament, a situation intensified by the HIV/Aids pandemic.

Are we fighting a disease or a curse?

The contradictory nature of the disease vis a vis women’s wellbeing is most evident in the story of my namesake, now deceased, who I came to know by virtue of my work with Muslim women. She was an only child, begotten late in life. Her elderly mother was anxious about her welfare after she passed on, such that when a widower proposed marriage she hastily agreed, believing that she was marrying her child to a responsible man. She did not know how her future son-in-law lost his wife nor did he oblige the information. It seems that he had two main concerns - either to draw upon the youth and vitality of his young bride to will himself to good health or to have a healthy person to care for him as his health deteriorated. In either case it was not the welfare of his new wife that was paramount to the fatal union nor did he take any measures to minimize the risk of infection to his young wife.

Next my cousin fell ill to recurrent bouts of TB. In his quest to prove that he did not have something more serious, he repeatedly neglected to complete the prescribed dose for treating the disease, creating resistance against TB. His mother and siblings never accepted that he may have contracted HIV, though they knew he was a womanizer. Instead they were more willing to forgive his philandering but content to blame his wife and her mother for bewitching him. In vain my aunt tried to break the marriage as her son’s condition deteriorated, perhaps to minimize the likelihood of her laying any claims to the matrimonial property, but failed. To our dismay my aunt unceremoniously chased the widow out of the house immediately upon completing her iddat (the mourning period) in spite of the fact that she had two young sons.

Then the young woman who helps us around the house was afflicted by a double HIV/Aids tragedy: her brother in law died after a long illness that was explained as diabetes coupled with witchcraft. During her time off she visited her sister and took care of him. There is no knowing what risk she exposed herself to as she only confirmed that he may have died of Aids after her sister succumbed and died soon after. This tragedy ended the working life of this young woman as her mother went into shock, forcing her to take a leave of absence to nurse her until she died. To save her from a predicament like her sister’s, her uncle and brothers planned to marry her off to a man who had been divorced thrice.

While a number of these women were ignorant about their status, a number were in denial not because of arrogance but because they feared the repercussions their status might have. My friend took some time to accept her HIV positive status. A lot of anger was exhibited against her husband’s long love interest and while she came from a religious family she readily invoked witchcraft to explain her errant husband’s behaviour. Perhaps it was more tolerable to accept that her husband was not acting in selfish disregard of her feelings and health were it not for an evil third hand or influence.

My most recent house help must have known for sometime she had the virus but instead of focusing on her condition actively sought out other women suspected to be infected as if in an attempt to deflect attention from her own status. Otherwise she hid her ill health well, substituting it with other debilitating diseases like malaria or typhoid. But when her ten-year old daughter died, she lost her will to live and succumbed almost two months later. The fate of her husband is unknown since he is adamant his daughter was a victim of someone’s bad spell, a view his wife never sought to correct lest she became suspect and was thrown out in the streets.

Interrogating the source of repeated transmissions

The stories serve to underscore certain truths that hardly feature as the key issues in the battle against HIV/Aids. It is more likely for women to admit their HIV status than it is for men. In most cases I have come across, the women were categorical that it was the sexual permissiveness of their partner that put them at risk. In many cases they were unsuspecting victims. In some cases, they suspected infidelity but were helpless to stop it since as opposed to their sexuality being regulated, their husband’s infidelity was given free reign by religious dicta and the legal framework. While society is more preoccupied with the status of the woman during marriage - whether she is a virgin or not; whether she is rebellious or not; whether she is respectable or not - equal consideration is not given to the status of her partner. On the contrary legal and social institutions tend to extol men’s sexual prowess and irresponsibility.

Likewise, while it is common for women who contract the virus to be punished for their condition there is never talk of compensating them for the harm inflicted on them and the ensuring violation of their privacy and property rights. My namesake was disposed of all her property by her in-laws - even her cooking pots - though it was well known that her culinary skills sustained the family during their short married life. She attempted to fight for her rights but died without justice being realized. The sister of my house help was evicted from the house where she lived and nursed her husband and ended up living with a relative before being bundled back to her village to die.

After initial denial my friend is living an open life. She recently lost her husband and is in the middle of a property distribution exercise directed by his family. While the family is keen to expedite her share of inheritance, perhaps in view of her condition, there is no mention of compensating her for the harm her late husband caused her, if not knowingly then by sheer negligence. She dares not bring up the issue lest her in-laws fall short of being generous towards her. It is this attitude of looking at women as creatures to be pitied and helped, instead of full partners in a relationship, that limits their agency and bargaining power in a relationship. Surely, awarding her compensation is not a matter of retribution or her inability to forgive. On the contrary it is her ability to forgive and go on with her life that contributes to her positive and healthy living. But should such chivalry be abused?

The wrong these women have been subjected to goes unrecognized. The contributions they made to families in terms of monetary and non-monetary forms of contributions go unacknowledged. Instead, these women are vilified by relatives and society for their positive status. Their positive status is equal to a death sentence and licenses their dispossession. Their continued existence means they are delaying the process of wealth transfer and if the virus won’t kill them in time, then heart ache and harassment are efficient mechanisms to expedite the sentence!

The unresolved politics of HIV/Aids

Most governments have failed to look at the social impact of HIV/Aids beyond the rhetoric of sharing the burden of looking after those affected by the HIV/Aids scourge. And while the pandemic presents new opportunities for governments to address gender inequalities there is paralysis in taking deliberate action to promote natural and social justice. Certainly the pandemic presents an opportunity to influence reforms in law and attitudes not only towards HIV/Aids but in reforming gender relations. Other than reaffirming state responsibility towards principles of gender equality and justice, it affords states an opportunity to engage in social engineering towards meeting constitutional and civic commitments to its citizens, male and female.

The development sector’s HIV/Aids response fares no better. While it is commonplace to maintain that having HIV/Aids does not amount to having a death sentence, prevailing policies, discourses and practice related to HIV/Aids continuously pass death sentences on those infected by the virus. Though my organization addresses HIV/Aids in the context of reproductive health, I resist working in the field mainly because the overwhelming support to the sector seems to promote welfarism - approaching infected persons as helpless victims thereby subscribing to dominant attitudes that tend to seal the nails on the coffins of those afflicted by the virus. This is an approach to development that we abandoned two decades ago in favour of a more empowering development approach and discourse.

Indeed, whereas we have tried to reclaim the dignity of people who survived gender based physical and sexual violence we are shamelessly victimizing people infected with HIV/Aids. The biggest pastime for people who want to placate their sense of guilt or get a piece of the HIV industry in my country are projects involving HIV/Aids orphans where countless children who are infected or who lost parents to the disease are not allowed to get over their loss and the stigma associated with their loss. The association with HIV/Aids is the brand that sells. Oblivious are we to the message that underlies such projects: Why can’t these children get on with their lives and be assisted by virtue of being orphaned and not because they are orphaned by HIV/Aids?

Also appalling is the wastage of resource poured in by the international community on material purchases and workshops that do very little to actually help communities deal with the HIV pandemic. Indeed, HIV/Aids has become the new development craze diverting much needed income from more sustainable development interventions. Why is overall spending in preventive health and reproductive health falling when they form part of the equation for an effective heath response to the pandemic? I visited Rwanda in 2004 and was appalled to find that each major UN agency and international NGO was into the HIV/Aids sector with very little coordination between them. I found a similar situation in Zanzibar where the bulk of advocacy organizations felt compelled to get into the HIV/Aids sector to secure funding to remain afloat.

I am equally wary of the ongoing politicization of the question of access to anti-retrovirals for PLWHA. Certainly I have no desire to profit pharmaceuticals, who seek to commodify people’s health in the name of a pseudo-cure. I am also hesitant to create dependency on the drugs in the absence of better nutrition and a guarantee that the scientific community is serious in finding a cure or a better drug regiment. The idea is not to create another dependent population, this time not only on food aid or donor aid but on ARVs. The objective should be to empower PLWHA to live healthy and independent lives without fear of incrimination, stigmatization or impoverishment. It should be about giving security and dignity to those infected and affected by HIV/Aids.

Conclusion

Statistics explaining the magnitude of the pandemic are plentiful. It is however not helpful when numbers are considered in a vacuum. I took inspiration from a book a young woman participating in our mentoring program is working on to open dialogue about HIV/Aids. The book is particularly insightful as other than using narratives of women infected and affected by HIV/Aids to expose the human dimension of the pandemic, it does so while charting her personal trajectory with HIV/Aids. She explores myths about the disease; education and prevention strategies; and personal and community responses they invoke. Certainly it is in understanding the interactions that inform individual HIV/Aids experiences that more sustainable prevention options will evolve, options that go beyond showcasing the scourge for what it is but attempt to deal with why it is and is allowed to be.

* Salma Maoulidi is the Executive Director of Sahiba Sisters Foundation, a development network that works with the concerns of Muslim and provincial women. Sahiba’s mission is to build the leadership and organizational skills of women and youth. It has network members in 13 regions of Tanzania.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Global trade policy agreements are often felt hardest far from the boardrooms where they are thrashed out. Often, they act to strip people of basic rights like water and electricity. Karoline Kemp looks at five examples where communities are claiming their rights.

South Africa: Soweto fights Eskom

Eskom, the country's electricity provider, has featured predominantly in recent South African news because of continuing power outages in various parts of the country. But these power outages have not affected many in the townships that house the majority of the nation's black population. Soweto, in Johannesburg, is the largest of these townships, and is home to several million working class people, most of whom struggle to make ends meet. Electricity is simply too expensive for many, and as a result, many make do with alternative forms of lighting, heating and cooking.

In 1996 the African National Congress (ANC), adopted neoliberal policies, turning their back on a proposed Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP), and opting instead for the GEAR program. The GEAR program, on the other hand, was developed by economists and World Bank officials, and, as a neo-liberal program, emphasized growth, adding that redistribution would come only after growth. Meant to drive this growth, it set targets to reduce inflation, boost the private sector, and liberalise formerly government run agencies, including Eskom. In order to attract investors, Eskom set about increasing profits, in order to offer a return on investment, which was done through a strict system of cost recovery.

In places like Soweto this meant that electricity cut offs were made as a means of recouping debt and making sure people paid for their electricity use. According to activist Trevor Ngwane, at one point, Eskom was cutting off over 20 000 homes per month, and over 70% of Soweto's population had increasing debts to the company. The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, co founded by Ngwane, was formed to unite Soweto against electricity cutoffs, and claimed as its slogan: “Electricity is a right, not a privilege.” The group lobbies government and other policy groups and, significantly, reconnects those homes that have been cut off, providing residents with the electricity they need. Their work has spread beyond Soweto, and they are active all over South Africa, campaigning now not only for electricity, but also water. Their approach is one of participatory democracy, and they call for policies that respond to the needs of the people - that is, the poor, who make up the majority of South Africa - and demand for free services, including electricity, water, housing, health care and education, for all. The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee sees themselves as a part of a larger anti-globalisation, anti-capitalist movement, and calls for people around the movement to join hands to fight against imperialism and anti-poor policies.

Source:

Article based on an interview between Trevor Ngwane and Walter Turner on KPFA's Africa Today. The transcript can be found at:

Ghana: The fight for water

World Water Day of 2005 saw Biwater, one of the multinational firms bidding for the privatization of Ghana's water sector, pull out, reported Ghana's Business News. Ghana's government has been fighting, with the support of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, for several years to privatize the nation's water in attempts to gain access to external assistance and loans. Ghana currently faces inadequate water provision, blamed on years of poor management, lack of investment and poor technical capacity. The government argues that the only way to improve the situation is to inject fresh income into Ghana Water, and that the only way to do this is to privatize. Critics and activist organisations, such as the National Coalition Against Privatisation of Water, have been active in opposing the initiatives, arguing that, contrary to government assurance of the schemes making water cheaper and more accessible, the plan will in fact only undermine access to safe water for all Ghanaians.

While Biwater withdrew it's application to partner with the government, numerous other multinational corporations are still seeking involvement in the project, and the government has gone ahead and secured a grant of $103 million from the World Bank, reports Irin News. According to Public Citizen, the mere prospect of the privatization of water has had the effect of doubling tariffs, in order to “condition” the water market for international competition. World Bank conditions also stipulate that no subsidies will be given to low income houses, and that water must be sold at full market rates.

Public Citizen brings to light some of the startling statistics: in a country where over half the population earns less than $1 a day, and 40% of people fall below the national poverty line, over 35% of Ghanaian's lack access to safe water, and almost 70% have no sanitation services. Water related illnesses are the cause of over 70% of diseases in Ghana. Studies in the early 2000s showed poor households spent between 18 and 25% of their income on water alone. In these conditions water vendors can charge up to 10 times more than the official water provider.

In light of these statistics, IMF and World Bank policies of “increased cost recovery” and “automatic tariff adjustment mechanisms” are considered by activists to deny basic human rights. With civil society locked out of any of the decision-making processes, many are concerned that Ghana's need for financial resources have inhibited any alternative water options, and go further to undermine access to one of the world's most basic rights.

Sources:

Ghana National Coalition Against the Privatisation of Water - Statement
http://www.isodec.org.gh/campaings/water/

Water Privatisation Suffers Setback - Biwater Pulls Out
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/cmep_Water/reports/ghana/

Ghana: Privatisation brings new investment to water company
http://dominionpaper.ca/environment/2004/05/27/like_water.html

Africa: Stop Economic Partnership Agreements!

Beyond what is required of African countries by the World Trade Organisation, Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have been set up between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) in order to enable European market access to goods and services in Africa. These negotiations, which began in 2002, are meant to promote sustainable development and contribute to poverty eradication in the ACP countries through the liberalisation of trade and tariffs.

But critics, including those academics and activists who form the Global Call for Action to Stop EPAs campaign, argue that these “partnerships” are in fact unequal; the EU has overwhelming economic and political power, and as such, can impose their interests, agenda and stipulations on ACP countries, which, as a whole, are fragile, both politically and economically, and are dependent, to a large extent, on external funders. This vulnerability has the potential for poverty and debt to increase, and destabilize the economies of these nations.

Critics argue that these EPAs conspire to deindustrialise Africa, simply making them suppliers of raw materials and ensuring their markets are wholly dependent on Europe, which inhibits their already limited capacity, reports Third World Network Africa.

That EPA negotiations are taking place away from any public monitoring means that the large civil society base that has assembled around this issue has had little say in the discussion. Civil society organisations argue that EPAs will have negative effects, leading to deeper inequalities, greater unemployment, the loss of livelihoods, insecurity of food and other resources and will undermine social and human rights. They call for the EU and ACP negotiators to affirm the principles of non-reciprocity, protect ACP producers, reverse trade and investment liberalization, and perhaps most importantly, allow that alternatives be found for ACP countries to pursue their own development strategies that work best for them.

Sources:

Global Call for Action to Stop EPAs - Campaign Statement
http://twnafrica.org/atn/campaigns/day4.htm

Previous Pambazuka News articles on EPAs

PAMBAZUKA NEWS 216: Economic Partnership Agreements: territorial conquest
by economic means?

Economic Partnership Agreements and putting development first

Growing resistance to EPAs

Meeting Africa’s human development needs and the failure of EPAs

Predictions for the economic partnership agreements negotiations: EU=1, ACP=0

Cameroon: Logging industry destroying environment and livelihoods

Cameroon's logging industry is well known for its lax laws, unsustainability and environmental destruction. According to a Global Forest Watch report, at the end of the 1990s there were almost 500 logging companies registered with the government, most of which were foreign owned. The same report reveals that over 76% of the country's forests have been logged, or are allocated as concessions, and as one of the few sectors that has remained profitable in Cameroon, the logging industry has emerged as one that offers short-term profits to foreign multinationals who benefit from few government controlled mechanisms to protect the environment and social needs of the population.

Logging, both legal and illegal, has led to the decrease in forest cover by over 2 million hectares, and primary forest cover is quickly diminishing, argues the Global Forest Watch report. The Cameroonian forests are some of the most species rich in the entire Congo Basin, and some trees take over a hundred years to grow. In addition to huge environmental impacts, the social effects of logging have also been significant. Cameroon boasts a large indigenous population, most of whom are dependent on the forest for shelter, food and medicine. With ancestral and spiritual ties to the land they inhabit, most know no other way of life, and logging has disrupted not only their ability to maintain healthy, safe lifestyles, but also their right to the land. According to Friends of the Earth Cameroon, those who have protested the logging companies have been violently repressed, and with their rights barely recognised, most have no recourse or protection from the multinational corporations who are exploiting their land.

Sources:

The True Value of a Tree: Interview with Benoit Ndamea, Friends of the Earth Cameroon
http://www.foei.org/publications/link/95/e95benoit.html

Global Forest Watch: An Overview of Logging in Cameroon
http://www.globalforestwatch.org/common/cameroon/english/report.pdf

Logging Industry Threatens to Destroy Rich African Forests
http://www.trfic.msu.edu/news_info/news_archive/20000818loggingafrica.htm

Cameroon: Logging industry destroying environment and livelihoods

Cameroon's logging industry is well known for its lax laws, unsustainability and environmental destruction. According to a Global Forest Watch report, at the end of the 1990s there were almost 500 logging companies registered with the government, most of which were foreign owned. The same report reveals that over 76% of the country's forests have been logged, or are allocated as concessions, and as one of the few sectors that has remained profitable in Cameroon, the logging industry has emerged as one that offers short-term profits to foreign multinationals who benefit from few government controlled mechanisms to protect the environment and social needs of the population.

Logging, both legal and illegal, has led to the decrease in forest cover by over 2 million hectares, and primary forest cover is quickly diminishing, argues the Global Forest Watch report. The Cameroonian forests are some of the most species rich in the entire Congo Basin, and some trees take over a hundred years to grow. In addition to huge environmental impacts, the social effects of logging have also been significant. Cameroon boasts a large indigenous population, most of whom are dependent on the forest for shelter, food and medicine. With ancestral and spiritual ties to the land they inhabit, most know no other way of life, and logging has disrupted not only their ability to maintain healthy, safe lifestyles, but also their right to the land. According to Friends of the Earth Cameroon, those who have protested the logging companies have been violently repressed, and with their rights barely recognised, most have no recourse or protection from the multinational corporations who are exploiting their land.

Sources:

The True Value of a Tree: Interview with Benoit Ndamea, Friends of the Earth Cameroon
http://www.foei.org/publications/link/95/e95benoit.html

Global Forest Watch: An Overview of Logging in Cameroon
http://www.globalforestwatch.org/common/cameroon/english/report.pdf

Logging Industry Threatens to Destroy Rich African Forests
http://www.trfic.msu.edu/news_info/news_archive/20000818loggingafrica.htm

Kenya: Women workers turn to flower power

Kenya's flower market falls into numerous trade agreements, including the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the African, Caribbean and Pacific - European Union (ACP-EU) Trade Agreement and the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), all of which open the region up to trade and allow for preferential treatment, including duty and quota free benefits and regional free trade, according to the Export Processing Zones Authority of Kenya. In addition to these trade agreements, Kenya has received financial assistance from the World Bank and USAID to get their agricultural industries off the ground, reports the International Labour Rights Fund.

The agricultural sector fits into all of these trade agreements, and accounts for almost a quarter of Kenya's GDP. Almost 75% of the population relies on agriculture, whether it be directly or indirectly, and the flower industry employs at least 50 000 Kenyans directly and another 70 000 in related industries. According to the Export Processing Zones Authority of Kenya, cut flowers dominate the horticulture exports, and this crop has overtaken both coffee and tourism as a source of foreign exchange. The EU currently receives the largest portion (over a quarter) of their cut flowers from Kenya, but cut flowers from the country end up as far as Asia, Australia and the US.

While Kenya's government benefits economically from this industry, critics argue that people, and women especially, are suffering as a result of lax laws, environmental hazards, dangerous working conditions and harmful power dynamics. According to the report by the International Labour Rights Fund, over half of Kenyan flower workers are employed only as “casuals,” and as such, they do not receive benefits, cannot join unions and have no job security. Further, the Kenya Human Rights Commission reveals that workers are often forced to do unpaid overtime, working as long as 12 hours a day, with few breaks. Many employees have been exposed to dangerous toxins from the fertilisers and pesticides that are used on the crops, which often lead to skin irritations, problems with sight and many more unknown effects, according to an article entitled “Cut Flower Industry Accused of Human Rights Abuse”.

As a result of these extreme human rights violations, local groups are stepping up to let the industry know that the working conditions they are forced into are not acceptable. With the help of Women Working Worldwide, the Kenya Women Workers Organisation has highlighted the plight of flower workers. They undertake various projects, including initiatives that include non-violent campaigns for worker's rights, lobbying and advocacy, community development projects, capacity building and the encouragement of women's participation in decision-making processes. Through their work they raise awareness and offer support to women exploited in Kenya's flower industry.

Sources:

Kenya Women Workers Organisation
http://www.kewwo.org

Cut Flower Industry Accused of Human Rights Abuse
http://www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_882.html

Codes of Conduct in the Cut-Flower Industry
http://www.laborrights.org/projects/women/Flower_Paper_0903/flower_paper_countries.htm

Export Processing Zones Authority of Kenya

Steve Ouma Akoth discuses the notion of corporate responsibility, introducing two notions of human dignity - individualistic and choice oriented vs. communal and substance oriented - that reflect two different world views. In discussing these views, he argues that the choice is for a thicker or broader notion of the moral self.

Corporate Responsibility or Citizenship has evolved in a time of increased economic and social globalization. As part of this evolution, the debate has moved beyond responsibilities and accountability [1] of the Corporate Citizens [2] to that of respective roles that the non-state actors can play in the governance of global and national societies. In building this understanding, attention has invariably been focused on how the concept and process has evolved from the paternalistic philanthropic [3] focus to the current talk of accountability.

It is apparent from the scholarly materials and information available in this area that most pundits more so those focusing on accountability of business enterprises, have looked at this issue from the perspective of the Western system of knowledge and its confrontation with neo-liberalism. This “singular focus” has thus missed a major thrust and leverage factor from other cultures and jurisdictions which would otherwise significantly influence the clarity of this discourse.

From the various view points [4], one must also note that there has been no significant challenge to the economic system within which the business enterprises which are being called to be more accountable operate. Milton Friedman laid down corporate law in the mid 20th Century when he said that business' only role was to make business, which has been ignored in this debate [5].

Jerry Mander & Edward Goldsmith have taken this debate further by exposing the spirit of Miltons argument by stating that:

“The essence of the capitalism system is the accumulation of capital, the making of profits in order to invest and to make still more profits. The first law of capitalism is; And the best way to accumulate capital is not to work hard but to get others to work hard for you. Private gains, not social needs, are the central rule for the capitalist system.”

As an erstwhile chairman of Castle Cooke put it: “We are in the business of making profit. We are not in business primarily to satisfy society. We are not going to satisfy society very long if we go out of business. So profits are the number one consideration.”[6]

This is why I think that any efforts to promote ethical business practices and encourage respect for and fulfillment of human rights, must question the framework of profit making. The response to this kind of mind set in my opinion can not simply be the business case or the legal frameworks which have been touted as the major contours and impetus for Corporate Accountability. In my opinion this is about what is good and what is bad. It is about ethics and morals.

Although ordinarily the debate on ethics and morals is seen as a fragile and delicate landmine, [7] this is where the Corporate Citizenship discourse can benefit from the African Context. Because at the very minimum, business has a moral obligation to ensure it does not undermine human dignity and progress. To this, African Context through both economic system and value system gives an unwavered response.

The Traditional African Economic System.

The African Economic system was widely anchored in the principles of economic democracy. The basic premise of this notion is to view economics as 'culture'. In other words, importance is given to the study of economic processes in relation to the social and cultural contexts in which they occur To strengthen this understanding Anthropologists [8] have decided to create a distinction between this economic system - which they have called the 'substantivist' economy - and the now dominant neo-liberal economic system which they refer to as the formalist [9] economy.

The 'substantivist' economic system is anchored in the principles of egalitarians. This school of thought is closely associated with Karl Polanyi who is remembered today as the originator of a 'substantivist' approach to economics, which emphasized the way economies are embedded in society and culture. This thinking appreciates the fact that economic systems have three interrelated aspects;

- Patterns of subsistence - the means by which environmental resources are converted for human use
- Systems of distribution - the means by which goods and services are made available to members of a particular group
- Patterns of consumption

Polanyi isolates four institutions as crucial to the economic and political order that had characterized most native economies : a balance of political power, the international gold standard,
a self-regulating market system, and the liberal state. The SRM (Self-Regulating Market) was "the fount and matrix of the system," the "innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization". [10]

Most African societies were organized in a system that Polanyi describes here as the SRM (Self-Regulating Market). Polanyi differentiated between economic systems in which there were markets and the "starkly utopian" SRM of the nineteenth century. Markets are places or networks in which goods are bought and sold; they are human interactions organized by price, quality, and quantity of traded goods and services. The SRM was a society-wide system of markets in which all inputs into the substantive processes of production and distribution were for sale and in which output was distributed solely in exchange for earnings from sales of inputs.

The SRM was a society-wide system of markets in which all inputs into the substantive processes of production and distribution were for sale and in which output was distributed [11] solely in exchange for earnings from sales of inputs. Society is vital to humans as social animals, and the SRM [12] was consistent with a sustainable society. This argument represents the character of most pre-colonial African economies.

There exists substantial evidence that organization of production and distribution in many societies had been accomplished through social relationships of kin or community obligations and counter obligations (reciprocity). The same system of relation with business enterprises can be found in the Agrarian and pastoralist [13] societies. This framework seems to be in great resonance to the modern concept of Corporate Citizenship. It implies that business can not survive unless it is in articulation with the societal values and operates in a conscientious manner to the expectation and aspirations of the society.

African Ethics for Business: Ubuntu

There is a very diverse set of ethical and customary frameworks throughout Africa. However, to illustrate how some of these concepts or terms may be applicable to business ethics and Corporate Citizenship, a deeper focus on the world view of most African societies would be useful.

This is very well represented in the philosophy of ubuntu which is based on the proverb “Umntu Ngumntu Ngabantu,” which can be translated as “a person is a person through other people” or “I am what I am because of you”. The following extract is from a book by Desmond Tutu called No tomorrow without forgiveness and it gives a good impression of ubuntu:

“Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks to the very essence of being human. When you want to give high praise to someone we say, 'Yu, u nobuntu', he or she has ubuntu. This means that they are generous, hospitable friendly, caring and compassionate. They share what they have. It also means that my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in theirs. We belong in a bundle of life. We say, 'a person is a person through other people' (in Xhosa Ubuntu Ungamntu ngabanye abantu and in Zulu Umuntu Ngumnutu ngabanye). I am human because I belong, I participate, I share. A person with ubunti is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good; for he or she has proper self-assurance that comes with knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were no less than who they are.” [14]

The term “Ubuntu” emphasizes that we all live and work in community [15]. Hence ubuntu can apply to the inside of a company and we could see company employees and management as a community, where one looks after the interest of others. Ubuntu also applies to a company as part of the broader community, where the company looks after other members of the community so that it can thrive. It is therefore apparent that ubuntu has important implications for corporate citizenship. Linking this with the economic system postulated above, essence of Ubuntu (humanity) cuts across Africa.

It is pertinent to take account of the African world view and culture in the context of governance of companies and the moral power that they imply. This high standards of morality are based on historical precedent. These are bolstered by the close kinship observed through totem or clan names and the extended family system [16]. This notion of co-existence with other people which is highly valued can inform the way we conceptualize and design the responses to Corporate Accountability and Responsibility today.

Two notions of human dignity

The outcome of the above discussion is two very different notions of self dignity: A classical libertarian understanding which (when pushed) reduces human dignity to individual free choice, and a broader, social (egalitarian as illustrated by the African cosmological context) perception of humanity which insists that human dignity involves more than free choice. Precisely what the latter means in any particular society is determined not merely by ideological theory (whether of Kant, John Stuart Mill or Karl Marx) but by values inherent to the historical and social context (with all the political, economic, cultural and religious dimensions) that influence any particular society at a given time. Within this context theories, doctrines and traditions (the theoretical apparatus we bring to a situation) usually need to be reshaped, reconceived and rewritten. As suggested in the introduction, the exercise of thinking through and developing the Social Responsibility standard must thus involve an intellectual and theoretical renewal which responds to the conflicts within the current economic system. The two notions of human dignity - individualistic and choice oriented vs. communal and substance oriented - reflect two different world views.

It is apparent that this African cosmological context presents a major tension that challenges and haunts liberal politics. These are challenges that confront all politic. Its is the tension between how to allow the maximization of individual freedom of choice while at the same time addressing the corporate responsibilities that are part of any social union. If individual [17] liberty is the primary value, then equality may have to be sacrificed. If equality is the primary value, there will be violations of liberty [18]. The quest must thus contribute to resolving this apparent contradiction [19] which resides at the heart of democratic-liberalism. An illustration using the African context affirmations of individual freedom alone constitutes a one-sided view of a fragmented tradition [20]. As such it provides a useful basis on which to address the political issues central to the required reconstruction. The concern is to balance individual and common values, rather than to propose a compromise within which neither is adequately addressed. [21] The goal is the establishment of a social theory and morality, which 'rests on a view of ourselves as co-members of a common world'. It involves a morality within which each individual is necessarily seen as 'one of us', requiring co-existence based on mutual respect and co-operation by a community of individuals who consciously locate themselves within their social context rather than seek (in a Kantain way) to abstract themselves out of it. The quest is for a thicker or broader notion of the moral self. [22]

* The Author is the Programmes Coordinatotor and Deputy Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Member of the Advisory Board of Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and a Student of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Governance at University of South Africa Contact address Valley Arcade, Gitanga Road, P.O. Box 41079, 00100 Nairobi - GPO, Kenya Tel. 254-2-3874998/9, 38776065, 0733-629034, 0722-264497, Fax: 254-2-3874997E-mail: [email][email protected]

[1] The discourse of accountability implies obligation by the law and a framework that can be used to hold the actor to responsible for their actions.

[2] These are artificial persons created by the law.

[3] The history of involvement of Corporations in societal issues has an origin in welfare and charity work at that time not much linked to the strategic operations.

[4]Here we are only referring to the view points that have been taken on Corporate Accountability and Responsibility

[5]Jerry Mander & Edward Goldsmith, eds., The Case Against the Global Economy and For a Turn Toward the Local (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996); Ed., Kevin Danaher, 50 years is Enough: The Case Against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Boston: South End Press, 1994).

[6] Chairman of Castle and Cooke of Dole Standards Fruits CO., interview in the documentary film Controlling interests, (San Francisco: California Newsreel, 1978).

[7] This is mainly due to relativity of the term.

[8] Classic economic anthropology has been concerned with the logic of exchange systems, with peasant economies, and with livelihood systems. An anthropological approach to economics will enable a critical analysis of some of the cultural biases in the 'universal' principles of mainstream economics, e.g. the concepts of work and leisure, poverty and wealth, gifts and commodities, and money and markets.

[9] This formal neoclassical theory cannot be used to explain economic activities in non-western societies

[10] Polanyi, Karl. 1944, 1957. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press by arrangement with Rinehart & Company, Inc.

[11] One must however note that the strongest and most long lasting criticism of The Great Transformation has been directed at the passages where he argues that reciprocative and redistributive forms of integration have been much more common in human history than self-regulating market systems.

[12] In his further works, Polanyi's argues that the SRM could not survive -- not because of the distributional consequences that play the major role in Marx's explanation of the inevitable collapse of capitalism -- but because the starkly utopian nature of the SRM gave rise to a spontaneous counter movement, even among those enjoying increased material prosperity.

[13] In pastoralist societies for instance the concept of “cattle complex” which implies the deep intrinsic values that are inherent in pastoralism , do explain how social responsibility and sustainable models of economies and social relations inform business.

[14] See the Introduction to Corporate Citizenship, UNISA, Centre for Corporate Citizenship.

[15] This is almost some spirituality of Collectiveness and Humility. This Perpetual optimism is due to strong belief in the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent superior being in the form of the creator of mankind.

[16] As a result, there is an inherent trust and belief in fairness of all human beings. This manifests itself in the predisposition towards universal brotherhood, even shared by African-Americans.

[17] The individual here refer to both natural and legal persons.

[18] Lebacqz, Six Theories of Justice, p 65.

[19] As I have mentioned in other discussions, I doubt if the ISO system has either the capacity or the willingness to confront this challenge. See Steve Ouma Akoth; Comments on the Guidance on Social submitted on 19th April 2006.

[20] Pinkard, Democratic Liberalism, pp. 51; 101f.

[21] Pinkard views Duncan Kennedy's classification of 'individualism' and 'altruism' as two competing theories and a fragmentation of liberalism. This concern is to transcend rather than choose or reduce the two into compromise. Pp. 100f

[22] Pinkard, DemocraticLiberalism, p, 15.

Trade justice or injustice has been on the international agenda like never before. Academics and activists are campaigning for just trade and even rich countries are giving the impression that they're willing to address injustices in the global system. Tope Akinwande looks at what the reality is for West African cotton farmers.

“While 70% of the population of Africa work in agriculture, only a few percent do so in rich countries. Yet rich countries support their agriculture to the tune of a staggering $279 billion a year. That's over ten times current aid to Africa. That's a sum comparable to the income of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Market barriers keep out developing countries that have a natural advantage in producing agricultural goods. Average tariff between rich countries are only 3%, but can rise to over 200% in the US for fruits and nuts, or to 300% in the EU for meat..." - Hilary Benn, UK Secretary of State for International Development, in “How Can we get trade justice", a speech delivered at the London School of Economics, 29 June 2005.

During the 2005 "Global Week for Action" organised to campaign against trade injustice, I saw a sculpture by Jens Galschiot, a controversial Danish Sculptor. Titled the "Survival of the Fattest", the bronze sculpture depicted a very skinny man - with protruding rib cages - carrying fat and well-fed Justitia, the western goddess of Justice, on his bent back. Justitia had a scale in her right hand and her long pole in her left hand on which it was inscribed: "I'm sitting on the back of a man - He is sinking under the burden - I would do anything to help him - Except stepping down from his back.”

Some people might genuinely wonder how there could be injustice in trade between two consenting people or sovereign countries who have goods to sell or exchange with one another. Since trade is not meant to be a "donor-recipient" relationship but one in which a country has something to sell to another to meet the needs of its populace, one could wonder why there would be injustice or why a country could not move onto another buyer if they do not get a good deal somewhere. If trade, - as it has been simply defined by the Cambridge International Dictionary - is “the activity of buying and selling, or exchanging, goods and/or services between people or countries", why should there be injustice?

One of the most contentious issues in international politics and trade in recent times has been the issue of trade (in) justice. Like never before, there have been systematic mobilisations for trade justice towards countries, particularly Africa. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), world leaders, academics and activists around the world are leading the campaign to ensure fair trade. In the UK, the Justice Movement, an umbrella campaign organisation of over 70 NGOs are campaigning and lobbying the UK government in various forms to ensure trade justice - not free trade - with compassionate rules to benefit poor people and the environment. [1]

In the face of these campaigns, richer countries have also given the impression of a willingness to redress the seeming "trade injustice" through different negotiations known as "Rounds" and named after the places where they have been initiated. Hence there have been Tokyo, Uruguay and Doha Rounds. Apart from these “Rounds”, rich countries are apparently doing everything humanly possible (international development aid, SAP turned PRSP, MDGs, AGOA…) to eradicate (the less pretentious ones use the word “alleviate”) poverty in poor countries like Mali and Burkina Faso.

However, the reality is something else. The reality of international trade - like any other form of activities with vested interests to protect - is that there have been some trading practices that are deemed unfair. The most prominent of these “sharp practices” is the provision of subsidies to western farmers by their governments. These subsidies encourage farmers to produce irrespective of the situation of the market and the "beauty" of it all is that they are sure of a minimal income.

There are different types of agricultural subsidies. While some are directly linked to the level of production others such as subsidies for water irrigation are indirectly linked. There are also subsidies such as export subsides which are used to promote exports of agricultural products. The surplus production is put on the world market which could force a decrease in price as there is high availability of a particular commodity. This process of flooding the market with excess production and inducing a price decrease is what has been happening for years in the international agricultural trade sector. Developed countries led by the European Union (EU) and US highly subsidise their agriculture allowing their farmers and related industries to sell their products at a lower rate than the cost of production. [3]

In 2001/02, the US, Chinese, Spanish and Greek governments subsidised their cotton producers to over $6 billion dollars. US farmers alone are said to receive almost $4 billion in subsidies. US and European subsidies to domestic producers continue to impose enormous costs on poor countries. The welfare costs of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have been well over the development aid given to all sub-Saharan Africa.

In "Cultivating Poverty: The Impact of US Cotton Subsidies in Africa", Oxfam argues that the rock-bottom cotton price can be blamed directly on enormous subsidies paid to US cotton farmers as they are first among equals in the harvesting of subsidies. These subsidies are destroying livelihoods in Africa and other developing countries with rural communities being the worst-hit. [4]

Killing Burkina Faso and Mali Softly

The cost of cotton production in west and central Africa is very low compared to other cotton-producing countries. African cotton farmers could compete with their counterparts from developed countries if they were not enjoying the massive subsidies of their governments. This has been succinctly expressed by a West African minister who said that his country was “happy to compete with US farmers but not with the US Treasury". [5] Sahel countries like Burkina Faso and Mali have a comparative "advantage" [6] in the production of cotton and the rapid increase in their productivity has shown that they could make considerable developmental gains over time.

In the 1990s, the World Bank encouraged Mali to cultivate cotton since that was its comparative advantage. The West African country threw all its energy and meagre resources into cotton production, rapidly becoming the second largest cotton producer in Africa ahead of Egypt. Despite this Malian "success story", it could not sell its production at good rates as American producers with lower comparative advantage enjoyed a record harvest.

The only plausible reason for this bumper harvest of cotton by American farmers was the subsidies they received. It is said that 25,000 American cotton producers received $USD13.9 billion between 1999 and 2005 which represents a subsidy rate of 89.5%. [7] Annually, this represents about $USD 3.2 billion of subsidies for American cotton producers, plus $USD1.6 billion in export aid. [8]

These subsidies had a disastrous effect on the Malian economy as its cotton farmers could not compete with their American counterparts. Indeed Mali lost the equivalent of 1.7% of GDP and 8% of export earnings. These losses are bigger than the $USD 37.7 million Mali received from USAID in 2001. It is on record that the Malian finance minister at the time made this disturbing statement: “The money that those countries put into agricultural subsidies is five times what they give as development assistance. And we've always said to rich countries, 'you are hypocrites'. You tell us to play the rules of open market at the same time you subsidise your farmers and kill our farmers.” [9]

Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world. Though it has significant reserves of gold, its almost non-existing industrial base has left its mining in the hands of dubious businessmen. Cotton is the mainstay for 90% of Burkinabes.

According to a study carried out by WHO in Burkina Faso, the expansion of cotton farming painted a positive future for development in the country. However, continuous subvention of western farmers has made it impossible for Burkinabe farmers to compete in the international market. Like many countries in the Sahel, Burkina Faso cannot prepare adequately for the food crises it experiences. It is perpetually locked in a vicious cycle of international aid.

This dire situation made President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, a rather shrewd talker and “great friend of the West” to cry out recently in frustration that: “Several central and west African countries are victims of injustice by the US and EU. These countries subsidise their agricultural producers, ignoring the rules of WTO. Such practices are undermining the fragile national economies of countries that depend on cotton.” [10]

This situation is not peculiar to these two countries. It is the same for many African countries whose economies are mainly agricultural-based.

When signing the US Farm Bill in May 2002, President George Bush made a very revealing statement about his choices concerning international agricultural trade: “I told the people, I said if you give me a chance to be President, we are not going to treat our agricultural industry as a secondary citizen when it comes to opening markets. And I mean that...The farm bill is important legislation...It will promote farmer independence, and preserve the farm way of life. It helps America's farmers and therefore it helps America.” [11]

How else would one want world leaders to show where their interest lies on the issue of trade (in) justice? This agricultural bill that sharply increased subsidies and protections for US producers, was passed while the “international community” was pushing for a Doha Round of trade talks that would deal with agriculture.

Since the "international community" led by the US is aware of the predicament of African countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali, why do they continue to subsidise their domestic farmers? Why can't the US stop subsidising its farmers and allow poor countries like Mali to earn decent income and stop “pan-handling” year-in-year-out for development aid? Why are the rich countries advocating free trade and open markets in developing countries while European and US subsidies to their farmers are destroying markets for vulnerable farmers in sub-Saharan Africa?

The answer easily lies in the "national interest" of western countries. Much as the notion of 'national interest' is a shifting one, it reveals the true behaviour of powerful world leaders. It also guards us against two popular misconceptions about the determination of a state's foreign policy - the motives of leaders and ideological preferences.

While political leaders will cast their policies in ideological terms (free trade, democracy, human rights, justice, etc.) they are inevitably confronted by what is desirable and what is possible. There is no room for moral or ethical concerns, prejudice, political philosophy or individual preference in the determination of foreign policy because actions are constrained by the interest of the state and its power to enforce it. The 'national interest' which ought to be the sole pursuit of political leadership, is always defined in terms of strategic and economic capability.

Conclusion

In international politics, no government worth its salt will toy with its national interest, whatever it happens to be at any given time. It is “sacrosanct” to the survival of the nation.

In light of this basic reality, The EU and US will continue to protect their farmers as long as it is politically expedient. This is not an issue of justice or injustice. It is simply the survival of their states (and the political ambitions of its leaders) that require protecting their 'national interests' of which subsidies to domestic farmers is part of. If that cannot be achieved, then these leaders could be considered incompetent or forced to leave.

The onus is for governments at the receiving ends of these “sharp” trade practices to raise their games and find a strong negotiation platform. It is not going to be easy as we have seen with Brazil and the WTO saga. It is either these countries and those who are campaigning along with them for fair trade to find a way of putting fat Justitia down for a serious negotiation or carry her on their bent backs for a long time to come. Nothing can be more certain that Justitia will not want to get off the back of the skinny man as long as it is possible. Who would except where compassion for others surpasses passion for self?

* Tope Akinwande is a Desk Officer at the West Africa Department of TEARFUND, a leading UK relief and development NGO working in partnership with Christian agencies and churches in over 70 countries to tackle the causes and effects of poverty.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References

1 See,

3. Nigel Grimwade, “International Trade Policy - A Contemporary Analysis”, Routledge, London, 1996

4 OXFAM, “Cultivating Poverty: The Impact of US Cotton Subsidies in Africa”. See http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/downloads/bp30-cotton.pdf

5. See (2)

6. Comparative advantage is what a country can produce with less cost at less time and effort above other countries.

7. See http://www.lwf-humanrights.org/issues.php

8. Ibid

9. See 4

10. Ibid

11. See, http//www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020806-4.html-45

Genetically Modified (GM) crops are touted by some as the answer to world hunger; by others as a dangerous intervention by multi-national agri-business that will have far reaching impacts on all aspects of human life. Pambazuka News asked Mariam Mayet from the African Centre for Biodiversity for her views on the implications of GM crops for Africa.

Pambazuka News: What are the implications of GM crops for human life generally, including the human rights of populations and farmers?

Mariam Mayet: The risks posed by GM food are extremely contentious in current scientific discourse, primarily because the GM industry has failed, to date, to provide conclusive evidence that GM foods are safe. Amidst the enthusiasm for genetic engineering, there has been little space for critical reflection. Leaping into genetic engineering brings with it a wide range of biosafety issues including health and environmental risks, and broader socio-economic impacts. It requires the acceptance of intellectual property rights on living organisms, the privatisation of public research, and expensive research and development at the expense of farmer-based innovation. Amid all the complexities of the legal and scientific arguments, decisions must be made in Africa about the measures to be taken, to protect human health, agricultural biodiversity, and farming systems.

Pambazuka News: So what decisions are being taken? Have governments introduced laws to govern this area?

Mariam Mayet: Very recently, the African Centre for Biodiversity did an analysis of the draft Biosafety law of Mozambique, which is interesting to consider in answering this question. Mozambique views genetic engineering as having a role to play in agriculture, food security and human health care, but believes that the risks have to be managed by the creation of an enabling legislative environment, to this end. In other words, Mozambique will follow the route taken by South Africa and permit the entry of GM crops into its agriculture systems, after an evaluation of the risk assessment data provided by an applicant.

Currently, Mozambique's seed law prohibits the import and planting of GM seed. But Mozambique does accept genetically modified (GM) food aid, including and especially from the United States. USAID's Food for Progress (FFP) has provided 15.500 MT of PL480 (A US law relating to food aid) Title II emergency food assistance valued at $11.6 million to Mozambique through the World Food Programme. (USAID, Southern Africa-Food Insecurity, February 3 2006).

Without dwelling on the politics of hunger and food aid, it's worth pointing out that the opening or maintaining of markets is a key objective of Public Law 480 (PL 480). PL 480 clearly asserts that the purpose of US food aid programmes is to “develop and expand export markets for United States agricultural commodities”. [1] A position repeatedly pronounced by US government officials is that the opening of new markets is immensely important for the future of US agriculture. [2] Moreover, US agribusiness have been the main beneficiaries of US food aid programmes.

Therefore, in considering the Mozambique law, its worth warning that countries should not be pushed into believing that GM food aid is the only alternative to consider during emergencies and that countries should be careful when developing legislation that their laws will not be used as a conduit to push GM food aid into the rest of Africa.

Pambazuka News: So there's definitely some vested interests operating in the trade in GM crops. What role does the World Trade Organisation (WTO) play?

Mariam Mayet: The United States, the world's largest producer of GM crops, has effectively used the threat of WTO sanctions against developing countries such as Sri Lanka, Bolivia, South Korea and Thailand when these countries tried to ban or restrict imports of GM crops in adopting biosafety measures.

Countries in Africa have also been the target of US style pressure: one of the main reasons given for Egypt's initial support of the US, Argentina and Canada WTO complaint against the EU (On May 13, 2003 the US, along with Canada, Argentina and Egypt, filed a complaint in the WTO against the EU's de facto moratorium on GMOs.), was that Egypt would be rewarded with a Free Trade Agreement in 2004; an offer retracted with indecent speed when Egypt subsequently withdrew from the complaint, stating that their decision was in recognition of “the need to preserve adequate and effective consumer and environmental protection.” [3]

Similarly, in May 2003, when Sudan banned the import of GM food aid, it was forced to issue a series of temporary waivers enabling food aid shipments to the country to continue while alternatives were found. The US response was to suspend food aid shipments to Sudan and exert enormous pressure on the government to rescind the ban. The government relented, and ended up extending the waiver for six months, allowing the distribution of GM food aid to continue.

Hence, the extent to which African countries and indeed, developing countries, will be given opportunities to take biosafety measures aimed at banning or severely restricting the trade in GM crops will be greatly influenced by the outcome of the complaint submitted during May 2003, by the United States, Canada and Argentina to the WTO against the European Union's Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products (EC-Biotech) [4]. For those of us in Africa, reliant on trade and aid from the US, the WTO challenge most certainly has conveyed a lasting message that either we open our markets for GM food and seeds, or face reprisals.

Pambazuka News: You mention GM food aid. Shouldn't food aid be welcomed?

Mariam Mayet: The most frequent criticism of food aid is that it impacts on local food security. Food aid acts as a disincentive to local production by driving down domestic prices. Local farmers may withdraw from producing a surplus, forcing governments to import the growing deficit. Alternatively, it may lead a government to neglect its own agricultural sector, relying on aid or imports rather than facilitating local agricultural development. It may also introduce a taste for a particular food, which is not produced locally, therefore undermining the long-term potential for self-sufficiency. Crucially, the provision of food aid is intimately tied to the disposal of highly subsidised surplus food on the planet's poorest and most vulnerable people.

Already, controversy over the shipment of GM food aid has erupted twice in Africa. During the Southern African food crisis in 2001/2002, Zambia imposed a ban on the acceptance of GM food aid, and several other Southern African countries imposed various restrictions. Last year, Angola and Sudan introduced restrictions on GM food aid. These countries are almost always presented with a false choice between accepting GM food or facing dire consequences, whereas non-GM alternatives almost always exist at the national, regional and international level.

Pambazuka News: What has been the role of civil society in Africa - do they have a say in any parts of the decision making process about GM crops? Has civil society been active in opposing GM crops coming into Africa?

Mariam Mayet: Civil society in Africa is active - alive and kicking - quietly. The fact that Africa (except for South Africa) has not taken any decisions on biosafety grounds, to permit the commercial import and growing of GMOs, is a huge victory for us. Whereas in the rest of Africa, over the last five years, only eight other countries have conducted field trials of GM crops: Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, on small plots of land.

The key target countries for USAID, the World Bank and the gene giants are the cotton markets in West Africa. However, already the farmers have rejected GM crops. Recently, in an unprecedented move, farmers in Mali voted not to grow GM crops on their land. In a "farmers' jury", cotton growers and other farmers debated the issue and came to the conclusion that their government should reject GM crops. The citizens' jury was hosted by the regional government (Assemblee Regionale de Sikasso) and was designed and facilitated by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development and RIBios, the University of Geneva's Biosafety Interdisciplinary Network, together with a wide range of local partners in Mali.

* Interview conducted by email. Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References

[1] United States Department of Agriculture, US Food Aid Programs Description: Public Law 480, Food For Progress And Section 416(B) http://www.fas.usda.gov/excredits/pl480/pl480brief.html

[2] Hembree Brandon, 'Veneman says more farm aid likely', Southwest Farm Press, Jun 21, 2001 http://southwestfarmpress.com/ar/farming_veneman_says_farm/

[3] Letter by the Egyptian Ambassador to the EU, Suleiman Awaad, Cited in Al Amrani.: Egypt follows EU line on GM, Middle East Times, June 6, 2003.

[4] European Communities-Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products (EC-Biotech), WT/DS291

An environmentally sensitive wetland, a multi-national company and a local community that feels sidelined. Sound familiar? Patrick Ochieng introduces the Yala Swamp region in Kenya and asks if Foreign Direct Investment is really the answer to Africa's development problems.

Yala Swamp is a wetland bounded to the north by Nzoia River and the south by Yala River. The swampland covers an area of about 17,500 ha in Siaya, Bondo and Busia districts that are home to nearly 1.2 million people. The area is Kenya's largest wetland, and is regarded as a very delicate ecosystem and habitat to some rare flora and fauna, including endangered fish species. The swamp has served the adjacent communities as a source of fish, water, agricultural land, pastures, wild animals, plants for constructing houses, source of wood fuel and medicinal plants.

Dominion Farms Ltd, an affiliate of the USA-based Dominion Group, based in Oklahoma, USA moved into the swamp through an arrangement with the Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA). Dominion Group controls investments across the globe. The company operates luxury corporate hotels, is involved in modification of corporate aircrafts, ownership and operation of corporate aircraft, construction of houses and offices to be leased by the US government, manufacture of athletic dress and socks, correctional services and other businesses spanning several countries.

The initial proposal was that Dominion would engage in rice production, in part of the swamp covering about 2,300 ha. This land portion had been reclaimed before 1970, and previously used by LBDA for agricultural activity. Dominion embarked on large-scale agricultural activities in the swamp following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Councils of Siaya and Bondo in May 2003.

Although rice for which the lease was executed has not been planted, the firm has engaged in activities beyond agriculture, which include construction of irrigation dykes and weirs, water drilling, construction of an airstrip and road construction. Dominion has further proposed to undertake a number of new development projects within the Yala Swamp. For this purpose it is proposing that part of 9,200 ha will be reclaimed from swamp area to meet the needs of new projects. This would leave only 6,000 ha (35%) of current wetland to act as buffer zone.

The proposed project is extensive and specifically seeks to: Implement a highly mechanized irrigation and dry farming project; Construct fishponds for aquaculture; Construct a fish processing plant to process about 20 tons of fish per day, mainly for export; and Construct a rice mill, feed mill, ginnery, fuel storage, dispensing station, turbine for electricity production, barrier dyke, weir and reservoir.

The proposed projects fall under those that must undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) under Kenyan law. The EIA report submitted by Dominion consultants has concluded that:

- The project will bring into productive use a high potential resource that has been underutilized and which has cost the government and the people of Kenya huge amounts of money with little appreciable returns;
- The proposed project will create employment both directly and indirectly to thousands of people through primary and secondary activities;
- The project will make a positive impact to increased incomes and access to basis needs;
- The project will act as growth pole around which other commercial activities will gravitate;
- The local communities support the proposed project, which they perceive as a boost to the development of the region;
- The local communities are enthusiastic about the project.

But the EIA did not deal with the impact of the project on the soils, water quality, vegetation and wildlife. It did not deal conclusively with environmental, ecological, socio-economic and management issues related to the situation of the swamp. The impacts of the project on water, vegetation, habitat and human activity were also not addressed. The community feels that they have not been properly consulted, and while communities were requested to form groups so that individuals did not dominate the process, this has not happened.

The consultants who carried out the EIA were employees of LBDA and thus were compromised by issues of conflict of interest. The sticky issue of compensation for families displaced by the project has refused to go away. Existing fish processing plants and a fishmeal plant in the area are operating below their capacity, raising the question of why it is necessary to build further plants.

The EIA report has aimed to justify the project on the basis of its economic importance, components, design, choice of location, implementation strategy and mitigation measures put in place. The report has, however, recognized that the proposed projects pose a number of negative impacts at various stages of implementation. This list is long, some of them with very serious consequences. They include: Flooding and altered water flow patterns; Contamination of soil and water by oil leakages and spillage; Pollution of River Yala by solid and liquid wastes from project activities; Possibility of respiratory ailments due to inhalation of dust and fumes from construction equipment; Loss of grazing land for the local community; Incidences of water-borne and vector-borne diseases; Displacement of local communities; Displacement of fauna and loss of flora; Reduced production of subsistence crops leading to food deficits in the region; and the introduction of foreign crops and genetically modified crops that may introduce new pests into the area.

At a meeting convened on November 8, 2005, we asked members of the affected communities to identify the problems the project posed for them. Problems faced by the communities included denial of access to water and land; denial of fishing rights; blocking of direct routes between communities for purposes of trading, wage reductions and threats of flooding due to dyke construction.

The community members felt that the project should be halted so that proper consultation could take place to iron out issues that were not attended to. These would include the issuance of title deeds to people whose land had been surveyed, construction on land that was earmarked only and open discussions with the local administration, the firm, the LBDA and the community. Despite these concerns the members of parliament from the region have turned a deaf ear to the people's pleas.

There is therefore urgent need to undertake and examine, from accounts, opinions and experiences of the different stakeholders, the socio-economic dimensions of proposed activities. Such an independent study would inform the advocacy processes being carried out by Friends of Yala Swamp, a group of CSOs who have come together to oppose the Dominion project by providing the factual data that can help raise the stakes in negotiations with the company, and also to sharpen awareness and inform Kenya's future engagements with foreign direct investments. The study would actually contribute to research that will facilitate a planned court injunction to stop Dominion activities until the issues raised are addressed.

The Yala Swamp issue is about broader concerns related to government economic policy. Successive governments in Kenya have always expressed commitment to eradicate poverty in all its forms. The latest anti-poverty rhetoric is NARC's framework “economic recovery for wealth creation and employment,” whose central feature is anchored on the belief that foreign exchange and foreign direct investment is the solution to Kenya's development woes. Therefore, as a country we have set out to woo foreign investors. This, notwithstanding the fact that private operators and mega projects owe no accountability to the public and concern themselves principally with cost recovery and profit before anything else.

These export-led growth strategies subordinate human needs and human rights to corporate greed and corporate profit. Big business can never be part of a progressive and sustainable earth. Despotism and corruption has been at the core of Kenya's engagement with foreign investors. Compromised political elites who are often tempted to act as stewards of imperialist interests have continued to give away mineral exploration rights, fisheries, forests and forest products, biological resources and coastal biodiversity to multinationals. The Dominion Group ventures fall into this category and there are doubts as to the extent its activities will enhance food security, increase crop and fish production for domestic consumption and reduce poverty.

Organized resistance to these government policies is mounting as has been seen in the case of Canadian company Tiomin's bid to mine titanium in the coast of Kenya that has not proceeded for over 10 years now; the boycott of Delmonte products that saw reforms to working practices in the firm's pineapple fields in Kenya; the advocacy against flower farms in Naivasha on unethical work practices and use of dangerous chemicals by human rights organizations in Kenya and now the Dominion advocacy that so far is grossly underestimated but which in the fullness of time will prove extremely potent and fierce.

* Patrick Ochieng is the founder and Executive Director of Ujamaa Center, a Center founded in 2001 as a direct response to the continuing exploitation and exclusion of coastal peoples of Kenya that spans over 40 years. Ujamaa is a key member of the Friends of Yala Swamp, a loose coalition of social justice institutions, advocates, and members of the affected communities who have come together to resist the injustices visited on this ecosystem and its people.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Negotiations about international trade tend to have relevance for large firms or formal enterprises. But, asks Winnie Mitullah, what about the rights of the large number of workers in African cities involved in informal trade?

When one hears the word trade what comes to mind is the large-scale formal traders, and international trade organizations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and regional organizations such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). While such traders and institutions are important, street vendors and informal trade, which provides employment and incomes to a significant percentage of people in Africa, in particular within the urban areas, hardly comes to mind.

Street and informal traders fall within the informal economy sector. The sector comprises one half to three quarters of non-agricultural employment in developing countries. Specifically, these figures amount to 48% of non agricultural employment in Africa, 51% in Latin America, 65% in Asia, and 72% in Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa. Employment in this sector operates without contracts, worker benefits or social protection, and most employees and individuals have no rights to organize and be represented.

The theme of the UN-HABITAT Global Campaign on good urban governance is the 'Inclusive City'. The campaign advances the position that an inclusive approach must be used for balancing, reconciling and trading off competing interests and priorities. In most cities the interests of micro and small enterprises such as street and informal traders are competing with those of medium and large-scale enterprises, with the former being disadvantaged. All types of enterprises in urban areas, whether micro, small, medium or large, should have the right not only to the Central Business District (CBD) but to all urban goods and services. The global campaign has noted that the notion of inclusion has different resonances in each region with exclusion of specific groups being most significant in some regions and exclusion of the poor majority more important in others. The campaign urges actors to discuss the question of 'who' in a particular city is excluded from 'what' and 'how'. This article demonstrates how street and informal traders are not integrated in urban planning and development.

Concepts such as participation, empowerment, and social inclusion have become buzzwords, and yet to the poor who are engaged in informal economic activities the concepts do not make much sense. In the usage of these concepts, emphasis is often placed on participatory development, and participatory political processes, rather than participatory market processes. Further, the proponents of democratic practices tend to focus on political democracy to the neglect of economic democracy, while the proponents of empowerment and voice tend to focus on individuals rather than collectivities. Street and informal traders are still to fully adopt joint action in dealing with urban authorities.

The human rights organizations responsible for the clamour for rights are still to adequately specify what they mean by economic rights or adequately strategise about how to claim or enforce worker rights. Even the micro financial institutions, whose clients work mainly within the informal economy, have focused on financial services to the neglect of other business services and of how the wider policy and regulatory environment affects their clients. Most vendors rely on money-lenders or informal sources of credit in order to buy their merchandise. As a result, they pay exorbitant interest rates, and their businesses rarely grow beyond subsistence levels.

The Bellagio International Declaration of Street Vendors of November 1995 urged governments to develop national policies for hawkers and vendors by making them a part of the broader structural policies aimed at improving their standards of living by giving them legal status, issuing licenses and providing appropriate hawking zones in urban areas. The declaration further called on governments to integrate vendors into urban development plans. Since then, a number of global, regional and local associations have been established to protect the rights of street and informal traders. The global networks include the Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising (WIEGO) with a secretariat at the Harvard University, MA USA and StreetNet International with headquarters in Durban, South Africa. StreetNet has regional and local networks which have begun engaging urban authorities in policy dialogues, including issues relating to the right to trade in urban space.

Location of Trade

Street vending and informal trade is rampant in most developing country cities, and is a source of employment and income to a large percentage of urban households. The trade takes place at strategic points with heavy human traffic - along main roads, streets, parks, pavements, within shopping centers, and at prominent corners of streets and roads where traders are visible to pedestrians and motorists. The traders use different structures, including mats, gunny bags, tables, racks, wheel barrows, handcarts, and bicycle seats to display their goods. Some traders simply carry their commodities on their hands, heads and shoulders, while others hang their commodities on walls, trees and fences. An advanced but insignificant group of the traders construct temporary shades with stands for displaying their goods.

Challenges of Trade

The greatest challenge facing street and informal traders is with regards to site of operation and right to trading space. Most of the spaces traders occupy are considered illegal since the spaces have not been set aside for trade. In cases where they are allowed to operate, the spaces are considered temporary and eviction occurs at the will of urban authorities. There are various conflicts relating to their sites of operation. A major conflict often arises when the vendors are required to move in order to give way for planned development. This brings them into direct confrontation with urban authorities and land developers. Most of the spaces the traders occupy have no tenure, and are not allocated and sanctioned by urban authorities. At the same time, the traders are also in conflict with formal shop owners and landlords who contend that the traders infringe on their businesses and/or premises.

The spaces occupied by traders are open and expose traders to harsh environmental conditions. Most commodities of trade such as fruits, vegetables and clothes are affected by the harsh environmental conditions, consequently resulting in loss of earnings to the traders. Overall, street vendors and informal traders have been noted to be perhaps the most regulated and least protected. They trade illegally due to lack of recognition and licenses. The traders are known to identify trading sites on their own, leaving the urban authorities with few options, which include eviction, tolerating traders or charging a daily fee without providing any legal protection.

In cases of eviction, the traders are often provided with an option outside the (CBD) where there are hardly any customers. This option is based on an exclusion framework which reserves the CBD to large scale traders and businesses which urban authorities argue pay taxes as opposed to the street vendors and informal traders. This argument is false, and research has shown that when both daily fees and bribes to urban authorities are taken into consideration, the urban authorities collect more from traders than required. Research has further shown that daily fee charges are more expensive than lump sum payment for a license. However, the street and informal traders make minimal profit and are not able to make lump sum payments.

Lack of a street trading licenses exposes traders to harassment and punitive measures, including confiscation of goods. During harassment, traders lose their commodities, with some closing their businesses after losing their capital goods. Research from a number of African cities reveals that having a license does not guarantee safety and recognition by urban authorities. In most cases, vendors are not issued with any identification showing that they have a legitimate right to sell their goods in urban streets. This exposes them to harassment, including confiscation of goods, assault and demands for bribes.

Until the dawn of governance reform programmes in Africa, licenses were largely commodities of trade peddled by either urban authority officials or those who had access to the urban authorities. This outcome is attributed to planning laws, which do not take into account the existence of street vendors and informal traders. In most cases, such planning laws locate the traders on the peripheral areas of the city where there is no business, without any consultation. The experience across Africa shows that traders never stick to such areas. They drift back to the centre, resulting in punitive measures from the city authorities. Most of the policies and regulations being enforced on street and market traders owe their origin to colonial policies, which were retrogressive with regards to small scale local enterprises. Street and informal traders require laws that recognize their economic activities as an important component of the urban economy, and ensure their right to trading space.

Apart from the right to trading space, street and informal traders are also disadvantaged in the area of security, transport and municipal services. A secure working environment is a pre-requisite for any type of business. Security is a major concern for many people engaged in economic activities on streets. Municipal authorities have been the major source of insecurity for these traders. The authorities harass, beat and confiscate goods of street vendors without any warning. This does not only threaten the security of vendors but also their customers. A study of cities in South Africa has noted that an insecure environment results in loss of customers, frightens tourists, cripples business, reduces incomes, and generally interferes with trading.

The insecurity in the streets is sometimes used as an excuse for evicting street traders. In many cities in Africa, trading spaces of street and informal traders are viewed by urban authorities as dens for thugs and robbers. In 2001 Kampala Municipal Authority used an increase in city theft and insecurity as grounds for evicting vendors from streets. While it may be true that criminals mingle with traders, an assumption that street vendors and informal traders are criminals is part of a scheme by urban elites to exclude street and informal traders from the development benefits of cities. A rights perspective requires urban authorities to identify and deal with culprits as opposed to condemning a whole sector of an urban economy.

Most vendors find it difficult to transport their commodities from their homes and markets to their trading sites. This is because most transport systems do not service the areas where vendors live, and in cases where they do, the vendors can hardly afford the service. In some cases, there are restrictions on what an individual can take on the bus, mini-bus or train. This forces vendors to carry their goods on their backs or to hire handcarts or human carriers to transport their goods. This is complicated further by lack of storage facilities, which makes the traders carry back to their homes unsold commodities.

Other services such as water and sanitation are also not available to vendors and consumers. Apart from a few cities in South Africa, street and informal traders operate without access to water and sanitation. A few of them rely on services from the neighbouring formal markets, hotels and bars; while the majority of vendors rely on unsafe water sources, unsanitary methods of refuse disposal and use of open spaces as sanitary facilities. Others obtain services from their homes or nearby residential areas. Cleansing services provided by urban authorities are inadequate and do not cover trading areas of street and informal traders, nor do the urban authorities facilitate the provision of services by traders and other stakeholders. In cases where traders are organized, they clean their sites of operation or hire people to collect and dispose garbage.

The poor, in particular street and informal traders, are disadvantaged in trade at global, regional and local levels. Under pressure from rich countries, the barriers to international trade in goods and financial services and investment flows have been lowered to the advantage of capital over labour and of large firms over small and micro firms. The negative trade and policy processes largely disadvantage the wage workers and own account producers in the informal economy, and yet they are the majority poor who are the focus of current policies and development processes. The neglect of the micro and small traders has to be reversed if African countries are to change existing poverty trends.

* Dr. Winnie Mitullah is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Nairobi.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The Niger Delta has been described as "exploited, misused, abused, polluted, underdeveloped, and almost completely dead; like a cherry fruit sucked and discarded". [1] Nnimmo Bassey looks at the crude oil trade in the Niger Delta and finds it's anything but sweet for local communities.

The Niger Delta of Nigeria has been in the news so repeatedly that the issues merit little introduction. In one sense the issues are a mesh of politics, trade and resource exploitation. All these work to gravely undermine the rights of people in terms of the exploitation of their natural environment.

The Niger Delta is the treasure base of Nigeria, since successive governments have decided to ignore other sustainable income sources that had sustained the nation before the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the country. Today, by official count, oil contributes about 95% of the country's foreign exchange earnings from a production of 2.2 million barrels of crude per day. An additional chunk is extracted illegally into private and corporate pockets through crude oil bunkering. These all lead to the milking of the Niger Delta to the point of near death. The area suffers a dearth of social amenities, high unemployment, environmental degradation, and other social malaise.

Oil corporations such as Shell and Chevron, who are major players in the Niger Delta, have admitted to contributing to corruption and violence/civil unrest in the Niger Delta. In Shell's Peace and Security report (published in 2003) as well as Chevron's double page ads in Nigerian newspapers in May 2005, the corporations admit that by their actions they have contributed to the state of conflict, corruption and distortion in both the Niger Delta environment and by extension the Nigerian state.

According to the Shell report: "Annual casualties from fighting already place the Niger Delta in the 'high intensity conflict' category (over 1,000 fatalities a year), alongside more known cases such as Chechnya and Colombia. The criminalisation and political economy of conflicts in the region mean that the basis for escalated, protracted and entrenched violence is rapidly being established. This not only threatens SCIN's (Shell Companies in Nigeria) future ability to operate, but also Nigerian national security." [2]

Trade has remained the major precursor of destruction in the Niger Delta. We can go right back to trade practices where highly valuable goods were exchanged for bottles of whisky, beads and mirrors, or to the days during which the Niger Delta lost human resources through the slave trade. Before the advent of the crude oil trade in the Niger Delta, we have it on record that on 22 February 1895 the trading city, Brass, located here, was attacked and levelled by British naval forces at the behest of the Royal Niger Company to ensure that the company had a monopoly over the palm oil trade for which the town was famous. Over 2,000 persons, mostly women and children, lost their lives in that attack.

In modern day times, it has been said that since Shell arrived in the Niger Delta it has been a tale of desolation. Much of the activities in the Niger Delta with regard to crude oil and its exploitation are shrouded in rights abuses, as the world came to learn from the struggles of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni people and the subsequent hanging of Saro-Wiwa.

There is an unending story of horrors coming out of the Niger Delta. Oil spills and pipeline fires are regular features and official estimates are that there are at least 300 incidents each year. Clean up exercises are spade and shovel events. They are often capped off by the setting of remaining crude oil on fire. This way forests and even rivers have been set ablaze. These crude oil spills poison the land, pollute water bodies and expose the people to untold hardship. Consider also the response to communities attempting to protect their rights:

- In 1990, the Umuechem community was visited by contingents of Nigerian police. Eighty community members were murdered in the unprovoked attack. Houses in the community were either burnt down or looted. The people of Umuechem were engaged in peaceful protests at the gates of the Shell's flow station located in their community. [3]

- On November 10, 1995, the Nigerian military regime of General Sani Abacha murdered Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta after a kangaroo tribunal set up by the regime convicted them for trumped up charges of murder. The world responded with outrage. This followed the commencement of peaceful protests in1993 by the Ogoni against the destruction of their natural environment and livelihoods.

- For the people of Ilaje community, Ondo State of Nigeria, May 28, 1998 is a day they cannot forget in a hurry. Ilaje youths had occupied Chevron's oil platform in order to induce Chevron to have a dialogue with them. The Nigerian military and police swooped down in helicopters on the protesting youths. Reports have it that the attackers landed shooting, Rambo style, killing two youths on the spot. [4] A lawsuit is currently being heard on this in San Francisco, USA.

- On November 20, 1999, barely six months into his first term as civilian president of Nigeria, President Obasanjo ordered soldiers into Odi, a town in the Niger Delta. By the time they left, the destruction of Odi was complete and 2,483 people had been slain. The dead included women, children and the aged and infirm. [5]

- About 50 members of Odioma community in Bayelsa State of Nigeria were reported massacred on Saturday, February 19, 2005 during a military raid by a Joint Task Force of the Nigerian Army and Navy. [6] The soldiers also destroyed the whole community with houses bombed and burnt in a manner reminiscent of the Odi Massacre of 1999. Again, those killed were mostly women, children and the elderly. Odioma Community, located in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, is one of the many oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta and had been in conflict with neighbouring Bassambri community over the ownership of a fishing settlement, where Shell has some oil wells. Shell planned to build an oil flow station at Obioku and had actually mobilized its contractors to the site since January 20, 2005. Work on the project was stopped by protesting youths from Odioma community because of the lack of an Environmental Impact Assessment.

Apart from vigorous protests by communities, the struggle for human rights gained momentum on 14 November 2005 when a high court sitting in Benin City ruled that the practice of flaring gas associated with crude oil extraction was an infringement of the fundamental human rights of the people living in communities where such flaring existed. The judge subsequently ordered that the top guns of Shell and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) should appear before him to show a clear step by step plan for stopping gas flaring a year from that date. This and other gas flare cases have been filed by communities with the collaboration of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria) as well as the Climate Justice Programme.

Gas flaring has been going on in the Niger Delta for close to 50 years and has been estimated to constitute a waste of $2.5 billion annually. Besides being an economic waste, the flares release a cocktail of toxic and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and greatly endanger the lives of people. Health problems associated with gas flares include respiratory diseases, cancer, acute nonlymphocytic leukemia and a variety of other blood-related disorders. The environmental problems, including acid rain and damage to water bodies and farms, are no less horrendous.

The government and Chevron (project executors) of the West African Gas Pipeline project (WAGP), which is planned to harvest and pipe liquefied natural gas from new gas fields in Escravos in the Niger Delta of Nigeria to industrial complexes in Benin Republic, Togo and Ghana, have been presenting it as an answer to the gas flaring problem. They also present the WAGP as a clean development mechanism project in order to claim carbon credits.

The truth however is that the project has nothing to do with ending or reducing gas flaring in the Niger Delta as a huge proportion of the gas it would convey would be harvested from purely gas fields as opposed to being associated gas. Communities affected by this project have sent a petition to the Inspection Panel of the World Bank claiming that many rules of the bank have been flouted in the project and that their rights are not respected. Indeed, the local communities in the firing lines of this project have rejected the scheme and insist that decisions have been made without first conducting the needed environmental, social and other impact assessments. The WAGP is emblematic of the rape of the Niger Delta by TNCs and collaborating governments. Projects and trade decisions are made without regard to the rights of the people.

But as the oil wells begin to run dry, the competition is getting more acute. The Chinese are making bold grabs for the oil fields of the Niger Delta. The USA sees the region as being of critical strategic interest. The World Bank and the Paris Club eye the petrodollars coming into the region as theirs for the taking. All these combine to make the future of the region more precarious. With growing resistance in the region it is anyone's guess how things will play out.

While the trade booms, having rights respected will remain illusive. The realisation of this appears to form the bedrock of the local people insisting that there should be community control over community resources. They reckon that this way they would be able to decide if they want any mineral to be exploited in their environment or not. Where the people decide to have their resources exploited they would be able to insist on certain rules that would ensure that their rights are respected and that benefits from such exploitation accrues to them.

It is conceivable that the refusal of the state to accept this proposition is the trigger to the present conflagration in the Niger Delta. Another growing demand among environmentalists such as those in the Oilwatch International network is that there should be a moratorium on new oil explorations, for say ten years. The intervening time would be used to make an audit of the pollution and abuses that have accumulated over the years, commence clean up and remediation actions and decide how the vulnerable communities would fare in a post petroleum economy when they would be left with nothing but a polluted environment.

* Nnimmo Bassey is Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth Africa campaign co-ordinator.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

References

[1] Quoted in Terisa E. Turner and Leigh S. Brownhill, “Why women are at war with Chevron” Nigerian Subsistence Struggles Against the International Oil Industry, New York: International Oil Working Group, 2003. Accessed at http://www.uoguelph.ca/~terisatu/un.htm on 29 May 2006.

[2] Peace and Security in the Niger Delta: Conflict Expert Group Baseline Report, SPDC, December 2003

[3] See The Shell Report by Environmental Rights Action (ERA) at www.eraction.org/modules/publications/docs/shellreport.pdf

[4] ERA The Wicked Activities of Chevron in Ilaje Land, Environmental Testimonies # 3 published in Environmental Testimonies, ERA, Benin City Nigeria, 1999. See Also Environmental Testimonies #5 in same publication.

[5] See ERA: A Blanket of Silence. The publication catalogues names of victims.

[6] See Nigerian Soldiers Destroy Odioma Community, 50 local people killed.

To: H.E. Professor Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairperson of The Commission of the African Union

We write as representatives of African Civil Society to draw your attention to our serious concerns about the exclusion of organised and independent civil society organisations from last two Summit meetings of the African Union, and the non-organisation of the AU pre-summit CSO meetings. Like the 2005 Tripoli Summit before it, the last Khartoum Summit of the African Union in January 2006 excluded organised civil society presence and involvement.

We are dismayed at these developments, which appear to contradict the lofty promise of the preamble to the AU’s Constitutive Act in which the Heads of State of Africa professed a “common vision of a united and strong Africa energised by partnership between governments and all segments of civil society…”.

Towards seeking clarifications, redressing this and avoiding similar exclusions at the next and future summits, we humbly request for urgent consultations with the AU under your leadership. We shall be delighted if you are able to expedite consideration of our request and ensure that this situation is redressed before the forthcoming June-July 2006 Summit of the AU in The Gambia, in order to ensure CSO involvement the next and future summits.

We appreciate that The Commission, other structures of the AU and their officials maintain largely good relations with civil society, and that some member states are more welcoming than others. However, as independent and cohesive civil society we believe we must speak up on these developments as further exclusions by any future summit host countries will not only contradict Article 3g of the AU’s stated objective, in its Constitutive Acts to “promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance”, it could also shatter any hopes of ever realising the common vision of government-civil society partnership promised by the AU.

In addition to our concern that many civil society advocates were not able to secure entry clearance to Tripoli and Khartoum, and that the AU pre-summit CSO meetings did not hold, we are even more deeply concerned about the hostility displayed towards even minimum civil society presence.

On 21 January, just as the meeting of the Executive (Ministerial) Council of the AU was drawing to an end, security operatives of Sudan’s government arrested en masse, 35 representatives of African and international civil society and media organisations who had lawfully entered Khartoum while in a meeting to discuss mechanisms of effective partnership with the African Union. Also “arrested” were all lap top computers, note pads, papers and all instruments of record keeping in the possession of the civil society advocates. The arresting operatives reportedly assaulted some of the participants. Several hours later, the government of Sudan released their human prisoners. Till date, however, it retains indefinite custody of the computers and records.

This is all the more shocking because we believe that the establishment of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOC) of the AU as one of the organisation’s principal organs nearly two years ago was supposed to end this kind of drama and, place civil society’s partnership with the African Union and African governments on a sound and secure footing.

AU Summits are the major venue for regional policy making. Representatives of international and multi-lateral actors are always to be found at these Summits. The exclusion of, or harassment of African civil society at Summits could be seen as reverse discrimination against African voices in our own continent at a time when the continent deserves to enlist all the support it can muster from Africans and people of goodwill around the world.

We therefore fear that continuing exclusions of African CSO’s will worsen rather than accelerate the resolution of Africa’s numerous development problems.

To avert such a scenario, we propose that the AU should:

(a) Affirm the entitlement of African civil society to attend, hold meetings and participate in the coming summit to be hosted by Gambia, and future AU Summits; other AU meetings/events; or otherwise engage the AU as partners with our governments in the important and urgent task of ensuring the full social and economic development of Africa.

(b) Institute transparent standards and access requirements to be met by all subsequent hosts of its Summits; and liaise with host countries to ensure that CSO delegates do not suffer harassment. (c) Ensure adequate consultation with a view to urgent completion of the pending review of the 1993 rules on civil society consultation with the AU; and (d) Encourage the speedy establishment of independent structures for AU’s ECOSOC.

We reaffirm our believe that the development challenges facing our continent especially around key issues such as: Democracy and Good Governance; Human Rights; Gender Equality and Women’s Rights; Academic and Intellectual freedom; Economic and Social rights; Freedom of Expression and the Media; Human Security, Peace and Conflict issues; Food security; Health and in particular HIV/AIDS and other Public Health issues; Education, Science and Technology and ICT; Historical and Cultural Rights, Youth Development and many more cannot be resolved without the involvement of civil society.

We place ourselves at the disposal of the Commission of the AU for the purpose of clarifying and resolving the above concerns.

Signed by 56 Organisations (for full text and details of signatories, see link below)

Ndungu Wainaina reflects on the succession politics presently waging in Kenya. He argues that the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) rose to power owing to the public desire for broad constitutional reforms in the sphere of governance to guarantee among others, human rights. Sadly, the coalition is now disintegrated and concludes that the task of completing the constitutional review and democratic transition in the country remains with all Kenyans.

The Kenyan state is in transition. The upcoming general elections in 2007 and the impending Kibaki succession are wrecking havoc on the political scene. But the agenda for this election is not clear. As of now the country stands between the possibility for progress into reforms and the rebirth of a new nation built on the firm tenets of democratic government and the respect for and promotion of human rights, or regression into the abyss of authoritarianism and bad governance. The 2002 general elections that saw the exit of the Kenya African National Union from state power for the first time in independent Kenya was primarily driven by the general public desire for reforms in governance, constitutional review and human rights spheres. The quest for a new democratic constitutional order was so central that all the political parties consistently promised to deliver a new democratic constitutional dispensation once they ascended into power.

The now disintegrated National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), won the elections on the promise of establishing a new constitutional dispensation within 100 days of getting into office. NARC won the elections, but failed to facilitate the making of the new constitution. This has resulted in a credibility deficit for the new government. Following the removal from government of the Liberal Democratic Party, a key partner in the Coalition, courtesy of the reconstituted cabinet in December 2005, the National Rainbow Coalition seems to have been dissolved. This has had a tremendous effect on the conduct of coalition politics in the country and the growth of constitutional democracy.

Four years after it was elected on the platform of reforms the NARC Coalition has failed to spearhead any of the key reforms that Kenyans wanted. The government failed to manage and facilitate the constitutional review process. Courtesy of its policy of non-negotiation, the government has engendered polarization of the country. Constitutional reform is the greatest casualty of this failure in leadership by the current government. Ending official corruption, impunity, institutional transformation and restoring the rule of law has fallen flat. Instituting a legitimate and radical transitional justice process in order to offer a firm socio-political and cultural framework to advance democratization and human development has been deferred. Continued reference to corruption cases in court is irrelevant as long as no tangible results are evident.

The reform of institutions has been slow, superficial, and misdirected. The conception and institution of the Governance, Justice, Law and Order Sector (GJLOS) reform has presented a situation where the path and direction of reforms has been reduced into a patching up process. Even though the president has insisted that his government is committed to socio-economic reforms to respond to the massive inequalities and poverty, results are mixed. The reported economic growth rate is lopsided in favour of the few big mainstream businesses while disinheriting the largest chunk of the population.

The country, now faced with the upcoming general election, is preoccupied with the intertwined political questions of undertaking a successful constitutional review and governance reforms and the Kibaki succession. Politically, Kenya is only democratic to the extent of regular elections; the government’s responsiveness to the will and the wishes of the people remains very limited. The progress towards democratic governance in Kenya depends more on the capacity of the citizenry to demand and protect their space and not magnanimity of the state.

The task of completing the constitutional review and democratic transition in the country remains with all Kenyans. There is urgent need to establish, focus and strengthen the citizenry into a critical mass that will provide the philosophical, institutional and logistical support to the various initiatives of the citizenry to develop a popular coalition to force and enhance the national drive towards completing the constitutional review and institutionalizing just and democratic governance in Kenya.

The experience of NARC has shown that regime change is not sufficient to facilitate democratic change. It is only right that the general Kenyan populace should in addition to being informed and made aware, be fully included in the quest for a new constitution and democratic order. For this to happen there is great need to consolidate and promote the emergence of a strong constituency of grassroots’ constitutional and democracy crusaders. The population has increasingly lost faith in the capacity of the government and commitment of the politicians to review the constitution and entrench democratic governance. More and more Kenyans are getting despondent. There is evidence that this development is neither entirely innocent nor accidental, but rather a consequence of political elite rigged democratic development.

The country requires the commitment of a core of champions around a common new vision for Kenya. This would guarantee democratic governance and social development. The sole objective of this core would be to drive and establish a new leadership to ensure the enjoyment of democratic governance by all. A large constituency of disinherited and excluded people is not only a great threat to the nation’s stability, harmony and continued existence as a going concern but also potentially the breeding ground for rebellion. The new leadership would usher a unique situation and opportunity of not only establishing a new constitutional order but also putting in place social democracy practitioners as the leaders and governance implementers of long desired changes in Kenya.

This transformative change calls for a core of leaders and citizens who are driven by higher values and aspirations than just material accumulation and professional excellence. It calls for an efficient economy with a human face; a strong political edifice with a human heart. If Kenya is to start dealing with her unhappy past comprehensively and decisively and to build a brighter future for all, then it will require people with a passion to serve and to change things; in the public, private and voluntary sector. It will require men and women with a dream great enough to die for and a vision big enough for everyone to have a part in it. It is time for converting the citizenry from casual observers to major stakeholders in this country. This will not threaten any one but rather secure the interests of even those who have done much to hurt the interest of the citizens and the country at large.

* Ndungu Wainaina is a Programme Officer, NCEC and Director, International Center for Policy and Conflict. P.O.Box 11996-00400 Nairobi. Tel: 4445974, 4446313; email: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Graduate student Amy Niang meets well known history professor Joseph Ki-Zerbo at his home in Burkina Faso.

There is an incommensurable gap between the old and younger generation of Africans. We - African youth - have grown up, been made to believe that anything ‘traditional’ or ‘old’ is necessarily retrograde, often ‘unreliable.’

Young Africans, especially children of the Diaspora, do not have the advantage of communicating with their past, a handicap that inhibits a corrective study of African history and deepens their incapacity to take their destiny in hand. According to an African proverb, “he who is lost doesn’t know where he comes from.”

I had the immense honor to meet the first African to qualify as professor of history, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, at his house in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (West Africa). At 84 today, weakened by age and sickness, Ki-Zerbo still draws amazing strength and vitality from his deeply-rooted convictions. He may have been preaching in the desert for decades but men like him live by their principles and his writings find resonance. African and world scholars have understood his message.

Ki-Zerbo deplores the increasing extinction of African identity. According to him, the curse of Africa is not the chronic poverty of its countries but the ignorance of its children of the true history and the true values of the continent. Unless Africans start learning about their own continent, their own thought system and the essence of its traditions, they will remain locked into the stranglehold of cultural identity.

It’s high time Africans liberate themselves from cultural asphyxiation, high time they went in search of what it is to be African, to draw the necessary lessons from their own traditional history in order to apprehend the future with confidence. The approach will consist, for Africa, in re-conquering its confiscated identity for, according to Ki-Zerbo, “without identity, we are just a mere object of history, a prop in the play of globalization, an instrument used by the others. A utensil.”

Ki-Zerbo narrates African past not in the way of a nostalgic chronicler who wallows in past glory or dwells into an imaginary fantasyland of pre-colonial Africa. He uncovers the history he was not taught at La Sorbonne University in France.

According to Ki-Zerbo, throughout history strong beliefs in simple principles such as the importance of family over the individual, the respect of elders, the spirit of sharing and good neighborliness, human communion in joy and sadness, etc, have been the bedrock of existence for Africans. Unfortunately, the degradation of these principles has blighted prospects for Pan-Africanism and development. But Ki-Zerbo warns us that “liberation for Africa will be Pan-African or will not be.”

Today, the debate over Africa is enmeshed in endless and ineffectual squabbling over the legitimacy of pseudo-democracies and misleading conflicts. But Ki-Zerbo argues that “the conception of power as well as its management in today’s Africa has nothing African to it.” In fact, political formations in pre-colonial Africa are rich with institutions based on a division of power with the greater possible number of people.

Africans, he says, “believe that power should be divided among its incumbents. They also believe that stability could be preserved in the multiplication of power.” He debunks misconceptions about African history and dominant theories that deliberately confine the history of the continent to the slave trade and the colonial experience. He adds that historical knowledge is a condition to collective liberation as the linkage between historical knowledge and self-worth is undeniable. In Africa, the lack of this knowledge has greatly contributed to underachievement and ‘mental underdevelopment.’

Ki-Zerbo is a man of vision and a soothsayer but he does not read Africa’s future in the sand of its drying soil; he uses the dialectical process of history as an investigative method to uncover the true past of the continent in order to understand the underpinnings of Africa’s value systems. He then tells us what a de-structured society can expect to see: the import and application of values that do not fit its peoples, which eventually will lead to the destruction of cultural identity.

His unsparing analysis and sharp, perceptive, riveting, pertinent, careful and thorough study of Africa’s history as well as its relations with the West has yielded a great number of articles and monographs, among which have been the comprehensive “History of Black Africa” (1972) that laid the foundation of a lifetime of scholarship and commitment to restoring the history of Africa by Africans. He also supervised the publication of two of the monumental eight-volume “General History of Africa” (Méthodologie et Préhistoire Africaine, 1981) as a member of the Scientific Committee for UNESCO.

He explores Africa’s past, drawing from oral tradition that is, in essence, the source of history and traditions for many African writers such as Mali’s late Amadou Hampaté-Bâ, who once said: “When an old man dies in Africa, it is like a whole library burning down.”

Ki-Zerbo’s life struggle and relentless social and political activism are not just a message of hope for Africa. It is the deep conviction of a man who knows that African development cannot be elusive forever and that it will be ‘African’ in conception and application or will not be. This knowledge is what he wishes young Africans to oppose against heavy odds and unacceptable immobilization, against institutionalized ignorance and empty rhetoric.

* Amy Niang is a Senegalese graduate student at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. E-mail her at [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

In the aftermath of the acquittal of former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma on charges of rape, it seems that everyone has had an opinion on the judgment – and an opinion on everyone else’s opinion. Last week, Pambazuka News carried a series of articles on the trial and this week reactions have continued to be sent in. Here, Kristin Palitza voices her views.

South Africa’s former deputy president Jacob Zuma has been found not guilty. This was judge Willem van der Merwe’s verdict based on the evidence presented to him. But the truth, and nothing but the truth, will only be known by two people – the complainant and the accused.

What will remain – as a legacy to all South Africans – are the implications of the trial with regards to women’s rights and violence against women.

The judge concluded that consensual sex took place between Zuma and the 31-year-old HIV-positive AIDS activist dubbed Kwezi. He gathered this by firstly deciding that she was not a lesbian, as she claimed herself, but bisexual with lesbian tendencies. In other words, it was possible that she would willingly engage in sex with a man.

What was also used against Kwezi was her statement that although HIV-positive persons should practice safe sex it was ultimately the decision of each individual to do so. According to van der Merwe, this assertion showed that Kwezi might have used her discretion when having sexual intercourse with Zuma, and he therefore turned down the argument that HIV-positive Kwezi would not have agreed to unprotected sex. But isn’t there an alternative interpretation? Kwezi’s statement could very well be read as a personal commitment to safe sex, while refusing to deny the right of other HIV-positive persons to make their own decisions.

Without forensic evidence available to him, van der Merwe based his verdict on who – complainant or accused – seemed to be the more credible person. He found that in this ‘unique case with unique features’ as he liked to call it, it was ‘relevant’ to take the complainant’s sexual history into account. And after he publicly paraded Kwezi’s sexual history in great detail, he decided that it was Jacob Zuma’s version of the incident that was the most reliable.

As all South Africans believe by now, Kwezi is a serial rape accuser. Although it is true that her past does not particularly work in her favour, we cannot conclude with certainty that she lied in this case. Apart from that, who is to say that all the men she allegedly accused of rape in the past tell the truth when not even half of the ‘cases’ have actually come to court and some are purely based on hearsay?

For unknown reasons, the judge did not apply the common legal rule that bad character evidence does not presume bad acts. Instead, he ruled that Kwezi’s history of what he decided were false rape accusations eroded her credibility in her case against Zuma. He concluded that Kwezi’s credibility was ‘wanting’ because ‘at a young age, she already made allegations of rape when no rape took place’.

Van der Merwe also chose to ignore the fact that many of the alleged rapes took place when Kwezi was under age, and thus any sexual act performed on her as a minor would according to South African law equal molestation and/or statutory rape. He further disregarded the fact that, because the majority of the rape allegations never came to trial, his inquiries about events that took place more than a decade ago became ‘he said, she said’ reports without providing factual evidence.

His argumentation then raised the question of why Kwezi would have chosen to go through the trauma of the trial. And here, again, van der Merwe opted to agree with the statement of male testifiers (who do not have psychological qualifications) that Kwezi was ‘a sick person who needs help’. The judge decided it was likely that – based on her sexual history – Kwezi perceived any sexual behaviour as threatening, and further concluded that Kwezi was pretending to be a meek, submissive person, while she was, in fact ‘a strong person who knows what she wants’. It was therefore unlikely that Kwezi would have not screamed when raped, especially if the accused surprised her when she was already asleep.

What van der Merwe fails to consider or understand is how easily charismatic and influential men can abuse their power, especially when dealing with easily manipulated women with a traumatic past. Yet, the judge concluded that only a ‘foolish, over-confident rapist’ would return to the crime scene to talk to his victim and thereby pre-supposed Zuma’s psychological profile and abilities.

Why did he not find it necessary to have Zuma’s psyche studied to professionally establish what he is or isn’t capable of, rather than making his own assumptions, especially since Zuma is well known to all South Africans as an enigmatic, confident and self-assured public figure?

Van der Merwe clearly did not understand or did not want to understand that it is hard to predict how a woman will react when being violated. He argued that the following points indicated consensual sex: Kwezi didn’t scream, said no twice to the massage but not to the penetration, did not call the police or lock her door, and did not leave Zuma’s house immediately after the incident. Yet, there is simply no way of drawing unanimous conclusions about how people react in certain situation. And why did van der Merwe think it was appropriate to generalise women’s behaviour in this instance, after insisting on the ‘uniqueness’ of the case when deciding upon the relevance of Kwezi’s sexual history?

It is true that one possible interpretation of Kwezi’s actions could be that she was comfortable with their sexual interaction. But it is equally probable that she did not leap into action after the intercourse because she was heavily traumatised, confused, intimidated and extremely frightened of the prospect of taking on one of the most powerful men in the country – not to mention a man whom Kwezi openly supported and idolised.

Curious was also how effortlessly the judge brushed aside the analysis of Kwezi by well-respected State-appointed Dr. Merle Friedman while deciding that the findings of Dr. Louise Olivier, paid by Zuma’s defence team, were the more trustworthy ones. Even if Olivier’s statement that only 10% of women freeze when raped is correct – who is to decide that Kwezi does not belong to this minority?

It is true that Kwezi undermined her own credibility by refusing to be examined by Olivier, but then again, who could blame her? Especially since it is public knowledge that Zuma paid an estimated R1.2 million to R1.8 million for his defence, including Olivier’s fee. Why did the judiciary not make an effort to provide an independent psychologist to analyse the psyche of the complainant?

We must also note that while van der Merwe did not consider Kwezi’s mother a reliable witness because of her emotional bias towards her daughter, he had no qualms taking statements made by Zuma’s daughter Duduzile as the truth. It did not occur to him that Duduzile might be equally biased – towards her dad.

Another important reason for the verdict was that the judge did not accept Kwezi’s claim of having a father-daughter-relationship with Zuma – because a) they had been out of touch for more than ten years before they resumed contact, and b) Duduzile denied that Kwezi was a good family friend. Here, Kwezi’s statement stands directly against Duduzile’s, and the judge decided to believe the latter. Why? Again, because Kwezi was, in his view, not credible because of her sexual history.

Van der Merwe even went further when he concluded that – now that he established that there was no paternal relationship – Kwezi’s cell phone messages to Zuma signed off with ‘love, hugs and kisses’ must have been meant as sexual invitations. The judge described Kwezi as ‘inappropriately dressed’ (again, largely based on a comment by Duduzile) and observed that Kwezi did not object to Zuma coming to her room despite previous sexually charged conversations. In other words, it came down, once again, to the old justification of the woman having acted proactively and in a way to invite and encourage a sexual encounter.

It is a major setback to women’s rights that a woman’s sexual history, clothing and ‘inviting behaviour’ has once again been used to her disadvantage, while the man’s sexual history has not even been discussed.

* Kristin Palitza is the editor of Agenda, a journal on women’s rights and gender.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

In the aftermath of the acquittal of former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma on charges of rape, it seems that everyone has had an opinion on the judgment – and an opinion on everyone else’s opinion. Last week, Pambazuka News carried a series of articles on the trial and this week reactions have continued to be sent in. Here, Liepollo Lebohang Pheko gives her opinion.

The past few weeks have been characterised by heated debate and unfettered anticipation about the verdict of the Zuma rape trial. The matter has polarised the nation not only across gender lines but also across class, ethnic and political lines. Having been in downtown Johannesburg when the verdict was announced, I imagined that the anticipated carnage that would have occurred had the verdict been different might have been physically inescapable. As it was the vuvuzelas, cheers and hooters indicated that to some citizens’ estimations, justice has been served.

In addition to the woefully pedestrian prosecution, “Kwezi’s” case was hampered by several social and political complexities. I hold the theoretical view that race, culture, gender, class, and ethnicity are not “external variables” but rather inherent features in an ongoing process of constructing how we understand and participate in the larger social, cultural, and political discourse. This was best encapsulated by two divergent views expressed in the wake of the trial –one by a lawyer colleague and the other by a teller at my local Pick’n Pay. The former stated that he would certainly be attending the ANC congress next year in order to keep Zuma out of the presidency, adding that he attributes blame for this debacle to Mbeki’s aloof and unapproachable leadership style. The young sister at the till jubilantly told me that she would again vote ANC if Zuma were President adding that she as a Zulu woman is tired of Xhosas. Upon my rejoinder that tribalism is not healthy for any nation she heartily responded - “They started it”.

The clear ethnic divide that this case has opened is like a fine dye in which clothes have been soaked. It will take several washes to examine the extent to which the colour has been set and several more to remove it should it be found not to our liking. This case exacerbates and evokes every moment of tension and hatred experienced during the scourge of “black on black violence” and the blood shed in KZN before the elections of 1994. It is moments such as this that should remind us that the matchstick lit in Rwanda in 1994 could be ignited in any country whether through Western interference or the interests of Multi National Companies. Rwanda, the Darfur region and Angola for example are chilling reminders that no-one may be left to recall “who started it”.

The notion of justice is fragile and often fluid. This case illustrates that the legal process has run its course and that political interests are willing to subvert this process for other ends. Whether this is a slap for President Mbeki, an attempt to divert attention from the upcoming corruption trial, or an endeavour to install a working class president to supposedly ensure “workers right’ even though Jacob Zuma has never stood by workers during his cabinet tenure, the loser here is the credibility of any woman who walks into any police station or courtroom to lay a charge of rape.

The law, police , lawyers and judges in this or any matter are not amorphous beings without bias but people with opinions on various types of sexual behaviour and orientation (witness Judge der Merwe’s chastisement of Zuma), perceptions on correct physical and emotional responses to rape, understanding of culture, on religion, on politics and even dress-code. In all this we could not forget that no matter how close Zuma may have been to Kwezi’s parents, Kwezi herself is not of notable ‘political royalty’ , is not a BEE magnate and has no access to the sort of political and media spin doctoring at Zuma’s disposal.

As the TV media dismissively described the hasty exit of gender activists from the courtroom, many in tears, the ultimate victims of the process were left decimated - the rape of authentic moral regeneration, the rape of any woman’s right to make self determined choices about her social and private life, the rape of male accountability, and the rape of trust. The breach includes trust in positive cultural practises, trust in elders, trust in men who believe consent is implied by accepting a dinner date, trust in other women who cried “burn the bitch”, trust in the legal system and trust even in our own ability to relate to each other as one dignified nation rather than one fragmented by skewed understanding of gender, ethnicity, class and political orientation. When our essence has been torched and all that remains are the carcasses of the nation we could have been and the people we should have been, who indeed will be left to recall what greatness and humanity truly are.

* Liepollo Lebohang Pheko is a Senior Policy Analyst at GENTA

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The speed with which the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa was ratified broke all records for the ratification of continental human rights instruments in Africa. By 25th November 2005, the Protocol came into force having received the required 15 ratifications. Irungu Houghton reviews the origins of the Protocol, its ratification process and the path that lies ahead.

This paper outlines the background to the coming into force of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. It sets out the legal status of the Protocol and the instruments and mechanism for enforcing its provisions. It then frames future challenges for its ratification, domestication and implementation and ends by recommending four priority areas for the Committee to consider alongside the advisory role it has been assigned.

Background to the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

A quick examination of the reality for women and girls lives in 2006 establishes the strategic importance of the Protocol for changing negative power relations, gender inequality and the disempowerment and impoverishment of women in Africa.

Our Political and Economic Reality and Provisions of the Protocol:

- Over 60% of the two million victims of conflict in the 1990s were women and children. 50% of Africa’s six million refugees and 17 million internally displaced peoples are women.

The Protocol makes special provisions for female refugees and also calls for the promotion and maintenance of peace, as well as protection in times of armed conflict. This includes needs arising from shelter, supplies, healthcare and protection from violence.

- 70% of the estimated 1.3 billion poor people in the world are women and girls.

The Protocol specifically recognises the rights of vulnerable groups of women, including widows, elderly women, disabled women and ‘women in distress’, which includes poor women, women from marginalised population groups.

- Problems with safe abortion, pregnancy and childbirth cause the deaths of at least 250,000 women each year in Africa. Against the total population, this is the highest figure in the world.

The Protocol states that women’s sexual and reproductive health is to be both respected and promoted, which is predicated on women's right to control their fertility and by the obligation of states to provide adequate, affordable and accessible health services. It also demands that governments establish and strengthen existing pre-natal, delivery and post-natal services for all African women. The Protocol also calls for the authorisation of medical abortions in cases of sexual assault/rape, incest or unsafe pregnancies.

- 57% of the 23 million adults with HIV/AIDS in sub- Saharan Africa are women. Young women (between the ages of 15 and 24) are three times more likely to be infected.

The Protocol enforces the right to self-protection, and to be informed of one’s health status and that of one’s partner. It also provides for health services to cope with the effects of HIV/AIDS.

- Slight positive increase in the percentage of women parliamentarians in the single or lower house from 7.2% in 1990 to 14.2% and some African countries have enforced a quota for the number of women in parliament such as Rwanda.

The Protocol endorses affirmative action to promote the equal participation of women, including equal representation of women in elected office, and calls for the equal representation of women in the judiciary and law enforcement agencies. Articulating a right to peace, the Protocol recognises the right of women to participate in the promotion and maintenance of peace.

The Protocol provides a critical framework to address other integral issues to realising African women’s rights. (Karoline Kemp’s article in a forthcoming book goes further to popularise this.)

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights came into force on 21 October 1986. It includes the right to self-determination and full sovereignty over natural resources, the right to peace and the right to a favourable environment for development. The Charter established the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is responsible for enforcing the rights enshrined in the charter.

Though the African charter recognises the importance of women’s rights, it was widely acknowledged to be inadequate on the areas in which women need protection and gender equality. (The charter recognises the importance of women’s rights through four key articles namely: Article 2, the non-discrimination clause, which provides that the rights and freedoms enshrined in the charter will be enjoyed by all irrespective of their sex; Article 3, which states that every individual will be equal before the law and be entitled to the equal protection of the law, Article 18(3), which is specifically about the protection of the family and promises to ensure the elimination of discrimination against women and protect their rights and Article 60, which states that the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights will draw inspiration from international human rights instruments such as CEDAW (See Rita Anyumba chapter on Instruments on women’s rights in forthcoming book “Breathing Life into the African Union Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa”)

The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa

The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). The Protocol was adopted on 11 July 2003 during the Second Ordinary Heads of States and Governments Summit held in Maputo, Mozambique. This was a long-awaited realisation, as it had taken eight years for the draft text of this critical new human rights instrument for African women to be adopted. Article 26 of the Protocol cites obligations of the state parties. They are expected to implement and monitor the actualisation of the rights provided in the Protocol and, in
particular, provide budgetary and other resources for the full and effective implementation of the rights recognised in the Protocol. They are also expected to report on progress in their periodic reports to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

With only The Comoros having ratified the Protocol one year after its adoption, there was a concern that its ratification and domestication would take the same time or even longer. (Similar instruments have taken a long time to be ratified and enter into force. The ACHPR was adopted in 1981, but only came into force in 1986 – five years later. The Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights came into force in 2004, six years after its adoption in 1998. And the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which was adopted in 1990, came into force nine years later.) Women’s and human rights organisations took stock of the slow progress of ratification in April 2004 and reached out with the African Union Commission to encourage governments to bring the Protocol into force swiftly and ensure its
subsequent domestication.

Legal Status of the Protocol in May 2006

“I write in response to your (SOAWR) letter in which you expressed concern that only 15 African countries had ratified the Protocol … Whilst I take note of your concern that although Botswana has not ratified the Protocol, our country is totally committed to ensuring that women’s rights are observed…” H.E. Festus G. Mogae, President of the Republic of Botswana, 20th December 2005

“I am ..pleased to note the excellent partnership between the AUC Directorate of Women, Gender and development and Solidarity on African Women’s Rights. This Coalition has achieved impressive results in terms of a speedy ratification process. It is indeed a successful partnership with lessons for all at the AUC.” Adv. Bience Gawanas, Commissioner for Social Affairs, close of conference remarks, September 2005

State of Ratifications

From June 2004, the pace of ratification has accelerated with amazing success. On the 25th November 2005, the Protocol came into force having received the required 15 ratifications. The speed of the ratification broke all records for the ratification of continental human rights instruments in Africa. This date was also significant as it also coincided with the start of the international 16 days of activism on ending violence against women.

Mechanisms for accessing Justice under the Protocol

Like the African Charter, the Protocol does not contain clauses, which permit member states to opt out of or derogate from applying its provisions. It is binding on all member-states that have ratified it. Under the African Charter, member states are obliged to undertake to submit to the Commission ‘a report on legislative or other measures taken…to giving effect to the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed by the present Charter’ every two years. Following the debate about a state’s report, the Commission prepares a set of final remarks which ordinarily includes information on the positive actions taken by a member state, core concerns and recommendations. They are then sent to the member state which is then required to provide, within two years, information on the measures taken in order to implement the said recommendations.

Although a small but growing number of states do make periodical reports and take it upon themselves to implement the recommendations they are given, the number of states that regularly present periodical reports is still few. This and the poor popularisation of the Protocol at national and regional levels will act to severely undermine its potential. Unless these trends are reversed, women and men will be prevented from claiming the rights accorded in the Protocol. It is critical that public information campaigns be undertaken periodically to increase public awareness and actions to close down the space for human rights violations and impunity.

As Mary Wandia has also noted at the national level, there is a lack of connection between the ministries of justice (closely linked with the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights), the ministries of foreign affairs (closely linked with the AU) and the ministries of gender/women. The first two ministries do not usually communicate effectively the commitments undertaken at the regional level to the latter. This has led to gaps in implementation and monitoring.

There are also multiple legal systems in place at national level in many African countries. It is the coexistence of statutory, religious and traditional systems that has led to violations of women’s rights in areas of marriage, inheritance and divorce. At the national level, parliaments, judiciary, ministries of gender/foreign affairs/justice/finance and national human rights institutions should be encouraged to support litigation, implementation and reporting mechanisms for the Protocol. These institutions could be more effective by ensuring regular tripartite meetings with CSOs to facilitate reporting on the progress in implementing the Protocol to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights as well as making the newly established Court on Human Rights relevant and accessible for all African peoples.

From Ratification to Implementation: The next frontier

The different status of countries requires a dual track approach. For countries that are yet to ratify they must be encouraged to do so with a sense of urgency.

It is important also that states ratify the Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. As of 14 December 2005, only 22 of the 53 AU member states have ratified this Protocol. When ratifying, states should enter provisions for the public to access justice under the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Currently, only Burkina Faso has made the declaration under Article 34(6) of the Protocol, granting individuals and non-governmental organizations direct access to the Court. To not do so, is to betray the vision of the African Union and the commitment of Governments to the promotion and protection of human rights in Africa.

For countries that have ratified, it is important to recognise that it is here that the promise of the Protocol will be either fulfilled or betrayed. As Ugandan activist Sarah Mukasa has noted, there is often a “disconnection between the pronouncements made at regional level and the action taken nationally and locally…domestication and implementation is riddled with challenges that will have to be overcome if the Protocol is to benefit the women it seeks to protect”. She goes on to identify three major obstacles in most countries namely; weak public appreciation of the centrality of constitutionalism and the rule of law, inadequately resourced national gender machinery and lastly, the precedence of entering reservations on progressive clauses. It is critical therefore that states are encouraged to domesticate the Protocol and expedite its implementation.

The review of Beijing plus 10 revealed the dangers of starving progressive visions and commitments. The Protocol requires finances and other resources to be an important tool for the realization of the rights of women. It should be noted, that there are a number of actions that can be taken that have little or no-monetary implications. This includes the removal of all discriminatory laws. States could also identify easy ‘quick wins’ for initial budgetary allocations, which demonstrate real change in the administration of justice. States would go a long way in breathing life to the Protocol by considering its
articles while mainstreaming gender in all budgets and programmes.

Distinguishing a role for the African Union Women’s Committee

With several continental mechanisms working on women’s empowerment, rights and gender equality, it is important to distinguish the role and aspiration of the Committee. There are five priority areas that the committee should consider focusing their energies on. (This is a menu of options, mandate, resources and time does not allow for the Committee to take on all agendas, but three to four objectives with appropriate benchmarks would be sufficient.)

The committee could schedule high-profile missions to capitals to urge the ratification, domestication and implementation of the SDGEA and the AU protocol on the Rights of Women (PRW). Developing key linkages with pan African women’s networks and movements as well as associations of women judges, lawyers and the Pan African Parliament, could strengthen the committee’s voice.

While encouraging universal ratification, it would be important for the committee to monitor, influence and encourage clean reservations to the Protocol. South Africa and The Gambia ratified the Protocol with reservations. In the case of South Africa, one of the reservations is to restrict access to the African Court by forcing citizens to apply for permission to a Parliamentary Committee. In the case of The Gambia, the reservations were fairly far-reaching. Recently, it has been inspiring to learn that these
harmful reservations are on the verge of being formally lifted. It would be important for the Committee members to make a personal commitment to ensuring “clean” ratifications from all countries.

Thirdly, the Committee can undertake high-profile missions or actions in the form of writing open letters either in solidarity against specific violations against women or also to celebrate breakthroughs and victories. This could be done either by advising the Chairperson of the AUC to speak out or by releasing them in the name of the Committee members. This will also breathe life into the concept of non-indifference on gender equality and roll back cultures of impunity.

While Darfur continues to be a scar on the conscience on Africa, the committee must break new frontiers in war-torn areas such as Northern Uganda. (Northern Uganda, at 19 years is Africa’s longest war and has not had the same attention as Darfur, Sudan.) The full committee need not undertake the missions but a few members could be selected on the basis of their knowledge of the issue, its importance and regional expertise.

Lastly, the committee could look outwards to the processes of UN reform and the monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals with a view to using the Solemn Declaration and the Protocol on Women’s Rights as a lens for measuring progress and agreeing on benchmarks and targets. To not do so, would be to run the danger of repeating the experience of the UN Millennium Summit last year where the deadline for the gender parity MDG passed without protest or censure of the 180 leaders present.

The Committee could champion the process of implementation by directly advocating with all African Governments that gender mainstreaming be vested and adequately resourced at the highest level of Government. Without this, the Protocol could die an early death confined to legal statutes and far from the living experiences of women and men on this continent.

* Country Status on the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa
Country Status on the ratification of the Protocol on th
Not yet Signed

Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Sahrawi Arab Democratic
Republic, Sao Tome & Principe, Sudan, Tunisia

Signed, but not Ratified

Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Rep. Of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Niger, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Seychelles, Somalia,

Ratified

Benin, Cape Verde, The Comoros, Djibouti, The Gambia, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania,
Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Togo

Sources for this briefing

- African Union Protocol to the African Charter on the Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of
Women in Africa, Addis

- African Union and SOAWR Breathing life into the African Union Protocol on Women's Rights in Africa, forthcoming July 2006

- SOAWR Not Yet a Force for Freedom, 2004

- PAMBAZUKA NEWS Issue 245 Islam and Women, 2006

- PAMBAZUKA NEWS Issue 231 Protocol comes into force, 2005

* This is the final version of a paper presented by invitation to the inauguration of the African Union Women’s Committee, April 28-29th 2006, Addis Ababa. Irungu Houghton is the Pan Africa Advisor for Oxfam based in Nairobi. He represents Oxfam in the Steering Committee for the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Coalition, a pan African coalition of 20 development and women’s organisations working to popularise, ratify and implement the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. He acknowledges the analysis of colleagues within the SOAWR coalition that will be published in forthcoming book co-published with the African Union entitled Breathing life into the African Union Protocol on Women's Rights in Africa, July 2006.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Nigeria, which has ambitions for international and African leadership, is currently debating a Bill that if passed will lead to a crackdown on gay rights. Cary Alan Johnson and Fadzai Muparutsa says the governments is crushing a minority to make points with conservatives.

The National Assembly of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is debating a bill that makes same-sex marriage as well as any form of protest for gay rights punishable by five years in prison. Make no mistake - the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act is not about gay marriage, which is essentially a non-issue in Nigeria. The intent of the proposed law is to further vilify and stigmatize an increasingly vocal minority.

Official debate on the bill hasn’t even started and already public attacks on homosexuals are on the rise. In the Federal Capital Abuja last month, a male couple was beaten by a mob shouting anti-gay slurs. The Sunday Sun weekly newspaper recently reported the expulsion of 15 “homosexual suspects” from the Nigerian Defense Academy in Kaduna citing the anti-gay position of the government to justify its action.

Why would a country with a vigorous a civil society, a relatively free press, and a vocal political opposition find itself debating such an undemocratic piece of legislation? Why do most Nigeria experts feel that the proposed bill would pass with little or no opposition with parliamentarians disregarding the long struggle Nigeria has waged for rule of law in their country - first against a brutal colonialism and then in the face of a series of repressive military dictatorships? Where are the voices of reason which, despite personal discomfort with homosexuality, will name this Act for what it is - a bigoted piece of hate speech posing as Nigerian family values?

With Nigeria facing major political, social and economic challenges, this attack on the country’s highly homosexual minority seems calibrated to curry favor with religious conservatives - Christian and Moslem - who agree on very little, but find common ground with the government in the condemnation of gay men and lesbians.

Same sex attracted people have always been part of Nigerian culture, but now many politicians and religious leaders want to characterize homosexuality as “unAfrican” and “immoral”. A “sodomy” conviction can already get you up to 14 years in prison in most of Nigeria and in the states of the north operating under Sharia law the penalty is death. The proposed Prohibition Act would make gay meetings, the registration of gay organizations, and any “public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private (sic)” punishable by five years in prison. The bill would make media debate of sexual rights, any gathering of gay men and lesbians -political or social - and any private intimate relationship between two people of the same sex a crime. Extortion, already a common feature of the lives of most Nigerian gay men and lesbians, would know no bounds.

Passage of the proposed legislation would constitute a major violation of international and regional human rights standards and challenge the protections of freedom of speech, assembly and association in Nigeria’s own constitution. Even the US State Department has expressed concern that the proposed law would be inconsistent with Nigeria’s international obligations.

The proposed curtailing of free speech is particularly frightening in light of the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria, where 5.4% of adults are HIV positive. HIV outreach workers must be free to provide HIV education and other services to men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women and to engage in frank, respectful discussions about human sexuality with all their clients. Anything less will jeopardize Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment efforts.

The debate over same-sex marriage is likely to rage for years, but the right to participate in that debate - or the debate over other controversial topics - should be sacrosanct. Nigeria has proclaimed itself ready to lead Africa, and the world, in the 21st century, by lobbying for a permanent seat on a proposed reconfiguration of the UN Security Council. The attack on basic human freedoms embodied in the Prohibition Act is a throwback, exposing the reactionary leanings of a government willing to crush an unpopular minority to make points with conservatives.

Nigerian media has reported that gay rights activists “stormed” the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Abuja in December of last year demanding their rights. In fact, openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Africans did participate in that conference, asking their governments, international donors and AIDS service organizations to pay greater attention to the HIV vulnerability of men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women. In response to this request, the Nigerian government is proposing legislation that threatens their very existence. In a country making claims to moral and political leadership on a continent struggling for economic justice, isn’t it already crystal clear that no part of the African family is expendable?

* Cary Alan Johnson is Senior Specialist for Africa with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Fadzai Muparutsa is Board Member,
Coalition of African Lesbians

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

Uganda, praised for its fight against HIV/AIDS, also makes homosexuality illegal. How, asks Victor Mukasa can any HIV/AIDS policy be successful if it excludes a sector of the population from its programmes.

HIV/AIDS is an epidemic and in order to control and eradicate it, all individuals no matter their sex, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, race, or any other status, must be included in all policies against the scourge. Uganda has been praised for her ‘excellent’ HIV/AIDS policy by the international community.

But the politics of pretence in Uganda is leading to the deaths of many Ugandans from HIV/AIDS. The main group that is suffering as a result of this pretence are homosexuals. The Ugandan government has previously asserted that homosexuals do not exist, yet it is clear that these people do exist. No wonder there are laws against homosexuality put in place. Even the few officials who openly admit that homosexuals exist in this country claim that they (homosexuals) do not deserve any kind of care when it comes to the AIDS scourge.

As a result, homosexuals in Uganda have been excluded from the National AIDS Policy. Simple logic is that once a particular group is not catered for in terms of HIV/AIDS then it cannot be claimed that the scourge is being effectively fought. If one chose to cater for only the male population, for example, that would be a waste of time and resources. Same with catering for, say, only southerners, and ignoring northerners, when there is the aspect of intermarriages. Likewise, once one caters for only heterosexuals, ignoring homosexuals, then one is wasting time. The uncatered (homosexuals) will still spread the disease to the catered (heterosexuals).

It is a fact that homosexuals exist in Uganda and that there are very harsh laws in place against their sexual activities. Among homosexuals are bisexuals. These will have sexual relationships with people of either sex. As if that is not enough, because of the harsh laws, homosexuals either engage in relationships with people of the opposite sex in order to disguise their criminalized nature or are forced into marriages with people of the opposite sex by family and/or friends.

The elimination of homosexuals from the Uganda AIDS Policy has therefore done more harm than good.

There is also the politics of intimidation. In conjunction with deliberately ignoring sexual minorities on matters of a deadly, worldwide health epidemic, the Ugandan government actively discourages agencies that may counsel and treat sexual minorities on HIV. In November of 2004, the government of Uganda warned UNAIDS not to assist sexual minorities in organizing a campaign that may reach out to members of its own group in an effort to stem HIV infections. The government defended its actions of exclusion by reminding UNAIDS that homosexuality is illegal.

Intimidating UNAIDS from assisting Ugandan sexual minorities had a domino effect on other NGOs: organizations who are otherwise willing to assist these minorities with HIV treatment and counseling do not dare to do so because they may lose their license as an NGO.

But why and how could an entire government comprised of individuals who claim to love their people come to this sort of decision? Even if they didn’t love their people, is it not the duty of the Ugandan government to protect Ugandans? Is not every Ugandan entitled to life?

In Uganda, public outreach and advertising campaigns address heterosexual HIV transmission only. This narrow-mindedness lethally deceives and disadvantages the entire sexual minority population. A qualified Ugandan physician who frequently treats patients for HIV complains that sexual minorities are an ignored key population: unprotected anal sex is – according to scientific research – the most risky behavior for spreading HIV. Yet, without government outreach, the key population of those who practice anal sex (often homosexual men, but heterosexuals too) is becoming infected unaware. Government advertising campaigns that depict HIV as a disease transmittable only through penal-vaginal contact put many couples – regardless of sexual orientation - unaware that HIV can be transmitted through anal sex.

It is important to note the size and importance of this anal sex “key population”: outside of intravenous drug users, anal sex (often associated with, but not exclusive to, male homosexual activity) is the most effective method of transmitting HIV. Yet, HIV/AIDS policies allow citizens to unknowingly contract HIV despite all of Uganda’s outreach efforts. This deletion, please note, is unlike any HIV/AIDS outreach program in America or Europe: other countries and regions protect their anal sex population specifically. The fact that the Ugandan government asserts that homosexuals do not exist within its territory and outlaws homosexual activity contributes to this deadly deletion in HIV/AIDS outreach.

Another government-influenced deletion concerning HIV/AIDS that affects Ugandan sexual minorities is a lack of available HIV prevention information suitable only for these minorities. That is, because sexual practices of homosexuals differ from those of heterosexuals, and Ugandan HIV/AIDS organizations are equipped by mandate to concern only penal-vaginal transmission, these minorities cannot receive HIV prevention counseling that may save their lives. Gay men will not receive needed advice about using lubricants that do not destroy condoms. Lesbians will not receive counseling on dental dams. In fact, if a lesbian seeks counseling at an HIV/AIDS outreach organization in Uganda, she will receive advice concerning her boyfriend. Any person can agree that mitigating the effects of a deadly, worldwide epidemic involves treating every patient and potential patient with relevant information, regardless of the circumstances under which he/she caught the disease. The Ugandan government clearly discriminates when it agrees with the preceding statement in regards to many criminals, yet not sexual minorities.

In this era the issue of whether homosexuality is immoral, un-African or a crime, etc, should be dropped when it comes to the control of HIV/AIDS. The fact is, homosexuals exist in Uganda and are a key population in the spread of the scourge. They should be catered for in the National AIDS Policy, be included in all prevention advertisements and in every activity designed to combat the epidemic. The Ugandan Government should give up on its politics of pretence and intimidation and embark on the protection of its population from the deadly epidemic.

* Victor Mukasa is the chairperson of a human rights organisation called Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Monday, 8 May, 2006

Today is a sad day in my life. Not in mine alone, in a lot of other people’s too, I’m sure, some for different reasons no doubt, but some, I suspect for the same reason as me. Today also marks the last day of our relationship. I am afraid I can’t write in you anymore, without risking incriminating myself. Who knows in whose hands these pages might one day end up? And who knows what unreasonable deductions they may seek to make about me, after leafing through you. I am afraid I can no longer share my innermost thoughts with you. Not my joys either, or my traumas, or my nightmares borne of my past and present. I’m afraid I can no longer come to you at the end of a harrowing day, to tell you, in that honest and sincere way, I seem able to tell only you. I’m afraid that if I should ever get raped, again, and cry wolf (because there really is one), they might make you admissible evidence, and that you might just contribute to my downfall. It’s not because I don’t love you anymore. Not that you have not provided an outlet for my frustrations, and emotional turmoil. If there’s anyone who knows all my highs and lows, it is you. It’s just that this place that I love with all my heart, has made it somewhat unsafe for us to carry on. But I thought it would be unfair if I left without telling you, the best I know how, the reasons why I have to pack away my commas and exclamation marks. I hope you understand.

Today I woke up in a place that said to me be free
so long as I kept my mouth shut and made no
demands that my freedom actually be taken seriously

I woke up in a place that said be what you want to be
so long as what I wanted to be did not include
me being a woman who wears a kanga,
has a history of mental illness
is prone to forgetting
or has in the past been raped

I woke up to a dream, and I realised that I am stronger than I was yesterday
but this dream rapidly turned into a nightmare
right in front of my eyes as I began to see
that I had in fact been rendered much weaker than I was,
just yesterday

I woke up in a place where it’s the size of your heart that counts not your fists
and realised that no matter how big my heart was,
these fists would continue to find a landing pad on my face
and that if I am to survive, I needed to pack a punch in mine.

Because yesterday I was digging for gold, and today I am wearing it
on my wrists, around my ankles, across my heart
it shackles my every step,
because now it is expected that I wear my chains with pride,
in line with the dictates of my culture
Yesterday I was burning with frustration; today I am growing big business
and this business of growing ever more sick and tired fuels my anxiety

I woke up and realised that I don’t need a gun to make you listen
because the one that hangs from your crotch
isbhamu somdoko as you call it, is more potent
and if that does not make me listen, what else will?

And even if I have nothing, this place can give me everything
on condition that I give it in return every inch of my entire being,
until I am left in the end with much less than what I had when I started.

All I need do is believe
in nothing, because nothing much is worth believing in anymore
not the comfort in the knowledge that my elders will not hurt me
not the comfort in the fact that if they do the law will protect me
just the ugly reality, that depending on how its spun
every sexual act I am forced to engage in,
no matter how many times I say no
will be construed as having being consensual

Today I woke up in a place whose cheering can be heard on the other side of the world
but whose screams land on deaf ears inside my home
A place where my brother is my brother no matter what
and my sister is someone who does not matter, no matter what

Today I woke up in a place that flows with courage
but drowns under showers of cowardice
That laughs,
at me often
that’s cried
sometimes with me, (well only a handful)
that says it’s okay
go ahead do to her what you please
we will find something in her history
to make her allegations sound like a fairy tale

Today I woke up in a place that sings with hope to the rest of the world
but mutters despair to itself
And I smiled because
well because this morning left me a tad haggard,
and smile to stave off my tears is all I can do sometimes
when I’m feeling like this, besides I hear,
South Africans are creating a new dawn everyday
oh how I wish this dawn would cast its rays my direction too.

Today I woke up in South Africa
and so help me I am never ever going back to sleep
lest those who relish in plotting against me should
devise more schemes while I slumber
lest I miss in my sleep a chance to be part of a legion
that will create for myself, my sisters, my aunts, my mothers, my daughters
a solid string of incandescent dawns that are truly
Alive with possibility
Unlike the one I woke up to today
that seems to me to be languishing in a state of atrophy

So you see why this full stop I am about to write has to be my last, from now on I am holding inside me everything I otherwise would have shared with you, so long.

* Lindiwe Nkutha is an author and a woman in the world

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