Africa has just emerged from a review of the progress made ten years after the Beijing Conference on women whose theme was equality, peace and development. This November, the world will commence the 16 days campaign against gender-based violence, an annual event that remains more relevant today especially with the reality of conflict, wars and political violence, which seem to accompany most elections in Africa. Violence against women and especially sexual violence remains a gross violation of rights of women irrespective of the global regional and national commitments made to address this issue. Women continue to organize and advocate for concrete and lasting solutions to eliminating gender based and sexual violence.

Around 100 women met recently in Kigali as policy makers, leaders, experts, citizens, daughters, mothers, sisters, care -givers, innovators and survivors of violence. They also met as problem-solvers, decision-makers, and real contributors of real solutions to the challenges facing the great lakes region. This was the Regional Women’s Meeting of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, organized and facilitated under the auspices of the United Nations and the Africa Union, this October 2004. Representing the core countries of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, women’s voices echoed over and over again the dominant concern of sexual violence against women and especially the use of rape as a weapon of war.

Against the backdrop of the search for solutions were horrific stories of rape and sexual abuse of women and girls in Darfur, Northern Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. The stories of rape as part of the genocide experience took on a magnified, almost tangible presence with a journey to the Kigali Genocide Museum. “Not only are we raped, infected with HIV & AIDS and ripped of our livelihoods, we remain with limited platform for sharing such experiences,” a woman delegate from DRC lamented. The stories of the abuse of refugee women in Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia formed parts of a terrible story that needed telling over and over.

At the centre of the experience-sharing, the search for long standing solutions underlined a resolve of commitment and action to ensure that zero-tolerance for sexual violence and rape must be embraced as a key element of peace and security, and in this context that the African Union Gender Equality Declaration and Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa Declaration as well as the Security Council Resolution 1325 must be implemented with immediacy. The women called on the member states to accelerate ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Women’s Rights in Africa as a critical step towards implementation.

The direct relationship between insecurity, sexual violence and HIV & AIDS vulnerability and risk for women and girls grounded in systemic gender inequalities; and the power dynamics between men and women’s levels of control of arms and economic resources resonated with many in the region. The illegal exploitation of the region’s natural resources and the attendant insecurities it creates for the ordinary citizenry, and especially women, went to the depth of the issues at hand.

Women of the Great Lakes Region asserted their place in economic development and reconstruction of their families, communities and nations. They claimed their right to ownership and control over productive resources and especially land, property and income. This, the women argued is an issue of right, but also a long term solution towards provision of the capacities, resources and opportunities necessary for women’s empowerment.

In their Kigali Declaration (Editors note: Read the Kigali Declaration in the Women and Gender section of this edition.), the women appreciated the positive steps taken in increasing the number of women in decision making, with some of the countries almost reaching the AU threshold of gender parity, and several implementing affirmative action policies. However, women's role in the peace and security sector, as well as in the strategic institutions of economic governance, remains almost negligible. It is by having women and gender sensitive men at the negotiating table, in the demobilization commissions, the border commissions, conflict early warning institutions and others, that the issues of sexual violence and especially rape will be responded to with the seriousness it deserves - as a gross violation of human rights, a crime against humanity and a destructive force to whole societies. Women are asking for sexual violence, HIV & AIDS, and representation of women in decision making to be engrained in the Summit Declaration of Principles due to be adopted November during the Heads of State and Summit meeting in Tanzania.

The women of the Great Lakes in their wisdom, their creative energies and innovation affirmed their commitment to engage, influence, act, effectively participate, share, network and contribute towards a violent free, peaceful and secure region where the dignity and rights of men and women, girls and boys becomes the ethos of development and reconstruction. In this great struggle for justice and rights, I stand in solidarity with the spirit of the Kigali dialogue. If substantive progress is made towards achieving the rights of women within the Beijing +10 framework, there will be substantive hope in achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

* Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda is the Regional Programme Director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women in Eastern Africa. Contact email: [email][email protected]

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