The word on the streets of Casablanca, the bustling, commercial capital of Morocco, is out: The emperor has new clothes. He also has a new baby girl, and the Moroccan press made a splash about it. Weeks after the birth of King Mohammed VI's daughter, Princess Khadija, on Feb. 28, Morocco's two leading women's magazines offered an "exclusive" visual paean to her little, royal highness.

Before African governments can win the confidence of African women that they will deliver on huge projects like a continental government, they must first come up with a plan for the implementation of the articles of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, argues Faiza Mohamed. African leaders should get rid of all the customary practices that continue to limit women’s potentials as a necessary step for continental government.

Barely two weeks from the time of writing, African heads of state and government will be meeting for their 10th ordinary summit in Accra for a grand debate on the prospects of creating a government of African states. In the build up to this historic debate, civil society organisations have been vigorously consulting and busy in awakening public interest in the matter with a view to maximising the African public’s participation in the discussion about the added value of having one government for Africa. Sadly, time has been short, and African leaders are moving ahead with their debate without greater input from the African peoples that they represent. This brief article is an attempt to bring some of the concerns African women would like their African leaders to consider in their striving for a United African States (UAS).

One of the advantages of a UAS that has been highlighted a lot is the free movement of peoples and goods throughout the continent. While the dismantling of artificial boundaries created by colonial powers long ago would be a great welcome to the peoples of Africa, and especially those who were hindered from freely connecting with their relatives living on the other side of the border, women in the Upper Volta region of Ghana who are held bondage under the traditional practice of Trokosi share no joy in this potential euphoria over free movement in the continent.

For those who do not know of this practice, trokosi in the Ewe language means 'slaves of the gods'. What this tradition entails is that families who have commited crimes have to give away their virgin daughters to priests, so that the gods will be pleased and forgive them of their crimes. There are two categories of trokosi – those who can be released after serving a specified number of years (usually three to five years) and those who are committed for life. If a girl dies or if the priest tires of her, her family has to replace her. For serious crimes, families give up generations of girls in perpetual atonement. In accordance with the tradition, a trokosi who is released can never be married because she is married for life to the god.

Many released trokosi hence remain in concubinage to the priest for the rest of their lives and when he dies his trokosi are passed on to his successor. Women and girls who are victims of this practice know of no freedom of their minds and bodies, let alone freedom to travel in their villages. For them, free movement in Africa, as championed in the continental government proposal, will bring no comfort.

Though Ghana has passed a law in 1998 criminalising the trokosi practice, hundreds of girls and women are believed to be still held in several shrines. It is ironic that discussion on African unity is being discussed in Ghana where women and girls are being held as slaves for life. The African leaders should include seriously looking into and abolishing practices such as trokosi that enslave women and girls and infringe on their dignity and well-being.

Another advantageous point highlighted in the continental proposal is how Africa will be in a stronger position in trade agreements with non-Africans; and how this will bring greater benefits to the peoples of Africa. By and large, women remain the majority of those tilling Africa’s productive lands, and thus are responsible for produces that feed Africa and beyond. Alas they remain the poorest with no control over the lands they till and the crops they harvest.

For the African peoples to prosper, it is necessary that African leaders take the logical action to get rid of all the customary practices that continue to limit women’s potentials to inherit and own land. As they deliberate on serious discussion on ways to realise the United African States, they also need to recognise the need to have a roadmap for placing women’s economic empowerment in the front for actualisation of Africa’s growth and development.

In July 2003, our African leaders adopted the protocol on the rights of women which aims to address the many injustices that African women suffer from, including those discussed here, and which reduce their potentials to effectively contribute to the development and wellbeing of the African population. Four years later, only 21 countries (39 per cent) out of the 53 member states of the African Union have ratified it.

The majority of the member states are lagging behind in their commitment to women to enjoy the rights recognised in the protocol, which stands for the minimum standard of rights that African women would accept and so in their Accra deliberations the African leaders need not only to reaffirm their commitment to uphold the rights provided in the protocol but to also declare that it will be the premise from which African women’s rights will be advanced. For them to win the confidence of African women that they can undertake and deliver on huge projects like a continental government, they must first come out with a plan for the implementation of the articles of the protocol throughout the continent within a one year period. A United African States will be possible ifAfrica’s women are with you!

* Faiza Jama Mohamed is the Africa Regional Director of Equality Now and convener of the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) coalition.

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

Thousands of girls in Guinea are facing abuse as domestic workers, a new report has concluded. The report by Human Rights Watch says many girls are forced to work up to 18 hours a day for no pay and are physically abused by employers. The girls often live in conditions akin to slavery and many are victims of people trafficking, it says.

Poverty, inadequate investment in healthcare services, lack of knowledge about maternal health and pregnancy-related emergencies are some of the limitations aggravating the problem of obstetric fistula in Tanzania, according to a new report. Obstetric fistula is a hole that forms between the bladder and vagina or between the rectum and vagina during prolonged and obstructed childbirth.

Zimbabwean police on Monday arrested dozens of women as they staged a demonstration in south-western Zimbabwe, a statement said. The women, all members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) had "tried to gather to hold a march in a small administrative centre in Insiza district but were arrested", the group said.

Abortion could be soon legal in predominantly Catholic Mozambique if the Maputo parliament endorses a new bill recently approved by the Council of Ministers. If passed into law, this bill will be "a landmark victory for women, as they will have legal backing to terminate unwanted pregnancies," gender activists hold.

A prominent activist in empowerment organisations, Zanele Muholi (b. 1972) is concerned with the intimate portrayal of the lives of black lesbian women in South Africa. Of this new body of colour and black-and-white work, she writes, "Being is an exploration of both our existence and our resistance as lesbians/women loving women, as black women living our intersecting identities in a country that claims equality for all within the LGBTI community, and beyond."

Straight talk with straight friends’ is The Rainbow Project’s (trp) LGBTI Week’s theme this year with the event taking place between 27 and 30 June. The Namibian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisation – trp – endevours to raise awareness and educate the public about diversity.

Oppah Muchinguri, the Zimbabwean Minister of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development has challenged SADC journalists to give women fair and adequate media coverage and thus contribute to the achievement of gender commitments in the region. She urged that, where progress has been made, this should be highlighted in the media to “motivate those who are working hard to make a change in people’s lives.”

Ugandan Minister of State and Gender Rukia Nakadama on Friday at the opening of a forum on gender and preventive technologies in the country's capital, Kampala, called on leaders to strengthen efforts and increase resources to prevent the spread of HIV among women. "New and long-term [HIV] prevention methods are needed, particularly methods that are within the realm of women's control," Nakadama said.

The University of Ghana is forging a gender advocacy trail in West Africa by setting up a sex-assault crisis center, forming a policy on harassment and improving the campus culture for women.

Women who begin potent anti-HIV therapy during pregnancy achieve undetectable viral loads more quickly with nevirapine-based compared to nelfinavir-based regimens, according to findings from the European Collaborative Study. Results published in the June 15th issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases also showed that women of western African origin achieved viral suppression more quickly than non-African women.

The Third World Organization for Women in Science (TWOWS) with funds generously provided by the Department for Research Cooperation (SAREC) of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), has instituted a fellowship programme for female students from Sub-Saharan Africa and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), who wish to pursue postgraduate training leading to a Ph.D., at centres of excellence in the South (developing countries), outside their own country. Deadline: 31 July 2007

The Senior Program Officer for the African women Food Farmer Initiative works in partnership with The Hunger Project in Africa to successfully implement the AWFFI Microfinance program focusing on the provision of credit, savings facilities and training for African women farmers in THP epicenters. Closing date: June 08, 2007.

For over a month now, workers have been staging a sit-in at a textile factory in rural Egypt, according to a report form Al Jazeera. The majority of them are female. They're sleeping on the factory floors, leaving behind families and children, in their demands for better pay. Why? Because the average wages for these women is a lowly 30 dollars a month, not enough to feed and clothe their families. And since 1999, they haven't even been paid the bonuses and grants to which they're entitled.

The United Nations Foundation is recruiting an Executive Director Women & Population Program. the director will, among other things, lead the development and funding of a coalition that will work to expand the community of champions for adolescent girls in the developing world and develop, and secure support and funding for, a clearly defined set of goals regarding education, economic empowerment, and protection from HIV/AIDs and child marriage.

Physicians for Human Rights' study, Epidemic of Inequality: Women's Rights and HIV/AIDS in Botswana & Swaziland: An Evidence-based Report on Gender Inequity, Stigma and Discrimination reports the results of a population-based study conducted in 2004 and 2005 with 1,268 respondents in Botswana and 788 participants in Swaziland, designed to assess factors contributing to HIV infection.

A total of 212 villages in Senegal and The Gambia agreed on Sunday to renounce female circumcision and weddings featuring child brides. About 1 500 inhabitants from the 12 Gambian and 200 Senegalese villages gathered in Diamakouta in southern Senegal near the Gambian border for a ceremony led by Tostan, a local Senegalese NGO working to eradicate female circumcision.

There are a number of beautiful art items Rwanda can make by using local materials and hands. They are promoted through associations and trainings. Women can use the chance of the advanced skills and wide markets to advance in their standard of living. They have come together, organised themselves and formed associations. They are preaching the results.

Hawa Aden Mohamed was motivated to establish the Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development by her own experience, particularly the opportunity to go to school at 14. "If I had not got that chance, where would I be now?" she asks rhetorically. "That is why I am a believer in second chances," she tells IRIN in Galkayo town, 700km north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.