Barely emerging from years of civil conflict, two countries in West Africa are waging a new war – a battle to eradicate all forms of violence against women. Last Thursday, the authorities in Sierra Leone and Liberia joined humanitarian organisations like the UN refugee agency and the International Rescue Committee to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and to launch 16 Days of Activism to Eliminate Violence against Women.

Zimbabwean women activists are to petition parliament on Friday to approve a four-year-old Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill. The activists, frustrated with continued delays in the bill's approval, have chosen the last day of the worldwide campaign dubbed "16 Days of Gender Activism against Domestic Violence" to make their appeal.

Women and girls bear the brunt of armed conflicts fought today both as direct targets and as unrecognized "collateral damage". 'Lives Blown Apart' a new report in Amnesty International's campaign, Stop Violence Against Women, calls for global action to challenge both the violence and the failure of governments to prevent it. "Patterns of violence against women in conflict do not arise 'naturally' but are ordered, condoned or tolerated. They persist because those who commit them know they can get away with impunity," said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International. The report says the International Criminal Court must be allowed to act effectively and deliver justice to women and girls. "If the Security Council is serious about ending violence against women in conflict it can refer cases to the ICC, when governments fail to do so."

Traditional practices of polygamy, virginity testing and 'kugara nhaka'(wife inheritance), inhibit women's control over their bodies and increase vulnerability to HIV infection, but activists are split on the best way to tackle the customs. The Girl Child Network (GCN) believes in empowering girls to resist virginity testing. Other advocacy groups favour tighter legislation against high-risk behaviour performed "in the name of culture". Still others believe in empowering women to make informed decisions within the context of traditional culture, given the hostility of many community leaders to attempts to tamper with custom.

There is one village in Kenya, a place the people call Umoja, that manages to stand out from the rest. There are almost no men living here. Women run the show in Umoja, which was founded about a decade ago, and that is very odd in such a patriarchal part of the world. "We are always under men," said Rebecca Lolosoli, who is the leader of the three dozen or so women who live in Umoja, which means Unity in Swahili. "The men treat us like nothing. You are there to give them children. We're like property, and we're mistreated." Umoja traces its origins not so much to political protest, however, as to acts of sexual violence against the women, reportedly by British soldiers.

"The follow-up committee for the ratification and the implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) on the Rights of Women in Africa informed us that the law on the ratification of the Protocol was adopted unanimously Wednesday the 1st December at the National Assembly. The law has now to be transmitted to the President of the Republic will promulgated it. The instrument of ratification will then be deposited at the African Union." (Also available in French)

The WTO and the free trade agenda in general need to be better brought in line with the Beijing Platform for Action (BFPA), according to a paper that provides the notes of an event on 'Women's Rights and the Multilateral Trading System: the Politics of Gender Mainstreaming at the WTO'. The aim of the event was to offer some background for discussion, to raise some questions around gender and trade, to present some of the approaches from the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), and to hear from representatives from country missions, the UN, WTO, and the international NGO community. The paper says that after 1995, many in the global women's movement have supported gender mainstreaming initiatives in order to assess and integrate gender concerns into legislation, policies and programs at all levels, but that questions arise as to whether this is working.

"HIV is just a virus...If we change our attitudes, HIV will die. It will have no space and capacity to spread," says Musa Njoko, a young South African woman who has been living with the virus for the past decade. Njoko, a singer, has devoted herself to helping people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Along with about 200 other AIDS activists, Njoko attended the launch of the 'Mutapola Campaign' in Pretoria.

Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Services (SAfAIDS) is planning to offer comprehensive and empowering regional Training of Trainers (ToT) workshops to performing arts groups/organisations in the region. This resolution was taken after identifying that current conventional approaches to developing gender transformative behaviours in the fight against HIV and AIDS remain largely ineffective. The first ToT workshop has been scheduled for 7 - 12 February 2005. Performing arts groups/organisations, with interest in HIV/AIDS and Gender Issues, in southern Africa are invited to submit a statement of interest in participating.

The rate of HIV infection among pregnant women in Angola is 2.8 percent, half earlier estimates, according to a new national study. A health ministry report covering all of Angola's 18 provinces found that the highest HIV rates were in southern Cunene (9 percent) and Cuando Cubango (4 percent), which border Namibia.

"New technologies in the information and communications arena, especially the Internet, have been seen as ushering in a new age. There is a mainstream view that such technologies have only technical rather than social implications. The dramatic positive changes brought in by these information and communication technologies (ICTs), however, have not touched all of humanity. Existing power relations in society determine the enjoyment of benefits from ICTs; hence these technologies are not gender neutral. The important questions are: who benefits from ICTs? Who is dictating the course of ICTs? Is it possible to harness ICTs to serve larger goals of equality and justice? Central to these is the issue of gender and women’s equal right to access, use and shape ICTs." - From the introduction of an overview report on Gender and ICTs by Bridges.org.

Women's organizations are dealing with so many priority issues, it's hard to see information and communication technologies (ICT) as anything more than a tool to facilitate their work. For this reason 16 members of the APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) came together in early November in Cape Town, South Africa, to map out key gender and ICT issues for the APC WNSP's upcoming Gender and ICT Policy website.

The women of Kawula village say they have traded in blisters for beauty and regained freshness where they were once out of breath, all thanks to machines provided by the UN refugee agency. The machines in question are not cosmetic or sport gadgets. Instead, they are rice mills donated by UNHCR as part of community empowerment projects in north-western Sierra Leone's Kambia district, one of the major areas of return for Sierra Leonean refugees who fled the country during the decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.

I love international days of this and that. They are such grand occasions for leaders to remember some long forgotten agenda. The charitable among us hope that occasions such as World AIDS day are a sign of things to come. The cynical like me, gnash our teeth as we see the insincere, the hypocritical and the couldn’t-care-less-on-a-good- day-types abuse the spaces that are created. As the world celebrates World AIDS day this year, focusing on women and girls with the slogan, “have you heard me today?” we shall be treated to serious theatrics from coast to coast. We shall be subjected to Kings, Presidents, Ministers and others with power, exhorting women to do more, be involved.

Steven Lewis, God bless his soul, has tried his best to raise awareness of governments about what HIV means to women. From the simple fact that women are more vulnerable to infection, to that we are virtually “conscripted” labour when it comes to home-based care, the man has used everything from cajoling language to the outrageously sounding right wing lingo. My favourite was his assertion at the Bangkok conference in July that if only African governments knew the kinds of problems women have, they would be “howling from the roof-tops”. With all due respect to the UN Secretary General’s envoy, nobody is going to howl from any place except this year on World AIDS day. Beyond that, if you hear much more than a squeak, we as women will be extremely lucky.

There are many reasons why our heads of state and government are neither outraged, nor even see the urgency of the implications of AIDS for women. Lets start with a basic truth that nobody might have cared to mention. Women are not really autonomous human beings with feelings, rights and therefore entitlements. So when we come up with slogans such as, “Did you hear me today?” for World AIDS day, the starting point is problematic. You hear a person. You are obliged to pay attention to what a citizen has to say – if you are a leader. Women have no personhood where I come from. In my language we are called, “madzimai”, (Mothers), vanhukadzi, (female persons – note the pre-qualification). In Ndebele they are called, “abesintwana”, (those who are like children). Word play you might say, but the implications go deeper than that. If a girl gets raped, and the rapist is from the same place and is known, he will be asked if he wants to marry the girl. All he has to do is argue his undying lust and how it over-took him. And for a few hundred dollars, she is his. When a mature woman wants to get married, she doesn’t even have to be in the same room where the negotiations, (yes the haggling over the price of her uterus, just like in a Lagos market), take place. The brothers, father and uncles, and the occasional auntie will do the haggling. They will determine the value of her uterus, of her labour, or however they wish to aggregate it. They get the loot. Woe-betide her if she ever does anything to warrant the return of this money – like refusing to have sex with her buyer. Or refusing to bear yet another child, even if she knows it will endanger her health. And should she die before she has fulfilled the objectives for which the money was paid, the family must provide a substitute wife – her younger sister, or a niece. And some silly person will ask, “without her consent?” Consent is sought from feeling and thinking beings. No sane African leader is about to argue for a review of customary laws and beliefs of this nature. Why should they? It gives them power over the women in their own lives.

Asking “did you hear me today?” assumes the woman has a right to speak to begin with. Can anybody remind me of instances where women’s voices have mattered? In the family so-called “heads of households” views are what matter. Religious leaders remind us about this every time we go to prayers. In the classroom girls sit at the back, put down by cutting remarks from the teacher, “ah Anna, what can you tell us? Haven’t you found a husband yet?” The media hardly quote opinions of nobodies – like women and girls, unless they have done something extraordinary. Researchers tell us that our experiences are “anecdotal evidence”, meaning they are less valid. Once the question is asked, “but is this scientifically proven?” we are silent and silenced. Never daring to speak up again. Only those whose analysis fits in a pie chart, can be quantified and quoted by academics, matter. As someone eulogized a dead woman in Eritrea, “She was such a good woman, she hardly spoke above a whisper”. Who doesn’t want to be remembered as a good person.

We will hear fiery speeches from leaders telling us to change our behaviours and protect ourselves from HIV. Good idea. If only we could be protected from the leaders’ behaviour, that would be even better. Young women in Swaziland need to be protected from their monarch who lines them up each year for a free peep show. If only our leaders would stop testing young women for virginity and exposing them to predators who are looking for virgins to cure their HIV. And oh really if only all our Presidents and Ministers stuck to their first or only wives – wouldn’t that be something to talk about on World AIDS day? I don’t expect any discussion of these issues. These are our private African lives, and our traditions. Don’t anybody dare question them.

This year we will hear leaders telling women to get more involved. They will urge women to support governments by providing (more) home-based care, more, more and more. Haven’t we done enough surely? Who do hospitals release patients to, and tell them, “There is nothing more we can do. Take him home and do your best”. Armed with a packet of pain-killers, two bandages, a bottle of detergent and a plastic bucket the home carer carries her patient back. Ready to give what they call in AIDS speak, “comprehensive care and treatment”? Poor rural women walk up to five kilometres each day, taking care of sick community members. In some cases they have to give them their own meagre provisions, a little gruel here, an old blanket there. All of this without much support from anyone. The occasional NGO will train them in home care, dish out some more bars of soap, and once in a blue moon give a little financial token of appreciation. Certainly our Presidents are not going to howl from any roof-top because this is what poor black women have always done. It is our African-ness they will say. We shall celebrate these women’s burdens as a reflection of our African resilience and resourcefulness.

Ask those of us who have never stood at a bus stop for two minutes to do what these women do and see how we wilt in the sun. Ask them to just sit in a doctor’s room for 15 minutes and the nurse will not hear the end of it – violation of our rights, no way to treat people like us, you think we have time to waste. But village-women? Ah those have a lot of staying power. They persevere against all odds. They have cornered the market on suffering and selflessness. Maybe we should give these women some kind of merit badges? Mr. Kofi Annan, donations please. And when the women have done all the caring for everyone, nobody is there to care for them. If she’s married she will be sent back to her natal family, so that “your own people can see what to do, you cant die in our home”. Her own people equally have no time, inclination or resources to take care of her.

After the banners have come down and the media has moved to the next flavour of the week, international donors and governments will still continue with their gospel of “less government”, and more privatisation. Since the 1970s African governments have groaned under the weight of Structural Adjustment programmes. AIDS is not going to change macro economic orthodoxy. Simply because some nameless and faceless women are having problems is no reason to depart from market fundamentals. No howling from that quarter either Mr. Lewis.

All of these issues are not really new, nor is there a dearth of research or women’s voices. The problem is the world and its leadership does not want to listen because it is not convenient to change the “natural” order of things that we have created.

The bright side of all this is that the World AIDS day speeches will provide much needed light relief in many women’s lives – if one doesn’t get into a coma from anger of course. The good thing about HIV and AIDS is that no matter how much one can speak with a forked tongue the truth is always hanging down like a dirty petticoat. There will be collective laughter when some well known philanderers stand up and tell us all about safe sex. Young girls will titter into their bras watching the local sugar-daddies delivering the Secretary General’s speech with earnest faces. There will be serious ga ga ga, and slapping of each others’ palms at the water well when the village women deconstruct those insincere speeches from women in leadership who normally don’t believe in this “women’s rights business”. But maybe one should not be so cynical. Be grateful for small mercies, my Methodist upbringing reminds me. It is good for women’s rights to be finally “discovered”. Even if the discovery is a century late, and billions of dollars short.

* World Aids Day was on 1 December. Everjoice J. Win is International Women’s Rights Coordinator with Action Aid. She writes in her personal capacity.

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>>>>>See the HIV/AIDS section for 'Remember the caregivers on World Aids day' by Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda

Participants at a seminar organized by the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre have blamed the high numbers of women living with HIV/AIDS on gender inequities and the lack of adequate legislations on women's rights. The seminar, organized to mark this year's 16 Days of Activism Against Violence, beginning from the 25th of November 2004, drew participation from a large section of civil society, including NGOs, rights advocates, gender activists, and the media. It was under the theme " Gender Violence and HIV/AIDS."

This year's Campaign on Violence Against Women has found encouragement in the African Union's Protocol on the Rights of Women. While 31 countries have signed the Protocol, only five have ratified (Comoros, Rwanda, Libya, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho). While Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have signed the protocol, their presidents are yet to ratify it. The violation of women's rights in East Africa is largely born out of the unequal power relations between women and men. Poverty and conflict fuel ritual murder, gang rape, trafficking in women and girls and mistreatment of widows, among others.

On 30 November 2004, to mark the occasion of World AIDS Day and its intersection with the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women, Oxfam Great Britain facilitated a Public Dialogue on the African Union Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, at our offices in Pretoria. Given the fact that the themes respectively are: Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS – ‘Have you heard me today?’ and For the Health of Women, For the Health of the World: No More Violence - the focus of the event was on Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS within the framework of the Women’s Protocol.

The ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been marked by almost unimaginable atrocities - with sexual assault being a major part of the violence. According to the UN, gang rape has been so systematic and brutal that doctors in the DRC are now classifying wounds inflicted by rapists as combat injuries. Up to one in three Congolese women in conflict-affected areas have been raped and detailed reports from Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), among others, show the awful ramifications of the widespread sexual violence.

Despite the dedicated work of many Congolese NGOs and international groups, the issue of sexual assault and domestic violence remains a serous problem in the peace-process. HRW points out that while there have been rhetorical denunciations against impunity and calls for accountability, there has been no effective effort to address them. Additionally, attitudes towards rape and women in the DRC have further undermined efforts, with USAID reporting that at least one member of the transitional government dismissed rape as a women's issue and another said that rape was normal behaviour of soldiers who had been in the forest without women for a long time.

Rape, of course, is not a women's issue. Masculinity is one of the most powerful contexts within which sexual assault occurs, argues Christopher Kilmartin in Sexual Assault in Context, yet it is often left unaddressed. Because rape is usually understood as a violent and isolated act that happens to women, (for example, the girl was walking alone at night and was raped) the fact that men, power, and sexual desire are connected with sexual violence can then be safely ignored. Yet, if the fundamental relationship between male and female is one of rule, sexual desire becomes intertwined with power.

In the DRC the connection between men and women is unfortunately usually one of sexualized power. Women's position in Congolese society is totally subordinate to men - one example being that women cannot refuse sex in a marriage or demand a condom be used, even when their partner is known to be HIV positive and sleeping with other women. Polygamy, domestic abuse and marital rape are prevalent, with all considered acceptable and sometimes even normal.

In conflict, gender relations often become polarized. Militarized masculinity becomes the dominant option for men, argues Stefan Dudink and Dubravka Zarkov in Beyond Victims and Villains: Gender and Armed Conflict. Men are expected to take up arms and to fight, while in turn, stereotypical archetypes of femininity, such as the mother of the nation, and the rape victim, reinforce subordinate women's roles, thereby justifying male dominance. In a militarized society, men feel entitled to power and have the means to take it.

The use of rape as a weapon of war in DRC is a clear manifestation of a sense of entitlement coupled with the perceived roles of women and men and the violence that become acceptable in war. Because little attention is paid to how conflict and gender shape the often-violent relationship between men and women in the DRC, men can, therefore, focus on public sphere politics such as peace negotiations while women are left to deal with private sphere issues such as domestic abuse and sexual assault.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that militarized masculinity and men do not have to be synonymous. As Remy Masamba, a Congolese member of civil society, said, the situation is not hopeless. There are no hopeless situations only men who despair. Gender identities are fluid and change with time. The destructive relationship that many men have with women in the DRC today can be altered.

If lasting peace is to be secured in the DRC, gender issues need to be considered in a holistic way. While recognizing that men are not exclusively violent and women are not exclusively peaceful, more consideration is needed on how masculinities and femininities intersect and ways to build programs that foster a positive relationship between them. The African Union, the UN, and African and international civil society must work towards this goal. Only then can true peace be built in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

* Jeanbonheur Kongolo is Co-ordinator of Africa Journalists Commission on Human Rights

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Yesterday, the world celebrated International World AIDS Day, with the appropriate theme “Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS”. The vulnerability and risk of women and girls to infection, the horrifying statistics of the increasing orphan care issues; the daily cry of greater access to health care, treatment and nutrition for people living with HIV & AIDS are the main stories of the day.

What is rarely seen, said and adequately responded to are the needs and rights of the care givers. With what resources do these mostly elderly women and girls provide support and care to the infected and affected family members and friends? Where do they derive their daily strength to nurture, to love and to support our sick and dying? What nourishes their spirit as they wake up every day and respond to the call to serve humanity? Who actually cares for the care-givers?

In November, UNIFEM had the opportunity to meet and discuss with women in the poor rural community of Butula, Busia district, in a community dialogue organized by Hon Prof. Christine Mango, a Kenyan M.P. We also had an opportunity to visit a mother’s center in urban Mathare slums, organized by Esther Mwaura of Groots Kenya. We met with the women, the grandmothers, the girls, the orphans, the traders and the community elders. We spent a good time exchanging ideas and stories with the community care givers. Stories of caring amidst poverty and marginalisation were constant, whether in the poor urban slums or in the rural poor villages of Kenya. In the face of deepening poverty, women are finding themselves having to take up greater responsibilities for care. With little support these poor women take care of their fellow poor who cannot access health care services and other basic needs.

The women remain committed to provide their best for their loved ones. They feel their contribution is not valued. They are taken for granted, that they will always be there. One caregiver in Mathare gave an ironic laugh while discussing sanitation and hygiene. “I buy water from my place with my own money and carry it more than a kilometer to wash my patient because water is more expensive at her place” she quipped. “At times I bring some fruit and something to eat, but the patient is always asking for medicine and I cannot provide. When I have no money and cannot bring water or food, I actually avoid the visit,” she said, almost choking with emotion as she revealed the pain of care giving amidst poverty.

In Butula, Nekesa, a 60 year old grandmother talked of the many orphans she is having to take care of. Children have been chased away from their land and their homes by their uncles and aunties so that they can grab the property. “The poor orphans have nowhere to go… they look up to me to provide a roof over their heads as well as feeding them,” she lamented about the increasing number of young girls heading households, who look up to her for counseling and support.

The challenges of protecting young orphan girls who are often pulled out of school and made to work for the hosting family are great. One family felt that the orphaned girl who was raped by one of her guardians and infected with HIV/AIDS should be moved to another family as she was likely to cause the family to be stigmatized. Some of the women talked of the heavy burden of caring for their daughters when they are brought back ill from their marital homes and requested more food relief and farm implements to enable them to provide the necessary nutrition.

“How can I look after my daughter and her children when she was my sole provider before this illness incapacitated her? These funds we hear for the constituency on AIDS must prioritise elderly women like me who have little options,” grandmother Nekesa said as she advocated for targeted support. The Member of Parliament Hon. Prof. Mang’o appreciated the great work done by the community care givers and urged the government and community members to take responsibility in supporting those affected by HIV/AIDS.

As we celebrate World AIDS day, we must all remember to value and support the care-givers. They need a helping hand. They are an extension of the outreach of health and community services. Increased gender budgeting and resource allocation to HIV/AIDS in all sectoral programmes is one of the practical ways of mitigating the long-term impact of HIV/AIDS. It is a sure way of meeting the women caregivers half way. If the children are able to go to school, the health care services are accessible and affordable, and food security at household level is guaranteed, the care-givers will have a better day. If the legal system protects the deceased’s estates and property is not grabbed from the bereaved children and widows and widowers, and if the household capacity to generate income is facilitated, African women and girls will indeed continue with zeal to care and nurture.

Poverty in Africa will continue unless we address the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is already reversing some of the gains made in education, in health, on women’s human rights, as the Beijing +10 review is telling us. It will be a hard struggle for the continent to reach the Millennium Development Goals unless substantive progress is made on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Improving the lives of women and men demands listening and taking action on the experiences such as shared with us in Butula and Mathare of Kenya.

* Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda is the Regional Programme Director for the United Nations Development Fund for Women in East and Horn of Africa. ([email protected])

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Hundreds of Congolese women appealed to their government on Saturday for better protection against gender-based violence, a persistent problem despite the end of years of fighting in the country. "In recent years, young men have taken pleasure in flirting with immoral values," Micheline Ngoulou, who heads the Congolese Association Against Violence Against Women, said. "They used [the] period of chaos to inflict violence against those who are most vulnerable: women."