In line with this year’s theme for World AIDS Day – Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS – HelpAge International pays tribute to the millions of older women around Africa playing a significant albeit widely ignored role in managing the pandemic. In line with the traditional role of women as care givers, older women are coming out of retirement to tend to their adult children ailing from AIDS and the increasing number of AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children.

This paper examines the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) programme that took place when conflict ceased in Sierra Leone. While these programmes effectively reached out to male combatants, they largely ignored women's roles and experiences of conflict. This paper explores women and girls' unique experiences of conflict, and assesses how a gender perspective can improve formal disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) programmes.

This highly successful four-week online course from The Network University will run from January 24 till February 18, 2005. This course brings together worldwide expertise on the relationship between gender and conflict transformation. This course will empower women to become key agents in conflict transformation. The course uses a variety of interactive methods that stimulate thinking and exchange.

Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice (WIGJ) is an international women's NGO that monitors the International Criminal Court (ICC) from a gender perspective. They have just conducted a mission to Uganda following the Ugandan government's referral of the situation in Northern Uganda to the ICC. "In order to effectively perform its role as the gender watch of the ICC, WIGJ's objectives of the mission were broadly to meet with, speak to and consult with women victims and survivors of the conflict, meet with local NGOs and CBOs, meet with the local cultural, religious and district leadership, and ascertain their analysis of the conflict, their assessment of the impact and consequences of the conflict on the lives of people in the region generally and women and girls in particular, and to get an overview of their perspective on the referral of the situation in Northern Uganda to the ICC."

In the aftermath of this month’s general elections, gender imbalances in government still pose a challenge in Namibia. As expected, Namibia’s minister for lands and resettlement – Hifikepunye Pohamba – swept to an easy victory in last week’s presidential poll, while the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) maintained its parliamentary majority in the legislative vote. But, hopes that Namibia would reach a target set by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) of having women gain 30 percent of parliamentary seats by 2005 were dashed.

"States have an obligation to protect women’s rights, provide justice for victims and hold perpetrators accountable. Inadequate legislation must be reformed and existing legal protection must be implemented effectively. This necessitates more than rhetorical commitment: it requires resources to improve access to justice, to train and sensitize judges, legal professionals and law enforcement officials at all levels, to provide shelter and legal assistance to victims, and to launch effective public awareness campaigns." - Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) is calling for papers on feminist organisational strengthening and movement-building, to share with other AWID members and others around the world. They seek essays and case studies from all areas of the world; those selected will receive an honorarium of $USD1,000 to be used towards organisational strengthening activities.

In August 2004, the WSIS Gender Caucus launched a competitive programme of small grants to support innovative research on gender and information communications technologies, during 2004-05. A first round of small grants was made in October 2004 and a second call for proposals has now been launched.

Violence against women increases their vulnerability to HIV infection - meaning that if HIV prevention activities are to succeed they need to occur alongside other efforts that reduce violence against women and girls.

This is according to the just released UNAIDS Aids Epidemic Update 2004 that reports on the latest developments in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. "We will not be able to stop this epidemic unless we put women at the heart of the response to Aids," UNAids' executive director, Peter Piot, reportedly said at the launch of the report.

The report shows that the total number of people living with HIV globally rose to an estimated 39.4 million in 2004, while the epidemic killed 3.1 million people in the past year. Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst-affected region, with 25.4 million people living with HIV at the end of 2004, compared to 24.4 million in 2002.

The report states that the AIDS epidemic is affecting women and girls in increasing numbers: "Women and girls make up almost 57% of all people infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, where a striking 76% of young people (aged 15-24 years) living with HIV are female."

Released just before International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the start of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence on November 25, the report notes that one of the main causes of this disproportionate impact on women is violence, citing evidence from Rwanda, Tanzania and South Africa to highlight the link.

The Rwanda study quoted showed that HIV-positive women were more likely to have experienced a history of physical and sexual violence at the hands of male partners than were women without HIV. In Tanzania among women younger than 30 years in one Tanzanian city, HIV-positive women were more likely to have experienced physical or sexual violence. Meanwhile, at antenatal clinics in Soweto, South Africa, HIV infection was found to be more common in women who had been physically abused by their partners than in those who were not.

"Violence against women and girls is not a private matter, but a violation of basic human rights with significant economic and social consequences for families, communities and nations," said the report, which called for laws against such violence to be formulated and adopted, and for law enforcement structures to be adapted and officials trained to ensure such laws are implemented.

This backs up previous calls for women's rights to be given more attention in the fight against the epidemic and broader demands for women's rights to be enforced in Africa. For example, The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa spells out key policies to protect the rights of women, but so far has only been ratified by four African countries, with 15 ratifications needed for it come into force.

The UNAIDS report said that while a recent UNICEF survey found that up to 50% of young women in high-prevalence countries did not know the basic facts about AIDS, the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV infection was not only about ignorance but also stemmed from "their pervasive disempowerment".

"The plight of women and children in the face of AIDS underlines the need for realistic strategies that address the interplay between inequality - particularly gender inequality - and HIV."

Efforts to reverse the AIDS epidemic were unlikely to be successful until prevention efforts took into these inequalities that impacted on behaviour and choices. "If prevention efforts are to succeed in the long-run, they need to address the interplay between gender and socioeconomic inequality and vulnerability to HIV. Prevention activities need to take into account the unequal terms on which most women have to conduct their lives."

* Compiled by Pambazuka News from the report and other news items. For the full report, visit: http://www.unaids.org/wad2004/EPIupdate2004_html_en/epi04_00_en.htm

* Please send comments to [email protected]

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Background

That women and men enjoy the same rights and dignity has been confirmed by regional and international conventions and declarations including the United Nation’s (UN) Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The African Union (AU) has, in addition, reiterated its commitment to the same ideals through the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (The Charter) and recently, in specific terms, in the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on Rights of Women in Africa (The Protocol). As we mark the “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence”, November 25-December 10, 2004, it is important to look at how the Protocol, once it comes into force, will address gender-based violence in Africa.

Substantive norms of international law are defined in relation to men’s experience, and stated in terms of discrete violations of rights in the public realm. In addition, inattention to rights of particular interest to women in the international human rights discourse has resulted in neglect, and pervasive denial, of the rights of women in particular in the private sphere. Gender specific abuses of human rights such as gender-based violence have been widely perceived as women’s issues rather than as human rights concerns.

For instance, human rights guarantees in the legally binding United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) such as those to the right of life, to bodily integrity, and to be free from torture, cruel and degrading treatment, have not been interpreted to include such acts as domestic violence, rape, female genital mutilation, forced sterilization, forced childbirth, and numerous other forms in which violence against women and girls is manifested.

The provisions of the AU’s Charter are not adequate to address the rights of women. For example, while Article 18 prohibits discrimination against women, it does so only in the context of the family. In addition, explicit provisions guaranteeing the right of consent to marriage and equality of spouses during and after marriage are absent. These omissions are compounded by the fact that the Charter places emphasis on traditional African values and traditions without addressing concerns that many customary practices, such as female genital mutilation, violence against women, forced marriage, and wife inheritance, can be harmful or life threatening to women. By ignoring critical issues such as custom and marriage, the Charter inadequately defends women’s human rights. Thus the need for the Protocol to address African women’s concerns on gender-based violence as listed below.

Gender-Based Violence: African Women’s Concerns:
- Lack of understanding of gender-based violence and its root cause - unequal power relations between men and women, with efforts to address the issue very often being reactive, focusing on symptoms and consequences, not causes;
- Lack of legally binding international recognition of reproductive and sexual rights. The efforts have yet to achieve international recognition beyond Declarations, which only constitute ‘soft international law’ and are not legally binding. This is due to strong resistance from conservative states and religious organisations;
- Lack of states’ commitment to the application of national, regional and international instruments and agreements, which guarantee the protection, prevention and promotion of human rights. Most countries in Africa have not brought their domestic laws into conformity with their provisions;
- Lack of qualitative and quantitative research on women’s human rights issues in Africa and documentation of women’s human rights abuses, particularly in the private arena, such as rape, sexual harassment;
- The big gap between the provisions of the law and practice. Laws are not systematically enforced due to lack of gender sensitive enforcement agencies and procedures, making the rights inaccessible to the majority of women;
- Multiplicity of legal systems in Africa, and the conflict between civil, customary and religious laws, constitute a major challenge to the protection of women’s rights. Thus abuses on the rights of women, especially by private individuals remain endemic in spite of the law;
- The private/public dichotomy that is detrimental to women continues to exist. In most African countries, the same constitutional provisions that guarantee gender equality allow exceptions in the so-called “private law” areas of customary law, personal law and family law. Serious violations of women’s human rights such as gender-based violence and provisions that discriminate against them are found in that private sphere;
- Gender-based violence in Africa is on the increase due to poverty and conflict. Forms of violence include femicides, acid attacks, ritual murders, gang rapes, abduction, girl-child slavery, ritual rapes, military sexual slavery, cultism in tertiary institutions, trafficking in women and girls, mistreatment of widows;
- In conflict situations, gender-based abuses are not an accident of war, they constitute a deliberate strategy designed to intimidate or undermine and inflict deep and lasting damage on entire communities;
- Lack of efforts to reduce problems faced by women in refugee camps including lack of physical security and privacy, sexual exploitation, physical and mental illness, including HIV/AIDS;
- Vulnerability of refugee women and girls, particularly those with inadequate documentation or single and unaccompanied, to physical and sexual abuse during flight, on arrival in refugee camps and in the country of ultimate settlement. This gender dimension is not given consideration in humanitarian programmes;
- Women in Africa still remain vulnerable to harmful traditional practices and customs, many of which expose them to HIV/AIDS that has been devastating the continent.

Linking the Protocol to the Elimination of Gender-Based Violence in Africa

At the UN and AU levels, there have been efforts to address gender-based violence as discussed below:
- In 1993, the Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights at Vienna emphasized, “The human rights of women and of the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of the universal human rights”. It also emphasized that elimination of gender-based violence is a human-rights obligation upon states. This was the first attempt to address the marginalisation of women’s human rights from the work of the mainstream human rights bodies;
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1993 locates violence against women within the framework of violation of human rights obligations, categorizing it as an issue of inequality and discrimination against women, and sets out strategies that member states and United Nations agencies should employ to eliminate its occurrence;
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action with respect to gender-based violence calls for governments’ condemnation of gender-based violence and due diligence in the prevention, investigation and punishment of acts of gender-based violence, implementation of existing international standards with respect to violence against women, and the support of international mechanisms in that regard;
- Appointment of Special Rapporteurs on violence against women and women rights at the UN and AU respectively;
- The AU in 2003 adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa to address African women’s human rights concerns.

The Protocol primarily complements the Charter and international human rights conventions by focusing on concrete actions and goals to grant women rights. It further domesticates CEDAW and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in the African context. The Protocol integrates legal and policy actions to comprehensively address gender-based violence. It further provides a legal mechanism for redress through the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights for violations of rights enshrined within it.

On gender-based violence, Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 8,10, 11 and 13 of the Protocol are dedicated to concrete actions for State Parties. The Articles focus on: elimination of discrimination against women, right to dignity, the rights to life, integrity and security of the person, right to peace, right to justice and equal protection before the law, protection of women in armed conflict, economic and social welfare rights and elimination of harmful practices. Thus the Protocol offers Member States of the AU a comprehensive mechanism to implement legal and policy actions to eliminate gender-based violence according to regional and international human rights instruments they have already acceded to. Below are some of the legal and policy actions that have been recommended to governments to eliminate gender-based violence and as compared below, the Protocol has integrated all of them. They include to:

- harmonise national laws and constitutions in line with regional and international commitments and standards to avoid inconsistencies. Article 8 (f);
- establishment and support services to respond to the needs of survivors of gender-based violence and girls and assist towards full recovery and reintegration into society, including legal aid, economic support and livelihood assistance. Article 2 (2) (e) and (f). Article 5 (c). Article 8 (b);
- implement national legislation and policies prohibiting harmful customary or traditional practices and all other harmful practices that violate women’s and girls’ human rights. Article 2 (b) Article 5 (b) and d;
- ensure that women are safe at work by supporting measures that promote the creation of a workplace environment free from sexual harassment or other violence and ensure all employers to put in place policies designed to eliminate and deal effectively with harassment of women whenever it occurs in the workplace. Article 13 (c);
- research, document and disseminate information on women’s human rights violations to policy makers and all other stakeholders. The research should focus on root causes including external factors, extent, causes and data and statistics on its economic and social costs its consequences. Article 4 (2) c. Article 5 (a);
- introduce legal literacy programmes to make women aware of their rights and methods of seeking protection under the law. Article 8 (c);
- encourage, support and implement measures aimed at increasing the knowledge and understanding of gender-based violence and other violations of women’s human rights, through gender analysis and gender sensitive training for personnel in the administration of justice, law enforcement agencies, security, social and health care services and ensure their accountability. Article 4 (2) b. Article 8 (c);
- introduce participatory educational programmes on human rights, conflict resolution and gender equality, for women and men of all ages, beginning with boys and girls. Article 8 (c);
- formulate comprehensive and multidisciplinary and co-ordinated national plans, programmes or strategies, which will be widely disseminated, to eliminate violence against women and girls and provide targets for implementation and effective enforcement and monitoring mechanisms. Article 5 (a) Article 2 (2). Article 26, Article 27;
- enact and implement laws against trafficking in persons. They should also develop strong and effective national, regional and international co-operation to prevent and eliminate trafficking in women and girls, particularly for purposes of economic and sexual exploitation including prostitution. Article 2 (2) g;
- introduce public awareness and advocacy strategies seeking to make gender-based violence a critical concern to everyone. Article 2 (2);
- encourage promotion of media portrayals of women and men as cooperative and full partners. The notions that male violence against women is a natural expression of masculinity and that women are helpless and subordinate to men require constant challenge and not reinforcement. Article 13 (m);
- ensure that women particularly those who bear the brunt of conflict, are an integral and meaningful part of every peace process. They should be involved in all conflict prevention, resolution, and management efforts at all levels as provided for in the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Article 10. Article 11;
- direct special attention to the long-term health needs of women affected by armed conflict. These include the psychological needs arising from trauma and the effects of violations of reproductive rights and HIV/AIDS infection. Article 2 (2) k. Article 10;
- recognize the interconnection of forms of gender-based violence with other forms of discrimination and introduce broad efforts aimed at increasing women's economic and social autonomy Article 2 (c) and (e). Article 13;

Conclusion

Gender-based violence is a crosscutting and complex phenomenon that needs to be tackled on all fronts. The Protocol provides a comprehensive mechanism for addressing gender-based violence in Africa. However, African women cannot access and use it for the full enjoyment, promotion and protection of their human rights, as it has not entered into force. It requires 15 ratifications to enter into force. However, only 4 member states of the AU have ratified it. Therefore, there is need to ensure that we remind all Member States of the AU to ratify it during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence in accordance with the commitment they made in the AU Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa, 2004, to ratify it by the end of this year. To end impunity on the violation of African women’s human rights through gender-based violence, it is time for our leaders to walk the talk and ratify the Protocol.

* Mary Wandia is the Advocacy Officer with The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) E-mail: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]

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These are extracts from the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, available at http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/1/protocol.pdf

- "Violence against women" means all acts perpetrated against women which cause or could cause them physical, sexual, psychological, and economic harm, including the threat to take such acts; or to undertake the imposition of arbitrary restrictions on or deprivation of fundamental freedoms in private or public life in peace time and during situations of armed conflicts or of war...

- States Parties shall take appropriate and effective measures to:
a) 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;
b) adopt such other legislative, administrative, social and economic measures as may be necessary to ensure the prevention, punishment and eradication of all forms of violence against women;
c) identify the causes and consequences of violence against women and take appropriate measures to prevent and eliminate such violence;
d) actively promote peace education through curricula and social communication in order to eradicate elements in traditional and cultural beliefs, practices and stereotypes which legitimise and exacerbate the persistence and tolerance of violence against women;
e) punish the perpetrators of violence against women and implement programmes for the rehabilitation of women victims;
f) establish mechanisms and accessible services for effective information, rehabilitation and reparation for victims of violence against women;
g) prevent and condemn trafficking in women, prosecute the perpetrators of such trafficking and protect those women most at risk;
h) prohibit all medical or scientific experiments on women without their informed consent; i) provide adequate budgetary and other resources for the implementation and monitoring of actions aimed at preventing and eradicating violence against women;
j) ensure that, in those countries where the death penalty still exists, not to carry out death sentences on pregnant or nursing women;
k) ensure that women and men enjoy equal rights in terms of access to refugee status determination procedures and that women refugees are accorded the full protection and benefits guaranteed under international refugee law, including their own identity and other documents.

Visit this Amnesty International web page and get some ideas for what you can do to end gender violence, from contacting government officials to coordinating a "light a candle event".

Cultural norms dictate that girls should get married early in Niger: according to various surveys, the average age for marriage amongst females in Niger is 13. As a result, many find themselves giving birth before they have properly left childhood behind themselves. But when children give birth to children, complications ensue - not least those created by obstetric fistulas. But, what of the men who allow this condition to persist by marrying girls who are too young? If prevention is better than cure, are efforts underway to alter their perceptions about the age at which is it acceptable for girls to be married?

In March 2002, Equality Now launched its campaign against abduction and rape in Ethiopia, highlighting the case of Woineshet Zebene Negash, who at the age of 13 was abducted and raped by Aberew Jemma Negussie in the village where she lived with her mother and grandparents in the south-eastern part of Ethiopia. Two days later she was rescued. Both abduction and rape are criminal offences under Ethiopian law, but until recently, Articles 558 and 599 of the 1957 Ethiopian Penal Code provided that in the event of subsequent marriage to his victim, the perpetrator is exempt from criminal responsibility for these crimes. Read more from the November update of the campaign by clicking on the link provided.

This report covers the key protection and obligations for women and girls in armed opposition groups under international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHR). In seeking to learn more about the experiences of women and girls within armed opposition groups and to answer questions about their potential roles in promoting IHL and IHR, a unique workshop was held in August 2004, in Geneva, Switzerland. During the four day workshop, 32 women from 18 armed opposition groups met with a small group of peace and human rights activists, humanitarian actors, and scholars. Drawing on the voices of the 32 women present from 18 armed opposition groups as well as previous relevant studies, the report investigates the ways in which women and girls enter into armed opposition groups and their active participation within the groups.

Significantly more young women than men are now being infected by HIV/Aids as violence against women and girls fuels the spread of the virus. HIV/Aids is a human rights catastrophe which increasingly affects women, said Amnesty International in the report 'Women, HIV/Aids and human rights' published ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. "The increasing spread of HIV/Aids among women and sexual violence are interlinked. If governments are serious in their fight against the disease they also have to deal with another worldwide "pandemic": violence against women," said Amnesty International.

Partnerships between governments, the international system, civil society, the media and private sector offer real solutions to ending gender-based violence, according to speakers at a United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) event to observe International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women. Despite substantial progress in the last two decades to raise awareness of gender- based violence as a serious human rights violation, today's world is no safer for women and girls. The scale of the problem has reached epidemic proportions - globally, one in three women will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.

INSTRAW is holding an e-discussion on gender and conflict prevention/resolution. The central question of this e-discussion is: "How do we ensure the integration of gender and the inclusion of women and girls in conflict prevention/resolution?" Specifically, "What research and capacity-building needs to be developed?" Contact [email protected] for more information.

This report, published by UNIFEM, UNAIDS and UNFPA, is a call to action to address the triple threat of gender inequality, poverty and HIV/AIDS. It highlights the work of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, a UNAIDS initiative that supports programmes which mitigate the impact of HIV/ AIDS on women and girls worldwide. The report focuses on six areas of action: prevention, treatment, caregiving, education, violence and women's rights.

Working with women's groups to mobilize community members about the importance of blood supplies in the fight against maternal mortality, CEDPA/Senegal is aiming to achieve nationwide coverage for all blood needs by organizing 11 regional blood drives. In Senegal, the maternal mortality rate is 510 deaths per 100,000 live births. More than 28 percent of these deaths are related to hemorrhages, and the local blood banks do not have the resources to respond to the demand for transfusions. More than 50 percent of all requests for blood transfusions are issued by maternity services.