Grassroots women organisations have a critical role to play in the development of sustainable healthy, energy efficient and liveable cities, was a common view expressed at the Grassroots Women’s International Academy (GWIA) that opened last Tuesday in Barcelona, Spain. About 30 countries are participating in the GWIA hosted by the Huairou Commission, that is made up of a number of international networks and grassroots groups that are working to bring the voice of local communities to the international arena.

“It is time to do away with the niceties, to get back to 'rights language' and for women to stop asking men to be nice, as though they are doing them a favour when it comes to women's issues." This is the tough talk from Zimbabwean feminist Everjoice Win, who was in Durban recently to give a lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Win believes that "gender language" does the (women's) cause no good, and cautions that politicians use events like Women's Day as a platform for their own agendas.

In July 2003 African Heads of States adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at their summit in Maputo (full text of the Protocol is available at A little over a year later only four countries (The Comoros, Libya, Rwanda and Namibia) have ratified it. This is far from the required 15 ratifications for the Protocol to come into force.

One might ask why ratification of the Protocol is so important and what value it brings to African women. The Protocol offers women in Africa not only a bill of rights that addresses issues in the African context, but it also obligates states to take action and allocate resources to ensure that African women enjoy these rights. The Protocol offers a concrete blueprint to go beyond lip service and make states’ undertakings accountable. These rights will however remain fictitious until member states of the African Union ratify and implement the Protocol into their domestic legislation.

Amongst the rights articulated in the Protocol is the right in Article 5 “not to be subjected to harmful traditional practices including female genital mutilation (FGM)”. Female genital mutilation is a harmful traditional practice that afflicts an estimated 130 million girls and women around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 6,000 girls per day are subjected to FGM around the world but mostly in Africa.

It is a practice that translates into the partial or total removal of the clitoris (clitoridectomy), the removal of the entire clitoris and the cutting of the labia minora (excision), or in its most extreme form the removal of all external genitalia and the stitching together of the two sides of the vulva (infibulation). The cutting is done generally without anesthetic and those who survive it experience lifelong health consequences including chronic infection, severe pain during menstruation, sexual intercourse and childbirth, and psychological trauma.

Communities that practice FGM defend it as a rite of passage and a social prerequisite of marriage. But it is also used as a way to control women’s sexuality by safeguarding virginity and suppressing sexual desire. We, at Equality Now (www.equalitynow.org), an international human rights organization that works to promote and protect the human rights of women around the world, consider FGM a human rights violation and an extreme form of violence and discrimination against women and girls. We welcome the Protocol as a new tool that has potential effectiveness in protecting the human rights of women in Africa.

What the Maputo Protocol offers is a comprehensive set of provisions that create a framework for putting an end to harmful practices. It goes beyond a call to ending harmful traditional practices such as FGM and directs member states to take concrete action by:

- criminalizing the practice and bringing to justice those who perpetrate it,
- providing counseling support and treatment to victims of FGM,
- initiating public awareness-raising campaigns to end the practice, and
- intervening to prevent FGM cases thereby saving girls before it happens to them.

African states must indeed urgently take responsibility to follow through with these obligations. Burkina Faso offers a good case in point, and is leading the way in the fight against FGM. Burkina Faso criminalized FGM in 1996 and followed that with national campaigns to inform its people about the law and why FGM must be ended. It also offered help-lines for potential victims and concerned citizens to reach the authorities in good time to prevent the crime, and has put in place harsh punishment to de-motivate those still persistent to carry on with it. Furthermore, arrests and prosecutions of those responsible for subjecting girls to FGM were and continue to be publicized through the media to discourage potential perpetrators. As a result, Burkina Faso has seen the prevalence rate of FGM fall considerably over the years.

In some other African countries, even though they have adopted legislation to ban FGM, they have not followed through with the full program of rights set out in the Protocol and so have not produced similar results as those in Burkina Faso.

To save the thousands of girls affected each day by this harmful practice (and 6,000 girls is an enormous number with which to contend), African governments have an affirmative duty not to delay any further the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women.

During September 16 to 18, Kenya is hosting an international conference on FGM titled "Developing a Political, Legal and Social Environment to implement the Maputo Protocol”. Hon. Linah Kilimo, Kenyan Minister for Home Affairs, and a long time activist against FGM is leading the meeting and has secured President Kibaki's support for it. At the end of the conference, it is anticipated that the President or his Foreign Minister would officially hand over Kenya's instrument of ratification to the Chair of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, who is invited. If this plan succeeds, Kenya would be the fifth country to ratify the Protocol following Namibia, which ratified it last month, and thereby laying out a legal framework to fight the practice and preserve the human rights of Kenyan women and girls.

Kenya appears to be on track and other African states also need to follow the example of the Comoros, Libya, Rwanda and Namibia in formally expressing their commitment to the human rights of women in Africa. As the continent next month gathers at the Seventh Conference on Women’s Rights in Addis Ababa to review progress made in honoring commitments undertaken in Beijing and Dakar 10 years ago, ratifying the Protocol on the Rights of Women could well serve as an achievement to bring to the table.

* Faiza Jama Mohamed is the Africa Regional Director of Equality Now

* Please send comments to [email protected]

With women at least twice as likely to become infected with HIV as men when exposed to the virus that causes AIDS - and six times as vulnerable in parts of sub-Saharan Africa - HIV vaccine clinical trials must be geared towards meeting their needs, the United Nations health agency said. "In spite of the epidemiological reality, women and adolescents, especially girls, have often had minimal involvement in clinical trials of HIV vaccines, as compared to men. This is in spite of the fact that they would be major beneficiaries of a future HIV vaccine," said Saladin Osmanov, Acting Coordinator of the HIV Vaccine Initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

"We warmly bring you our second monthly update on the activities that EASSI has been engaged in during the month of August 2004. Key among these activities were the Internship Alumni Conference and preparations for the Africa NGO Forum due to take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in October 2004. EASSI has also been involved in a number of networking activities like the 2004 Exchange Programme Institute organized by Isis Wicce. EASSI is also expected to participate in the advocacy training on women engagement with the African Union. The training is organized by FEMNET and is scheduled for 19 - 24 September 2004 and is expected to bring together over 60 participants from Africa." Click on the URL below for more information.

For 3 days, from 27 to 29 August 2004, more than 30 women combatants or former combatants belonging to rebel armed groups from some twenty war-torn countries, accepted an invitation by the organisation Geneva Call to come together and share their experiences and ideas concerning international humanitarian law. Are armed conflicts the preserve of men? Are women merely innocent victims or symbols of peace? What are the roles and the responsibilities of women fighting for armed groups? Do women have more respect for human life? What do they know about humanitarian law? Are they particularly sensitive to humanitarian principles? Are they able to convince male combatants to respect these norms? These are just some of the questions addressed by the gathering.

A campaign to set up a women’s land movement has kicked off in Kenya, at a time when the East African country has embarked on a controversial land-reform debate. Campaigners argue that such a movement would ensure women speak with a unified voice. It would also incorporate their concerns in the on-going land debate.

Codes of conduct for ethical trade have been criticised for failing to consider gender issues or extend to temporary workers. In response, this paper from the Ethical Trade and Natural Resources Programme explores ways to develop codes that are effective and inclusive of all workers, including female and temporary workers. The research analyses how ethical trade can enhance the economic and social rights of women and men workers in African export horticulture and identifies best practice in implementing gender-sensitive ethical trade based on worker and stakeholder participation.

The African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, ACDHRS, last Wednesday held a one-day National Consultative Workshop on The Ratification and Implementation to the African Chartered on Human and Peoples' on the Rights of women in Africa at the Kairaba Beach Hotel. This National Consultative Workshop is part of the campaign strategy spearheaded by the Coalition of Women's Organisation in Africa to encourage African governments to ratify the protocol.

Some countries have taken major strides to improve the rights and reproductive health of women but more must be done to meet goals set at a U.N. conference a decade ago, according to a report released on Tuesday. Burkina Faso and Cameroon have lost ground, said the report presented at the three-day meeting to assess how much had changed by the 10th anniversary of the Cairo conference.

Over 160 people from the region and several observers from across the globe will participate in the first Southern African Gender and Media Awards and Summit in Johannesburg from 12-14 September. Mail and Guardian editor Ferial Haffajee will give the keynote address at the multi-media award presentation and formal opening on the evening of 12 September. The competition attracted close to 100 print, television, radio and photography entries with stories ranging from men running day care centres to daughters being sold for debt.

When her husband died two months ago, Albertina Come did not only lose him. She also lost their house and belongings acquired through hard work over ten years of marriage. Unfortunately for Come, her late husband’s family blames her for his death. And as punishment, they said, she should not be entitled to any inheritance. “They locked me out of the house, and took all our belongings,’’ she told IPS.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently began its first formal investigation to judge crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is urgent that the women's movement monitor whether the ICC effectively investigates and sanctions the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes committed against women. Sexual violence as a weapon of war can no longer go unnoticed. This special issue of Women’s Human Rights Net addresses key aspects of the ICC, such as gender crimes and related case law, gender-sensitive proceedings and the possible implications of implementing international standards nationally to advance women's human rights.

After the International Women Conference held in Beijing, China 1995, so many songs were sung. These songs, concerning women’s emancipation, empowerment and discrimination against women started hitting the world, particularly the African continent whereby due to the norms of traditional African culture, women were not very much considered as appropriate players in political, economic and social activities.

"We crawled into this dark hut with no windows. Inside was almost total darkness although it was only 10 o'clock in the morning. Lying at the corner with barely enough blankets to cover her self was a 35-year-old women dying of AIDS. She had lost her husband a year ago. At her age and with nothing, she was left to care for her five children. A coughing 4-year-old boy, whose future one dared not even think about, peeped behind her. Nobody could ask where the other children where for the trauma on her face was too much for any parent," writes Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, Regional Programme Director UNIFEM East and Horn of Africa.

Sexual violence of nearly epidemic proportions and multiple forms of discrimination against minority and indigenous women could be better prevented, but are inadequately understood and confronted by existing rights mechanisms and legal instruments. In a new report, launched during the session of the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has called for urgent action by states and human rights and gender rights actors to address the causes and consequences of serious and ongoing discrimination against minority and indigenous women.

In Ethiopia, thousands of women each year are left with injuries following childbirth, which, for the most part, go untreated. As the problems get worse, the women are shunned by husbands and families, cast out of villages and left to depend on charity. Their condition is not life-threatening, and would be easily patched up in Britain but, in one of the poorest countries of the world, leave women scarred for life.

Zeinabou Baba had just about given up on the prospect of living a normal life by the time aid workers arrived in her village of Tera, west of Niger's capital Niamey. Married at the age 16, Baba had experienced four pregnancies that resulted in stillbirths - and the development of a condition known as obstetric fistula. Matters changed, however, when a team from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) arrived in Baba's village, offering assistance to women with fistulas.

The Organization of Women Writers of Africa (OWWA) is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1991. The focus is in the promotion of greater interest in the oral and written literature of African women, introduction of emerging writers to the public, and the addressing of challenges relating to translations, publishing, distribution, censorship, new technology, cultural policy, democracy and human progress.

Updates on eleven national campaigns taking place to lobby for the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa shows that steady progress is being made in cementing strategies to ensure country ratifications. Organisations involved in the national campaigns include Union Nationale des Femmes Djiboutiennes in Djibouti; ACDHRS in The Gambia; Cellule de Coordination sue les Pratiques Traditionelle Affectant la Sante des Femmes et des Enfants in Guinea; The Coalition on Violence against Women (COVAW) in Kenya; Association des Juristes de Mali in Mali; Women Lawyers Association in Malawi; The Foundation for Community Development (FDC) in Mozambique; Sister Namibia in Namibia; Women Rights Awareness and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) in Nigeria; and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMWA) in Uganda. Clicking on the link below will provide you with full updates compiled by Equality Now on national and regional campaigns, an update on the petition in support of the protocol’s ratification, the outcome of a mapping process for ratification in various countries and current and upcoming events.