Southern Africa: Gender and media network calls on leaders to account

GEMSA PRESS RELEASE:
Gender and media network calls on leaders to account

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Johannesburg 14 September: Southern African gender and
media activists have challenged their leaders to explain
how they intend to make good on the commitment to achieving
30 percent women in decision-making by the end of 2005.

In a statement issued at the close of the Southern African
Gender and Media summit in Johannesburg, the newly formed
Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) network also
called on their leaders to come up with a legally binding
framework for ensuring gender balance in all areas of
decision- making.

The call comes against the background of indications that
several countries in the region have either not achieved
this target or might even regress in forthcoming elections.

GEMSA expressed particular concern that in Botswana, which
houses the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
secretariat, even if every woman candidate were to win her
seat in the October election, women would only constitute
21 percent of members of parliament. As this is unlikely,
the chances are that the representation of women in
politics in Botswana might drop from its current level of
17 percent.

The 184 delegates from twelve Southern African countries
also expressed concern at the state of affairs in
Mauritius, which hosted the Heads of State summit in
August, and has the lowest level of representation of women
in SADC (at 5.7 percent). Mauritius will be having
elections next year, and has so far not indicated how it
intends to achieve the thirty percent target.

Heads of state were urged during the August summit to adopt
the African Union (AU) position of fifty percent women in
all areas of decision-making but failed to formally do so.
However, on his return to South Africa, President Thabo
Mbeki pledged to ensure that South Africa achieves gender
balance in the next elections in 2008. Following the 2004
elections South Africa has 32 percent women in parliament
and 42 percent in cabinet. The ruling African National
Congress is revising its quota for women in politics from
30 to 50 percent.

Delegates urged all leaders in the region to come up with
concrete plans such as this and condemned the practice of
signing declarations with no intention of honouring
them. “Gender equality is non-negotiable,” said the newly
elected GEMSA Chair, Colleen Lowe Morna. “We therefore
urged heads of state to adopt legally binding instruments
for going beyond the rhetoric of gender equality to making
it happen in reality.”

Delegates noted with concern that only one Southern African
country (Namibia) has ratified the Protocol on the Rights
of Women in Africa. “The failure by leaders to formally
adopt the protocol, after it took eight years to get it
tabled, is unacceptable,” Lowe-Morna said. “The protocol is
entirely consistent with everything that SADC countries
purportedly stand for.”

The meeting also condemned the draft NGO Bill in Zimbabwe
that threatens the freedom and existence of NGOs, including
gender and media organizations that are members of GEMSA.

The network, consisting of representatives of media
practitioners, media training institutions, editors forums,
media women’s associations, the Media Institute of Southern
Africa and its country chapters, Gender Links, gender and
media networks around the region, adopted a comprehensive
plan of action for ensuring that women and men are given
equal representation and voice in the media.

The summit is a follow up to the Gender and Media Baseline
Study (GMBS) that showed women represent 17 percent of news
sources in the Southern Africa media and are portrayed in
stereotypical and derogatory roles, most often as sex
objects or victims of violence.

GEMSA plans include carrying out research and conducting
advocacy on how consumers of news respond to the way in
which women and men are portrayed; challenging glass
ceilings for women in the media; participating in the
Global Media Monitoring Project in February 2005; repeating
the GMBS in 2007 to see if there has been progress and
holding governments accountable for their commitments to
gender equality. GEMSA, through partner organizations, will
also prioritise gender training and sensitisation of the
media.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT Mothibi Mohomane 27 (0) 72-493-
0781