Subject: [fem-women2000 127] African Regional Conference on Women (fwd)
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 15:04:46 +0900
Seq: 127
---------------- Original message follows ---------------- From: Congongo@aol.com Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 10:02:38 EST Subject: African Regional Conference on Women -- For your information, on the recently-concluded African Regional Conference on Women. Subj: [WOMENSNET-NEWS] FLAME/FLAMME #5: No Millennium Party for African Sisters Date: 12/06/1999 5:06:36 AM Eastern Standard Time >From: sonja@wn.apc.org (Sonja Boezak) Sender: womensnet_news@lists.sn.apc.org Reply-to: womensnet_news@lists.sn.apc.org To: womensnet_news@lists.sn.apc.org (Multiple recipients of list) **************************************************************************** FLAME/FLAMME The daily newsletter of the sixth African Regional Conference on Women, Addis Ababa Bulletin quotidien de la sixi$BoN(Be conf$BqS(Bence r$BqH(Bionale africaine sur les femmes, Addis Abeba **************************************************************************** No Millennium Party for African Sisters (Flame/Flamme, 26/11/99) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- By Ferial Haffajee Are African sisters poorer, sicker and angrier five years after Beijing, the meeting in the Chinese capital where the world's women got together to map out a brighter future? That's the grim question facing 1 500 delegates to the Sixth African Regional Conference as they close proceedings today. "Scores of African women will enter the third millennium in a state of almost total deprivation and marginalisation," they will declare this afternoon. It remains an indictment on the world and its leaders and on the choices they have made both through Africa's history and even in its present. "It must be put in front of decision-makers," says Josephine Ouedraogo, the director of the African Centre for Women, which organised the conference. "If the situation is there, it means that the strategies are bad, that there is not real commitment." Delegates leave today to return to 53 states with a massive workload. Buoyed by an honest conference, Africa has taken stock of the position of its women. The news is not all bad. The declaration, to be adopted later today, congratulates the 47 countries that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The ratification is important because it is a political commitment to begin to establish an enabling environment for empowerment. Many countries have set up institutional mechanisms including ministeries, gender desks and gender commissions. Again, these mechanisms display good faith, as do the growing numbers of women in parliament and in other decision-making positions. The conference will also issue kudos for land reform, the female peace movement, and efforts to educate the girl child as well as to strategise against harmful practices like female genital mutilation. An NGO shadow report which will also be released later today will question whether there is sufficient political will among African governments to carry out the promises contained in the legislation, structures and commitments they have made. "Enough lip service. We want action," says Sara Longwe, the chair of FEMNET and a member of the NGO/government task team that has been assisting with preparations for the conference. The NGO report will draw attention to what it calls "the entrenchment of patriarchy" on the continent. It's a serious charge, but one that they say is borne out by the levels of armed conflict and by the depth of sexual violence. Acid attacks, femicide and war rapes are ugly forms casting a shadow over Africa and its women. The Conference declaration is not a self-aggrandising document. It is stinging in its criticism of war, female poverty and lip service. "We urge all actors on the African continent, including international organisations to make the transition from pledges to action as we enter the new millennium," say delegates. It criticises the "$B)T(Bystematic and persistent under-representation of women in decision-making and leadership". It warns that the dangerous perception that "$B)C(Being a refugee or internally displaced person is an acceptable way of life for generations of Africa$B)M(Begitimises the most abject forms of violence against women". Over the past five days, delegates have grappled with a world and a continent that has changed rapidly in the past five years. The AIDS pandemic, a global economy and endemic war have eroded the modest African gains made since Beijing. This is the essence of the report-card, this continent will take to New York in June next year. But while the world stage is important, the challenges are really continental. Longwe says "NGO's must ask themselves if they've woken up to the realities of patriarchy and if they're putting in place strategies to counter it?" The larger conference will also throw down a gauntlet. "The new millennium is a critical opportunity for transformative change - African leaders must see this transition as a test of their leadership." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FLAME/FLAMME is a network of African sisters 'online' committed to strengthening the capacity of women through the use of ICTs to lobby, advocate and participate in the Beijing +5 process regionally and globally. The FLAME/FLAMME network was initiated by APC-Africa-Women and FEMNET . You are welcome to reproduce any part of this newsletter. Please credit the author and FLAME/FLAMME. Visit http://flamme.org/bulletin/bulletin1.html to read the bulletin online. Join the FLAMME-List! African Women's Online Working Space, by filling in the form on the FLAME/FLAMME web site. If you have information about Beijing +5 in Africa that you would like us to add to the web site please send it to us at: flamme@sn.apc.org