OVER THE EDGE: LEGALITIES OF LIFE, OUR CHOICES AND OUR FUTURE - Modern Day Unions

Author: Adelaide Mendy

Marriage is by far one of the most sacred institutions of all time I believe and so do a lot of people. The union of a man and a woman is a major deal. A lot of work would have gone into the process from meeting and courting to making the conscious decision to enter in holy matrimony. The wedding itself is just the commencement of the long road ahead I like to think of as the rest of their lives. Having been aware of a lot of young failing and failed marriages, I have been thinking a lot lately about the fundamentals and the effect of globalization on it.

In most cultures, one is not deemed complete if one does not eventually get married and start a family. Which bodes the questions, does this generation’s young want a wedding or a marriage or perhaps it a fear of being alienated, the responsibility of procreating or need for companionship and intimacy.

The rate at which unions are solidified and ended is alarmingly high and it gets more so daily. Here in The Gambia, I am pleased to say that the sanctity of a union is still upheld by a majority. Sure there are divorces and extra-marital engagements no doubt as is everywhere, but judging from my observations, divorce has some element of stigma in it that makes folks try harder at marriage at the thought of it.

Surfing the net recently, I came upon a concept that intrigued me a lot. Its one that I have heard mentioned a hundred times before and read a lot about, but never really thought of on a much deeper level. A prenuptial Agreement.

In the modern day ere, people are taught to never leave anything to chance but to plan for the future and all its possible eventualities carefully. Marriage and its possible annulment or termination is one of such eventualities. Hence the all famous prenuptial agreement which is all the storm in today’s generation, more so in the west.

A prenuptial agreement, ante nuptial agreement, or premarital agreement, commonly abbreviated to prenup or prenupt, is a contract entered into prior to marriage, civil union or any other agreement prior to the main agreement by the people intending to marry or contract with each other. The content of a prenuptial agreement can vary widely, but commonly includes provisions for division of property and spousal support in the event of divorce or breakup of marriage. They may also include terms for the forfeiture of assets as a result of divorce on the grounds of adultery; further conditions of guardianship may be included as well.

In some countries, the prenuptial agreement not only provides for the event of a divorce, but also to protect some property during the marriage, for instance in case of a bankruptcy. Postnuptial agreements are similar to prenuptial agreements, except that they are entered into after a couple is married.

Prenuptial agreements are, at best, a partial solution to obviating some of the risks of marital property disputes in times of divorce. They protect minimal assets and are not the final word. Nevertheless, they can be very powerful and limit parties’ property rights and alimony. It may be impossible to set aside a properly drafted and executed pre-nup. A pre-nup can dictate not only what happens if the parties divorce, but when they die. They can act as a contract to make a will and/or eliminate all your rights to property, probate homestead, probate allowance, right to take as a predetermined heir, and the right to act as an executor and administrator of your spouse’s estate.

Five elements are required for a valid prenuptial agreement, these being that the agreement must be in writing, must be executed voluntarily; and/or fair disclosure of assets at the time of execution, cannot be unconscionable; must be executed by both parties (not their attorneys) “in the manner required for a deed to be recorded”, known as an acknowledgment.

Isn’t it interesting that where marriage is deemed a life time commitment, couples are already thinking of and planning for its end before it even begins? Marriage’s core foundations values should be love, commitment, understanding and patience, trust, being just a few. Planning for its end is rather contrary to that. What is the point in getting hitched in the first place? There are interesting arguments in favour of this legal agreement. One being that knowing what is at risk of loss (assets struggled for); the parties are inspired to work harder at the marriage to ensure it works. Loosing half your savings plan would definitely make one think twice about being unfaithful which would most probably lead to a split in the union. Has it become that mercenary, that calculated, vindictive and trust less. I don’t believe it is, has to be or will be, not to the majority anyway.

Recently it has been noticed that this practice has increased greatly especially among the rich and famous which just proves the adage that fortune and fame is a double edged sword. The most recent was the breaking of an engage because the bride to be absolutely refused to sign a prenuptial agreement forced upon her by her fiancée’s side of the family. She claimed that if he couldn’t trust her with his assets (of which she had no interest anyways), then there was no point them being together and solidifying their union with false words that were not heartfelt. Personally, I think she made the right move. How much money is signed over upon the failing of a marriage shouldn’t be the foundation of “I do”. 

It is often said that a marriage is between two people and outside interferences should be avoided as best as possible. So what does a couple, two attorneys and a list of hypothetical mishaps or potential wrongdoings, negotiation, a couple of legal documents and a few signatures add up to? Is it a conscious commitment or a court case previously settled and waiting to happen? Has the sanctity of marriage been compromised and commercialized? Are we headed in a direction or no return? Whether it’s a want or a need, a contingency or a certainty, one thing that cannot be disputed is this. The union between two people should be based on love, mutual respect, compromise, commitment and trust. Without which, there is no union, just two strangers sharing a roof and a last name.

source: point news paper

Cultural Sensitivity Key to Reaching Rural Women

Empowering rural women in the Iraqi marshlands, who mostly remain off the radar of international support, must involve local languages and dialects as well as local women trainers, says Mishkat Al Moumin, founder of the Iraqi group Women and the Environment Network (WATEO).

"Oftentimes, international organisations are interested in empowering urban women politically and economically, and less attention is given to rural women," observed Al Moumin, who was Iraq's environment minister from 2003 to 2005.

Through training in resources management and environmental design at the village level, WATEO empowers rural women as primary users of environmental resources, particularly water.

Hailing recent efforts by U.N. Women, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), and the U.N. Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) to address issues facing rural women, she said, "Hopefully, more discussion and actions will take place."

IPS correspondent Rousbeh Legatis talked to Al Moumin about the daily challenges faced by rural Arab women in the marshes and the importance of culturally appropriate interventions.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Could you describe rural women's environmental livelihood in Iraq?

A: Women and the Environment worked among rural women living in the Iraqi marshlands, an area of 20,000 square kilometres, and according to UNEP having the most unique ecosystem in the Middle East that goes back to 5,000 years B.C.

Saddam (Hussein's) regime destroyed the marshlands by draining them and launching systematic attacks against the Marsh Arabs, estimated at around half a million. Forty thousand fled to Iran and around 100,000 became internally displaced.

After the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003, the Marsh Arabs returned and cooperated with the ministry of environment and International organisations to rehabilitate the ecosystem of the marshland. Around 45 percent of the marshland was rehabilitated.

However, the marshlands were not the same anymore. Lacking fresh water requires women to walk at least 10 miles back and forth more than once a day to collect water. As to food, the Marsh Arabs depend upon fishing and hunting for their livelihood.

More than 66 species of birds are considered at risk. Due to food shortage, the Marsh Arabs, who were once proud to fish by a trident, now they are fishing using the net or electricity.

This harsh and difficult environment means more work and more responsibilities for women. Before the destruction, fresh water was everywhere, now it is scarce. Women harvest water regardless of its smell and colour; sometimes families drink from the container even if their animals (that live with them) drank from it, one cup is used for the entire family. That caused water-borne diseases.

Q: You try to empower rural women through resource management in Basra, Maysan and Thi Qar. Could you please explain the underlying issues here you try to tackle?

A: The main issues the organisation works to address is to train women to provide water, sanitation, and hygiene to meet the basic needs of their family.

Furthermore, we want to include women's perspective in water policy. Oftentimes, policies forget to include the perspective of those who use water most of the time - which happens to be women. To that end, in August of 2010 Women and the Environment organised community meetings in the three provinces attended by government officials, private sector, NGOs, and rural women reviewing water policies, which led to the recommendation that women should be recognised as the primary users of water.

In the case of the Marsh Arabs, as additional example, we have trained women in more than 53 villages in the marshlands, building their capacity to provide water, sanitation and hygiene.

That included knowledge about how to preserve water, sanitation and hygiene, including boiling water, covering containers to keep the water clean, cleaning the cups that are used to drink water rather than having one cup for all family members to use and so forth.

Q: Did you make progress in supporting rural Iraqi women?

A: When communities come together to address an issue, progress will be made. I feel that a great progress was made (in the case of the Mash Arab women) because it was a group effort including Iraqi professors who contributed their knowledge, time and effort, tribal leaders who supported these programmes and believe that training the women makes their communities safer - which it did - as well as international organisations, especially UNEP, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Victoria University, and the Waterloo University.

The survey conducted before the training shows that 90 percent of the surveyed women collected water regardless of its colour and smell. After the training, 80 percent of women cared about the colour and the smell of water, 80 percent identified areas where water is less polluted, 85 percent boiled water, 85 percent cleaned the container before using.

The only challenge we have to face is financial funding. Due to the lack of financial resources, we cannot expand training to other villages and cover more areas to provide a higher level of training.

Q: Empowering rural women needs cultural aspects to be understood and incorporated in gender mainstreaming, could you explain that?

A: Empowering rural women needs to be done from within according to the norms and culture accepted by communities. The tribal community is an Islamic conservative community, thus, the language used in the training reflected that nature.

All the training materials were designed to coincide with the nature of the community. For example, well-known Muslim women who managed water resources were introduced as models. Local dialect was utilised, experts from the local areas were trained to train others.

Throughout the training, all experts utilised the local language, well known practices and traditions to introduce the idea that women are the primary users and managers of water resources.

Rather than referring to Western terminology or focusing on terms, the entire focus was on the culture itself and concepts. We utilised the Iraqi and Islamic culture to present case studies about women who managed water resources.

source:ipsnews

Gender Empowerment Still Lags Far Behind in Global Village

By Thalif Deen

When the United Nations concluded a two-week session highlighting the plight of rural women last week, the meetings singled out both the achievements and shortcomings of the ongoing relentless battle for gender equality in a world still dominated - and overwhelmingly ruled - by men.

The 45-member Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the global policy-making body fighting for women's rights, focused its priorities on the empowerment of rural women, including ownership rights, gender disparities in land holdings and the unequal access to productive resources in agriculture.

According to U.N. estimates, the international community contributed 7.5 billion dollars in official development assistance (ODA) to rural development during 2008-2009, but only a paltry three percent of that amount was earmarked for programmes where gender equality was the primary object.

Judging by the inherent shortcomings, the corresponding figures for 2010 and 2011 are not expected to be any better.

As Ann Tutwiler, deputy director-general of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), points out, the gap in agricultural production and productivity exists not because rural women were incapable of farming, but because of social constraints.

"Female famers produced less than their male counterparts because they lacked access to seeds and credits," she said.

Simple investments in water pumps alone could save women billions of hours a year, she added.

In short, she argued, 100 to 150 million people are still hungry and a significant share of agricultural production is missing primarily because rural women's economic potential is being squandered.

Tutwiler said African women spend a staggering 40 billion hours a year just collecting water.

But apparently all is not lost.

Cheryl Morden, director of North America's Liaison Office of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), points out that the number of the world's poorest women with micro-loans increased from 10.3 million in 1999 to 113.1 million in 2010.

However, while microcredit had lead to women's empowerment, it has its limitations.

"To enable rural women to get a stronger foothold on the pathway out of poverty, they need a broad range of financial services, along with other kinds of support," she added.

Asked what the United Nations has achieved so far in terms of gender empowerment over the last two decades, Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former U.N. under-secretary-general and currently a senior special advisor to the president of the General Assembly, pointed to U.N. Security Council resolution 1325 adopted in October 2000.

"It has been the most significant decision of the U.N. in terms of asserting that peace is inextricably linked to equality between women and men, and also calling for equal participation of women at all decision-making levels along with equal access to policy processes," Chowdhury told IPS.

"The political and conceptual breakthrough for 1325 was achieved eight months before in March of that year for the first time in the Security Council when as its president, I could lead the Council's 15 members to reach consensus on the statement that outlined the elements of 1325."

The main thrust of that statement was participation of women on equal footing. "However, we have to be more determined to achieve that objective both nationally and internationally," he added.

A strong advocate of women's rights, Chowdhury said the "agreed conclusions" of the just-concluded CSW's 56th session could have brought out more forcefully the debilitating negative impact of war, conflict and violence on rural women.

"It failed to recognise that rural women still face enduring challenges to their human security which continues to exacerbate where there is proliferation of weapons, particularly small arms and light weapons," he said.

Rural women's natural ability to mobilise the community in times of conflict and disaster was not recognised and supported. Experience has shown that 1325 is very relevant in this context for rural women, Chowdhury noted.

He said a strong focus should have been on the improvement of the human security of women in conflict zones.

As the statement by the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) released last month has underscored, building on the potential of rural women to improve their human security through active involvement within policy processes and political decision-making is a precondition for achieving lasting peace and security.

It also called for implementation of gender-sensitive security measures developed together with rural women.

Asked what needs to be done to advance the cause of gender empowerment over the next decade, Chowdhury told IPS, "I strongly believe that the adoption of 1325 National Action Plan (NAP) by each of the U.N.'s 193 member-states is potentially the single-most significant step that could be taken for women's empowerment and participation in general and in the area of peace and security in particular."

As of now, he pointed out, only 35 countries have their respective NAP's ready.

"But there should be concerted time-bound efforts made in that direction, particularly by U.N. Women which has accepted 1325 implementation as one of its priority mandates," he said.

Meanwhile, the most comprehensive and potent opportunity to advance the equality, empowerment and participation of women would come from the Fifth Global Conference on Women in 2015 as proposed by the president of the U.N. General Assembly and the secretary-general in a joint announcement made last week on International Women's Day.

"This is a remarkable initiative, first-ever jointly presented by the two leaders of the U.N. system, and it would be 20 years since the last summit in Beijing," Chowdhury said.

The 2015 conference would not only review the implementation of the Beijing outcome but, more importantly, look into the new and emerging challenges and opportunities that women are facing and what needs to be done.

Resolution 1325, which was adopted five years after Beijing, would find a major rallying point in the new summit, he predicted.

The intergenerational transition with greater role and involvement of young people would also be a key element of deliberations there.

A significant new dimension of the 2015 gathering would be to take advantage of new technology to connect with and listen to women in various parts of the world who would not be physically present in the conference.

Meanwhile, the CSW approved several draft resolutions Friday, including on women, the girl child and HIV/AIDS; an end to the harmful practice of female genital mutilation; release of women and children taken hostage in war zones; indigenous women as key actors in poverty and hunger eradication; the elimination of maternal mortality and morbidity through empowerment of women; and gender equality and the empowerment of women in natural disasters.

But the only draft resolution put to a vote was on the situation of, and assistance to, Palestinian women, which was adopted by a recorded vote of 29 in favour to two against (Israel, United States), with 10 abstentions (Belgium, Colombia, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden).

KENYA PASSES LAW AGAINST FGM - FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION

Kenya has become the latest African country to make female genital mutilation illegal. The practice is still widespread in Africa, despite African Union opposition
Kenya is the most recent African country to ban female genital mutilation, with the passing of a law making it illegal to practice or procure it or take somebody abroad for cutting. The law even prohibits derogatory remarks about women who have not undergone FGM. Offenders may be jailed or fined or both.

Members of the Kenyan Women Parliamentary Association said it was a historic day. Linah Kilimo, its chairperson, said the move would improve school attendance. And Sophia Abdi Noor said:

I have fought for 18 years to achieve this legislation. Today is independence day for women. Men got their independence in 1963 – but today women have achieved independence from the cruel hands of society.

Unicef congratulated Kenya. Its child protection specialist in Kenya, Zeinab Ahmed said:

It is a great day for the girl child of Kenya. FGM is a serious violation of the rights of the child and of women. This bill gives an indication from government it is not just a cultural practice that can go on. The government has taken a bold step and will not tolerate any more violations. I applaud the work of Kewopa, the ministry of gender and the many other partners who have worked tirelessly to ensure that girls are protected from FGM.

Nobody imagines this means FGM will never take place again in Kenya, but making it illegal is a massive step towards changing attitudes and giving strength to those who oppose the practice. Kenya follows a number of African governments in outlawing the practice. According to the Pan African news agency, at the time of the African Union summit in June, which proposed prohibition of FGM, Benin, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Nigeria, Kenya, Central African Republic, Senegal, Chad, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda already had legislation against it.

But in nine countries (including some of those where it is illegal) it is still widely practised. In Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan, 85% of women undergo mutilation.



Professor Shirley Randell AO, PhD, FACE, FAIM, FAICD

Convener for International Relations, Rwanda Association of University Women

Director, Centre for Gender, Culture and Development Studies

Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) Rwanda

PO Box 5039, Remera, Kigali, Rwanda

Tel: +250 (0)2 5511 7138 Fax: +250 (0)2 5258 6890 Mob: +250 (0)7 8830 8967

mail@shirleyrandell.com.au www.shirleyrandell.com.au

www.ifuw.org/rwanda www.facebook.com/CGCDKIE



Millennium Development Goals: Yes we can!

International Literacy Day

8 September, International Literacy Day: 793 million adults can neither read nor write

This year’s International Literacy Day, celebrated world-wide on 8 September, will focus on the link between literacy and peace. During a ceremony in New Delhi, India, UNESCO will award the international Confucius and King Sejong literacy prizes to projects in Burundi, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the United States of America.
Also in New Delhi, an international conference on Women’s Literacy for Inclusive and Sustainable Development is being organized by UNESCO’s E9 initiative,* from 8 to 10 September.

According to data from UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, 793 million adults – most of them girls and women - are illiterate. A further 67 million children of primary school age are not in primary school and 72 million adolescents of lower secondary school age are also missing out their right to an education.

More than half the adult population of the following 11 countries are illiterate: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Haiti, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. South and West Asia account for more than half (51,8%) the world’s adult illiterate population, ahead of sub-Saharan Africa (21,4%), East Asia and the Pacific (12,8%), the Arab States (7,6%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4,6%), North America, Europe and Central Asia (2%).

“The world urgently needs increased political commitment to literacy backed by adequate resources to scale up effective programmes. Today I urge governments, international organizations, civil society and the private sector to make literacy a policy priority, so that every individual can develop their potential, and actively participate in shaping more sustainable, just and peaceful societies,” declared UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

Scheduled participants at the New Delhi conference include the President of India, Pratibha Devi Singh Patil; the ministers of education of Nigeria, Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufaí (the current E-9 President); Pakistan, Pir mazhar-ul-Aq; Nepal, Gangalal Tuladhar; Egypt, Ahmed Gamal El-Din Moussa; Sri Lanka, Bandula Gunawardhana; Bangladesh, Nurul Islam Nahid; and Bhutan, Thakur Singh Powdyel.

Representatives of international organizations, members of civil society and of the private sector, as well as experts in adult education will present successful literacy projects and share their experience.

The award ceremony of the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prizes and of the UNESCO Confucius Prizes for Literacy, financed respectively by the governments of the Republic of Korea and China, will be held ahead of the conference, on 8 September.

The National Literacy Service of Burundi is the laureate of one of the two awards of the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize for its innovative approach to linking functional literacy to daily life issues and to topics related to peace and tolerance, as well as for its overall impact. From 2010 to 2011 alone, the Service presented more than 50,000 certificates to new readers.

The other UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize goes to the National Institute for the Education of Adults of Mexico, for its bilingual literacy programme. The programme is recognized for its impact in reducing the rate of illiteracy among indigenous populations, especially women, and for improving indigenous people’s ability to exercise their rights.

One of two awards of the UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy goes to the U.S.-based Room to Read for its effective programme, Promoting Gender Equality and Literacy through Local Language Publishing. Operating in nine countries — Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam and Zambia — the programme has assisted communities in the development of culturally relevant reading materials in local and minority languages.

The other award of the UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy goes to Collectif Alpha Ujuvi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for its programme, Peaceful Coexistence of Communities and Good Governance in North Kivu. The programme uses an innovative model for preventing and resolving tensions and conflicts among individuals and communities.

Each of the four laureates will receive US$20,000 during the ceremony, which will be webcast.

****

The E-9 brings together nine high population countries that are home to over two-thirds of the world’s adult illiterates and more than half the planet’s out-of-school children: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/8_september_international_literacy_day_793_million_adults_can_neither_read_nor_write/

source: femnet forum
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MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS REPORT 2010 - UNDP - GENDER

DOCUMENT HIGHLIGHTS

Despite significant setbacks after the 2008-2009 economic crisis, the world is on track to reach the MDG poverty-reduction target by 2015.
Some of the world’s poorest countries, including Burundi, Rwanda, Samoa, Togo and the United Republic of Tanzania, have made the greatest strides in education.
Every region has made progress in improving access to clean drinking water.
Investments in preventing and treating HIV have caused new HIV infections to drop by 21 percent since 1997, when they peaked.
The number of deaths of children under the age of five declined from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009.


Quick Facts

In 2008, there were 96 girls for every 100 boys enrolled in primary school, and 95 girls for every 100 boys in secondary school in developing regions.
The share of women employed outside of agriculture remains as low as 20 per cent in Southern Asia, Western Asia and Northern Africa.
The global share of women in parliament continues to rise slowly and reached 19 per cent in 2010 — far short of gender parity.
Gender gaps in access to education have narrowed, but disparities remain high in university-level education and in some developing regions. Girls’ enrolment ratios in primary and secondary schools have significantly increased in recent years. Nevertheless, the 2005 target was missed and major challenges remain, with large inequality gaps in primary education in Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia.

Unequal access to universities

Access to university-level education remains highly unequal, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. In these regions, only 67 and 76 girls per 100 boys, respectively, are enrolled in tertiary education. Completion rates also tend to be lower among women than men. Poverty is the main cause of unequal access to education, particularly for girls of secondary-school age.

Low rates of women in paid employment

Despite progress made, men continue to outnumber women in paid employment, and women are often relegated to vulnerable forms of employment. The share of women in paid non-agricultural wage employment is slowly increasing and globally reached 41 per cent in 2008. It is still as low as 20 percent in Southern Asia, Northern Africa and Western Asia, and 32 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa. Even when women are employed, they are typically paid less and have less financial and social security than men. Women are more likely than men to be in vulnerable jobs — characterized by inadequate earnings, low productivity and substandard working conditions — especially in Western Asia and Northern Africa, where paid employment opportunities for women are the lowest. Globally, only one quarter of senior officials or managers are women. In Western Asia, Southern Asia and Northern Africa, women hold less than 10 per cent of top-level positions.

Women are gaining political power

Women are slowly gaining political power, mainly thanks to quotas and special measures. Between 1995 and 2010, the share of women in parliament, on a global level, increased from 11 per cent to 19 per cent — a gain of 73 per cent, but far short of gender parity. Parliamentary elections in 2009 contributed to rising gains for women in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, where 29 per cent and 25 per cent of the renewed seats went to women, respectively. But 58 countries still have 10 per cent or fewer female members of parliament. Progress in women’s representation in the executive branches of government is even slower. In 2010, just nine of 151 elected heads of state and 11 of 192 heads of government were women. Globally, women hold only 16 per cent of ministerial posts.

Affirmative action continues to be the key driver of progress for women. In 2009, the average share of women elected to parliament was 13 percentage points higher — 27 per cent as opposed to 14 per cent — in countries that applied such measures.



Professor Shirley Randell AO, PhD, FACE, FAIM, FAICD

Convener for International Relations, Rwanda Association of University Women

Director, Centre for Gender, Culture and Development Studies

Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) Rwanda

PO Box 5039, Remera, Kigali, Rwanda

Tel: +250 (0)2 5511 7138 Fax: +250 (0)2 5258 6890 Mob: +250 (0)7 8830 8967

mail@shirleyrandell.com.au www.shirleyrandell.com.au

www.ifuw.org/rwanda www.facebook.com/CGCDKIE



Millennium Development Goals: Yes we can!

Witches - Accusations,Persecutions - Women & Girls

Throughout history, people described as witches have been persecuted,
tortured and murdered and the practice continues today. Statistics are not
easy to come by but it is known that every year, thousands of people, mostly
older women and children are accused as witches, often abused, cast out of
their families and communities and in many cases murdered.

The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,
Philip Alston, in his most recent report to the Human Rights Council, says:
?In too many settings, being classified as a witch is tantamount to
receiving a death sentence.

Shockingly, it is children that are increasingly targeted. A report for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees published in January 2009,
?Witchcraft Allegations, Refugee Protection and Human Rights, says the
abuse of children accused of witchcraft is common in countries that have
suffered years of conflict where traditional social structures have
disappeared and where child soldiers have often emerged as a threat. And in
countries where sudden deaths from diseases like AIDS are common, where
there are few if any prospects of a better life, and where revivalist
churches confirm signs of witchcraft, children are often accused of
supernatural powers and persecuted.

Alston concludes: The persecution and killing of individuals accused of
practicing so-called witchcraft the vast majority of whom are women and
children is a significant phenomenon in many parts of the world. The
response to witchcraft frequently involves serious and systematic forms of
discrimination, he says, especially on the grounds of gender, age and
disability. The families of the witches are also often subjected to
serious human rights violations.

In his report, Alston offers an insight into the size of the problem and its
geographical spread;

- Reports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) suggest that
most of the 25,000 - 50,000 children living on the streets of the capital,
Kinshasa are there because they have been accused of witchcraft and rejected
by their families. In 2009 The Committee on the Rights of the Child noted
that in the DRC violence against children accused of witchcraft is
increasing, and that children are being kept as prisoners in religious
buildings where they are exposed to torture and ill-treatment or even killed
under the pretext of exorcism.
- The Special Rapporteur on violence against women has highlighted the
problem of witch hunts in India, Nepal and South Africa.
- In Ghana it is thought as many as 2,000 accused witches and their
dependents are confined in five different camps. Most of the camp inmates
are destitute, elderly women and some have been forced to live there for
decades.
- The murder and persecution of people accused of witchcraft in Tanzania
is better documented than in most countries. The figures vary widely but it
is estimated as many as a thousand, mostly elderly Tanzanian women are
targeted and killed annually.
- In Angola, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for
immediate action to eliminate the mistreatment of children accused of
witchcraft.
- In Papua New Guinea, provincial police commanders reportedly said there
were more than 50 sorcery-related killings in 2008. Other sources have
suggested much higher figures.
- In Nigeria, the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network reports an
increasing number of children abandoned or persecuted on the grounds they
are witches or wizards.
- In Nepal, elderly women and widows are often singled out and abused in
exorcism ceremonies.

In considering how to address the problem, the Special Rapporteur has said
that making it illegal to believe in witchcraft is not a solution. Respect
for customary beliefs, however does not allow for persecution and
murder. Alston recommends in his report that all killings of alleged witches
be treated as murder and investigated, prosecuted and punished. And
governments, he says, must play their part, taking all available steps to
prevent such crimes and prosecute and punish perpetrators.

Alston also recommends that the problems surrounding the persecution and
killings be reflected in the guidelines and programs of development agencies
operating in countries where there is a significant level of belief in
witches and witchcraft. Alston wants more than awareness-raising programmes.
He believes protection should be offered to those whose lives are endangered
by accusations of witchcraft.


source:UNHCR - UN Refugee Agency