Should U.N. Chief's Public Pronouncements Be Copyrighted?

By Thalif Deen

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) holds his first press conference of 2011, outlining his priorities for the year.  Credit:UN Photo/Mark Garten

When the secretary-general of the United Nations issues a key policy statement, holds a news conference or simply makes off- the-cuff remarks to the press corps, they traditionally remain in the public domain.

But a recent op-ed commentary in an Australian newspaper, authored by Ban Ki-moon, was not only copyrighted but also truncated, thereby omitting a crucial policy decision - the creation of a new U.N. women's agency - from his public pronouncement spelling out the world body's 2011 agenda.

At the bottom of the article, published in the Sydney Morning Herald in late December, was the warning: "Copyright, Project Syndicate, 2010".

The Prague-based outfit is an international not-for-profit newspaper syndicate soliciting articles, analyses and op-ed pieces from a variety of writers, including political thinkers, Nobel laureates, activists and academics - and placing them in newspapers worldwide.

Stephen Lewis, a former deputy executive director of the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, is challenging the new-found exclusiveness of the secretary-general.

"I was sent an e-mail by a senior member of the secretary- general's (SG) staff indicating that something called Project Syndicate had crafted the op-ed taken from a previous speech the SG had given," he said.

Apparently, it wasn't vetted by the SG's office. That's entirely irresponsible, said Lewis.

"You don't allow a private company to fool around with the words of the SG without scrutiny by the SG's staff before publication," he said.

Lewis, a former U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and currently co-director of the group AIDS-Free World, wondered how a non-profit association of newspapers - really a private company, non-profit or otherwise – managed to hold a copyright on the words of the SG.

Asked to respond, a spokesperson for secretary-general, Farhan Haq, told IPS: "That's just because some op-eds are sent to a syndicated service, which places them in newspapers around the world."

Haq confirmed that the SG's statements "remain in the public domain".

Lewis remained sceptical. "If, however, we were to believe the response given to IPS," he said, "then an op-ed was drafted by the SG's office with no reference to U.N. Women."

That's even more reprehensible, he said. "No matter how you look at this, the U.N. has contracted out the words of the secretary-general of the United Nations as though he was a commonplace blogger."

Something is terribly wrong in the offices of the secretary- general, he added.

In his op-ed piece, Ban stressed the important role the United Nations will play in 2011 and beyond.

"People everywhere live in growing anxiety and fear. There is near-universal loss of trust in institutions and leaders," he wrote.

Amid such uncertainty, he said, "Our future depends on a United Nations that brings together the countries of the world not only to talk and debate, but also to agree and to act; that mobilises civil society, business, philanthropists and ordinary citizens to help the world's governments solve current problems; and that delivers peace, development, human rights, and global public goods - in a word, hope - to people around the world every day."

Although he singled out the U.N.'s past achievements and projected its future role, Ban's commentary left out one of the most positive achievements of the world body: the creation of U.N. Women launched in the new year.

"The conventional wisdom will tell you that the MDG targets - reducing poverty and hunger, improving the health of mothers and children, combating HIV/AIDS, increasing access to education, protecting the environment, and forging a global partnership for development - are simply unattainable," he says.

But those "targets" spelled out in his article do not include gender empowerment and the future role of women in society.

Lewis said: "I see from the Project Syndicate website that they solicit or accept unsolicited op-ed commentaries of 800 to 1000 words in length, but do they have the right to extract sections from other materials [such as speeches] and then present them as though they were an original commentary? That's what they did with the SG."

"We'd love to see the contract between the SG and Project Syndicate. It's one thing to toy with the copy of Jeffrey Sachs or Joe Stiglitz or Jimmy Carter or Naomi Wolfe, but the SG is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations, not of an academic institution or a think-tank," Lewis said.

"And look how embarrassing it can be," added Lewis, currently a distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.

Lewis said the editors of Project Syndicate clearly couldn't have cared less about women, so they simply excised that part of the SG's address. 

No Easy Path for Disabled Women with Political Dreams

Joyce Labosa and Millie Odhiambo, MP's at the forefront fighting for disabled women's rights  Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS "People living with disability face all sorts of discrimination. We are discriminated against at job interviews in schools. Everyday is a battle to remain positive in the face of a world that is too bent on dismissing those among us that do not meet the standard of what is normal", explains Mishi Juma, a disabled community leader from the Coast region.  In the past, Juma never had a safe space to raise these issues. But all this has now changed. Juma and many other disabled women can now raise their concerns with the newly established Ministry of gender and social development.

The establishment of this Ministry two years ago has been a milestone in Kenya and has had to prove that it is more than just another women’s organisation.

Critical processes which were meant to improve the plight of the minority and disadvantaged in the country have been initiated.

This is reflected by the formulation of various interventions to reach those who may not be in a position to access socio-economic opportunities, which are key to their development.

Some of these interventions have included the setting up of a Women and Youth Fund, as well as a persistent push for gender equality policies in all sectors of the economy.

Even so, it is the call for a census to establish the number of persons with disabilities, and the nature of disabilities, that has further proved that the Ministry does not only address women’s and children’s issues, as had been previously perceived.

This call was initiated by the former Minister, Esther Murugi, in an effort to mainstream the issue of disability in the country.

But some feel not enough has been done. It is even worse for those with political ambitions, "I have been dismissed even before being given an opportunity to speak my mind - firstly for just being a woman and then for being a woman who is not physically fit," explains Kanini Mugambi, an aspiring politician from Eastern Kenya.

The country is yet to see a disabled woman in Parliament. "Going by the kind of violence meted out to female politicians in the last general elections of 2007, many women with disabilities nurturing political ambitions might feel threatened because their mobility is limited and they may not be able to run in case there is a scuffle - as is usually the case," explains Mishi Juma.

This is despite the fact that, according to Murugi, Kenya is one of the few countries in Africa with a Disability Act already in place, which clearly enumerates the rights of the disabled, including the right to rehabilitation in order for them to achieve equalisation of opportunities".

She further explained that Kenya is being considered for an ambassadorial position by the African Decade for Persons with Disabilities Secretariat, based in South Africa, due to its efforts to promote issues affecting people living with disability.

Within this financial year, the government had committed itself to set up a multi million-dollar fund to address problems faced by people living with disability.

While Murugi said the establishment of the fund was a good beginning, she was also optimistic that the fund could be doubled in the next financial year to enable persons living with disabilities to access funding for entrepreneurship, as was the case with the Women and Youth Fund.

"Although this might be the case, most physical amenities in the country lack suitable infrastructure to assist people with disabilities," explains Juma.

This is in spite of the fact that the Disability Act, as well as the Constitution, demands that all persons living with disabilities are entitled to ‘reasonable access to all places, public transport and information.’

The call for a census to be undertaken among persons living with disabilities was therefore an expression of the government’s commitment to improving the plight of the physically challenged.

In fact, according to the Constitution that was only recently promulgated, the "State shall ensure the progressive implementation of the principle that at least five percent of the members of the public in elective and appointive bodies are persons with disabilities."

It is imperative to also note that the government, in conjunction with state corporations, is working on identifying targets to establish a disability committee that would be mandated with the task of developing a disability mainstreaming strategy.

The strategy will not only ensure that people with disabilities do not face discrimination in public places, but that they are also able to access services which are available to other Kenyans.

Although there are legal frameworks in place to protect and promote the rights of the disabled, including policy guidelines awaiting Cabinet’s approval, there is a need for the legal system to work in collaboration with society.

"This is because it is the same society that hides children born with disability from the world, denying them an opportunity to grow together with other children. And by the time they are exposed to society, the culture shock is too overwhelming for them," explains Hamisa Zaja, chairperson of disabled groups in the Coast region.

In light of the devolved system of government, Hamisa Zaja further urged disabled women not to shy away from politics and to present themselves to the electorate when the opportunity presented itself.

In the meantime, she called for leaders to sensitise the public on the need to create an enabling environment for people with disabilities to pursue the same opportunities as other Kenyans, particularly in the political arena. 

Women Wonder if They'll Ever Feel Safe Again

Up a rubble-strewn street, turn right past a crumbled house, and 60 men and women are in the yard and parlor of the offices of the Commission of Women Victim-to-Victim (Komisyon Fanm Viktim pou Viktim, KOFAVIV) association.

The women are members of KOFAVIV, and they live in the squalid refugee camps and some of the capital's toughest and poorest neighbourhoods. Today, they each brought along a male friend for a workshop on how to prevent violence.

Dressed in their Sunday best, the participants joked and jostled as they broke into groups.

"Happy New Year!" said one young woman with huge hoop earrings, but then she corrected herself - "No, I won't say 'happy,' but I'll say, 'good health to you.'"

As the discussions started up, smiles melted away.

MINUSTAH – Too Little, Too Late?While a few pockets of international and local activists are stretching themselves thin, powerful bodies like the U.N. have been accused of doing too little, too late. "There is definitely a lot more that MINUSTAH can be doing," Amnesty International's Kerrie Howard told IPS, referring to the U.N. Stabilisation Mission in Haiti. "Their policing function needs to have a much stronger gender focus," she said. "They also need to help the Haitian government to train their security forces and build the capacity of the forces to address gender violence if they are to ever deliver a solution for the women." Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, is highly critical of the way MINUSTAH has handled the situation. "The U.N. announced last summer that it would bring in a special all-women's police unit from Bangladesh to provide protection for the women," he told IPS. "The unit arrived, but is patrolling U.N. facilities, not camps. It's been reported that this is because of a lack of translators, but it seems that a force spending 2.5 million dollars per day could afford to pay for translators to make one of its priority projects work." "As we mentioned in our petition to the IACHR, U.N. officials in charge of gender violence have been downplaying the reports of rape coming from poor women's groups, and marginalising the grassroots groups – which are much more effective – in favour of the traditional women's organisations," Concannon added. "The woman in charge of the Gender Violence Subcluster wrote a blog post a month after she arrived in Haiti, saying that she had not yet met a rape victim. She took this as evidence that the rapes were not happening as reported. In fact, it was evidence that the U.N. subcluster did not have access to the information about rapes that was readily available from poor women."

"Okay, let's make a list. What do we have at the Runway Camp?" asked an older woman who lives in a tent on the runway of Haiti's former military airport. "Okay, robbery, youth prostitution, rape, domestic violence and verbal abuse."

"Well, that's what we have in our camp too," said a young girl in blue jeans and a spaghetti strap top.

A man wearing a perfectly ironed white shirt interjected, "Okay, but what are we going to do about it?"

A full year after a 7.0 earthquake in Haiti obliterated 230,000 lives, injured 300,000 and rendered a quarter of the population homeless, Haitian women are now weathering a second catastrophe.

In the 2,000 makeshift displaced persons camps clustered across the country, women and girls are caught in the midst of an onslaught of sexual abuse, savage beatings and heinous crimes against humanity.

Two million people are still crammed into enclosures, which have become microcosms of pre-earthquake patterns of the gross income inequality, social exclusion and abject poverty that has plagued Haiti for centuries.

A report released Thursday by Amnesty International lays bare the appalling conditions in which Haitian women are forced to live - the paltry shelters in the open-air camps seldom comprise anything more than flimsy tents, or tarps stretched over a patch of earth.

According to the report, "Aftershocks: Women Speak Out Against Sexual Violence in Haiti's Camps", over 250 rapes, in various camps, were reported a mere 100 days after the earthquake first struck. Many women and girls have been raped multiple times, often by several different men at once. Virtually every victim has also been beaten and tortured.

Medical and sanitary conditions in the camps are appalling; women and girls are forced to bathe in public and walk long distances to communal toilets at night. A total absence of privacy, lighting or solid barriers against perpetrators leaves even girls as young as 12 and 13 years old entirely vulnerable to the wave of sexual violence, most of which occurs after dark, the report says.

"Women's organisations on the ground helped us access the victims," Kerrie Howard, a Haiti expert at Amnesty International, told IPS. "Because the camps are a very closed community, it's extremely difficult for women and girls to speak out."

One of Amnesty's key local partners, and arguably the most active organisation working through the crisis, is KOFAVIV.

"At KOFAVIV we believe in education and we believe in preventing violence before it happens," Jocie Philistin, KOFAVIV's project coordinator, told IPS. "All of our members are survivors who are rehabilitated, and we are now trying to help others. And the solution doesn't lie with women only. We need men and women to work together."

But neighbourhood watch patrols and training sessions aren't the only answer, Philistin admits.

"Violence has two aspects – one is poverty, meaning it's economic. The other is politics," she said.

Whenever there is political turmoil or the economy worsens, violence against women increases. Rape has been used as a political weapon. Young people, especially girls, trade sex for a meal or a roof over their heads.

Now, one year after the quake, KOFAVIV admits a sense of hopelessness.

"In the camps, in the communities, things have gotten worse," Philistin said. "We have a completely absent state, we have NGOs who are in the camps mostly for public relations and they aren't even allowed to work in the 'red zone' areas, which are the most dangerous neighbourhoods."

A ray of hope

In early October, a coalition of prominent legal and social justice groups, including MADRE, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and the Bureaux des Advocats Internationaux filed a formal request with the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of 13 Haitian women and girls.

On Tuesday, the IACHR accepted the request and issued unprecedented recommendations to the Haitian government, which are binding under Haitian national law.

The measures include providing medical and psychological care such as emergency contraception and culturally sensitive female medical staff members; implementing effective security measures like street lighting and increased patrolling by security forces; and, perhaps most importantly, ensuring the full participation and leadership of grassroots women's groups in planning and implementing policies to combat the sexual violence.

Lisa Davis, the human rights advocacy director of MADRE, was the primary author of the request.

"We have been working with women's groups in Haiti since the rape crisis in the 1990s," Davis told IPS. "And we consult with our local partners every step of the way."

While Haitian women are of course concerned with long-term political changes that address the root causes of sexual violence and the blows of patriarchy, the need for immediate safety now trumps all, she said.

In a report entitled "Our Bodies Are Still Trembling: Haitians Women's Fight Against Rape", the parties of the IACHR request record in chilling detail testimony from women and girls in the camp. Women as old as 60 and as young as eight or nine have all been subjected to unspeakable cruelty which has increased sharply since the 2010 elections.

"We have reports of men going into camps and randomly shooting women who were wearing politically-charged t- shirts," Davis said.

"Every single woman I talked to said what she wants more than anything is housing," she stressed. "And if they can't get that - because it's not being offered to them right now - then they want to feel safe."

*Jane Regan reported from Haiti.



ipsnews

Numbers of Women in Government Declining

By Brigitte Weidlich

Namibia Finance Minister, Saara Kuugong Credit: Brigitte Weidlich/IPS Credit:Brigitte Weidlich

 










Twenty years after independence, representation of women in senior government structures and in Parliament is declining in Namibia. According to the latest demographic survey results of August 2010, out of a population of around 2 million, women outnumber men 10:9. In 2001, the ratio was 94 males per 100 females.

In 2010 Namibia reformed its national gender policy in line with the United Nation’s millennium development goals (MDGs) and its own Vision 2030, a national development policy dissected into five-yearly development plans. It includes the increase of women in decision-making positions in government, the private sector, religious groups and community institutions.

However, following the 2009 November national elections women's representation in Parliament declined from 30.8 per cent to 20 per cent. Only 16 women are now Members in the National Assembly, which has 72 elected seats.

Fifteen of the women in Parliament are from the ruling South West Africa Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) party, among them five Cabinet ministers and four deputies. Only two women MPs are from opposition parties. The Deputy Speaker is a woman. Cabinet representation of women stands at 22.7 percent.

Namibia ratified the 2008 Protocol on Gender and Development of the 15- member regional blocking 2009, but only six other states followed suit.

While SADC already targeted 30 percent women in decision-making positions by 2005, the 2008 Protocol strives to achieve 50 percent of women in such positions in the public and private sector by 2015.

This target is in line with that of the African (AU) Union. At the current slow pace of gender transformation in the political arena, SADC might not reach this goal in five years.

The Protocol is only enforced once two-thirds of all the applicable countries ratify it. Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have deposited the instruments of ratification with the SADC Secretariat, while DRC and South Africa have almost completed the process.

At the annual SADC summit in the Namibian capital of Windhoek in August 2010, the communiqué issued afterwards said heads of states noted on the Gender Protocol "that the overall situation is generally varied with some member states recording improvement while others are regressing. The Summit urges member states to ratify and implement the Protocol."

Jo-Ann Coetzee, Gender Project Assistant at Women's Leadership Centre, wants more to be done. "I think here in Namibia women are still not given the value that they deserve. We are still overlooked and seen as unimportant," she says.

Namibia’s Gender Equality and Child Welfare Minister, Doreen Sioka, wants a speedy implementation of the Gender Protocol. "Our country started off well, but its women’s representation in parliament has gone down to 20 per cent. I am optimistic we can still reach the 50 per cent women’s representation goal in parliament and other public institutions come 2015" – which is when the next national elections in Namibia take place.

The ruling party’s Women’s Council has already demanded a 50:50 representation in the party’s hierarchy like the Politburo and its central committee come 2012 - the next Swapo congress.

Even Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba was disappointed with the under-representation of women on his Swapo party list for the November 2010 regional and local authority elections.

Veronica de Klerk, Executive Director of the local Women’s Action for Development (WAD) organisation sees the decline in women’s representation as stemming from political parties low listing of women candidates. "It should be made compulsory for all parties to introduce an alternate listing system of women on party lists with men, meaning a 50:50 share or zebra listing" says De Klerk.

In the Namibian Cabinet the ministers for justice, finance, gender equality/child welfare, home affairs and environment/tourism are women and four women are deputy ministers in the health, defence, gender equality and regional development portfolios.

But have they made their mark? Finance Mister Saara Kuugongelwa Amadhila- Kuugongelwa, who was appointed in 2003, reduced national debt and the budget deficit considerably during her term in office. The tax regime was also revised and the Financial Intelligence Act was drafted and promulgated to curb money laundering and fraud.

Dianne Hubbard of the Legal Assistance Centre's Gender Research & Advocacy Project in Namibia thinks major laws have been passed since independence twenty years ago.

The Local Authorities Act of 1992 requires that over 30 per cent of candidates on every party list for local elections must be women. "This law has worked very well with over 42 per cent of local council members being women," says Hubbard. Regional Councils, where there is no legal requirement for affirmative action, consist of only about 11 percent of women.

The Traditional Authorities Act of 1995 also requires traditional authorities to promote women to positions of leadership, Hubbard points out.

The Combating of Domestic Violence Act of 2003 was the result of strong advocacy by women’s groups. Some 250 people demanded a law on this issue at the opening of Parliament in 2003. "To help put these laws into action, Namibia has created 16 Women and Child Protection Units, covering every region in Namibia," she notes.

Before Independence, married women in Namibia were not allowed to buy or sell their own property, register land in their own names, take out a loan or be a director of a company or a trustee without the consent of their husbands.

The Married Persons Equality Act changed this in 1996 and wives now have the same rights as their husbands. 

source: ipsnews

Getting Away Legally With Assaulting Women

By Rebecca Murray

On a Damascus street. Credit:Rebecca Murray

Iman Wannouss was just 21 years old when she was married off to a close relative. For the next two decades she gave up her work and raised three children in a loveless and violent marriage.

"He beat me for no reason, just when he got stressed, and sometimes in front of the children," she says. Even when she landed in a hospital emergency room after he cut her face with a vase, she refused to tell the doctor what happened.

"It would make things much worse - they would take him to prison and then he would make more trouble. I was frightened of my husband. Also, it’s a kind of shame."

Wannouss finally filed for divorce in a Muslim court upon the urging of her children, but according to the law she had to relinquish all her rights and belongings. "Syrian society looks at divorce in a very negative way," she says. "Women get blamed all the time."

Her story is devastatingly common among women in Syria, governed by discriminatory laws and rules fundamental to family honour.

In 2002 Syria signed the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) with reservations.

These reservations include the Personal Status Law that administers family matters. First established in 1953 and rooted in Islamic law (Shari’a), the Personal Status Law encompasses issues from birth to death, and allows Muslim, Druze and Christian sects space to implement their own religious regulations for marriage, divorce and custody.

The rules vary according to religion; some enable 13-year-old girls to marry and men to take up to four wives, with the ability to divorce easily. For certain wives divorce is impossible, while for the majority divorce is exceedingly difficult and looked down upon. Inheritance and child custody matters favour men across sectarian lines.

"While women’s active participation in political decision-making positions in public life is being promoted, and equal access to education and health have greatly improved, the Personal Status Laws and the Penal Code prevent women from enjoying equal rights to men," the Euromed Gender Equality Programme reported from Syria this year.

Women’s rights organizations, activists and the governmental Syria Commission for Family Affairs successfully blocked a more conservative draft of the Personal Status Law in 2009. But the current law remains, and while the state is harsh on trafficking and prostitution, articles in the penal code assure near impunity for those who commit violence against women.

For instance, while rape or sexual assault on a victim under 12 can carry a conviction up to 21 years, if a man rapes an adult woman he can be absolved of the crime if the woman, often feeling shamed or pressured, agrees to marry him.

"Men can be exempted from punishment if they kill or hurt their spouse, sister, or any of their female ascendants, whom they unexpectedly discover committing adultery or out-of-wed sexual relations with another person, as well as in a doubtful situation with another person," says the Euromed report. "This provision leaves room for interpretation and is at the onset of widespread abuse."

In July 2009, days before the conservative revised draft of the Personal Status Law was shelved, President Bashar al-Assad increased the sentence for honour crimes under Article 548 to two years. However, activists say this does not go far enough, and recommend the abolition of related articles that can lessen or waive convictions.

Yahya Al-Aous is the editor of Al-Thara e-magazine, published by progressive printing house Etana Press. He says tracing honour killings is difficult because many of these are not registered as honour crimes, or made public. Al-Aous says he has monitored 52 so far, but they could run into the hundreds annually.

Al-Thara is run out of a basement in a crowded Damascus suburb and fills a critical gap offering a network of contacts for often desperate women seeking expert legal, religious and social counseling, or protection in shelters.

"Women are writing us emails telling their stories and asking us for help," Al- Aous tells IPS. "For example, I have a problem with my husband, I have a problem with the court, I can’t get a divorce, I have a problem with my father…"

Al Aous says Al-Thara needs to focus on a variety of fronts: "There is no law for domestic violence, nothing. Honour crimes carry a light sentence. The marriage age for girls needs to be raised. Women need to get equal inheritance… all these issues are intertwined."

"We are working step by step," says Sawsan Zakzak from the Syrian Women League, who along with activists and NGOs plays a crucial role lobbying the government to revise gender laws. "We are asking to have civil law for all Syrians. People could have the choice between religious law and civil law, but the official law should be civil."

GENDER EQUALITY AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN Gambia, The

Under the 1997 Constitution, women in the Gambia are accorded equal rights with men. Yet they continue to experience discrimination and inequality, largely because the patriarchal nature of Gambian society reinforces traditional roles of women. In addition, the country has a dual legal system that combines civil law (inspired by the British system) and Islamic Sharia. Provisions in Sharia are generally viewed to be discriminatory towards women, particularly in relation to marriage, divorce and inheritance.

Family Code: 

Women in the Gambia face many discriminations and inequalities in regard to family matters. The laws recognise four forms of marriage: Christian, civil, customary and Mohommedan (which are governed by Sharia). The 1997 Constitution states that all marriages shall be based on the free and full consent of the intended parties, except under customary law which still supports the tradition of child betrothal. More than 90 per cent of Gambian women are governed by customary and Sharia law vis-à-vis their family relationships. The Gambia has no minimum legal age for marriage and the incidence of early marriage is high: a 2004 United Nations report estimated that 39 per cent of girls in the Gambia between 15 and 19 years of age were married, divorced or widowed. Child marriage is not prohibited by law, and some girls are married off as young as the age of 12 years.
Polygamy is permissible under Sharia and is practised; Muslim men may take up to four wives. Wives whose husbands enter a second or subsequent marriage have the option to divorce, but they have no legal right to receive advance notice regarding the husband’s intentions or to give their approval.
Women also face discrimination in regard to parental authority. Sharia considers husbands to be the natural head of the family; as such, they have sole responsibility for matters concerning the raising of children.
Women’s rights with regard to inheritance depend on the law applied. Sharia provides for detailed and complex calculations of inheritance shares, whereby women may inherit from their father, mother, husband or children and, under certain conditions, from other family members. However, their shares are generally only half of that to which men are entitled. Christian women and female children can receive properties under the wills of their husbands or fathers, but may also find themselves disadvantaged. Their law of inheritance permits husbands, if they so choose, to will away all property and leave nothing for their wives and children. Gambian law offers no protection to women in such cases. Under customary law, wives are not entitled to the property of their husband unless – and until – they agree to let themselves be inherited by the husband’s family. In effect, such women are treated as a form of property to be inherited along with the rest of their husbands’ assets.

Physical Integrity: 

Protection for the physical integrity of Gambian women is weak. Violence against women, including domestic violence and abuse is rarely reported, but its occurrence is believed to be quite common. Even though wife-beating is a criminal offence (and constitutes grounds for divorce under civil law), the police typically consider such incidents to be domestic issues that lie beyond their jurisdiction. The Gambia does have laws prohibiting rape and assault, which are generally enforced. Spousal rape, however, is not specifically recognised.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is widespread, especially in the Gambian countryside. The practice of FGM is illegal under the Penal Code but, to date, there have been no prosecutions for violations. Previous data from the Demographic and Health Surveys indicated that virtually all Gambian women had undergone FGM. A more recent estimate from the CPTAFE (Cellule de coordination sur les pratiques traditionnelles affectant la femme et l’enfant), a local NGO dedicated to eradicating FGM and ritual scarring, suggests the figure to be 65 per cent to 75 per cent. The lower figure, if accurate, would represent a decline over recent years, largely due to efforts by women’s rights groups to raise awareness about the health risks associated with the practice.
The population sex ratio in the Gambia has been stable for the past 50 years, suggesting it is not a country of concern in relation to missing women.

Ownership Rights: 

Women in the Gambia have very few ownership rights. Concerning access to land, only a small proportion of women have titles to land property. The problem is especially acute in rural areas: traditional and cultural practices allow women to have the right to usufruct over land but forbid them from owning it. All women, whether married or single, have access to property other than land.
The law does not discriminate against women in the area of access to bank loans or credit facilities, but women in the Gambia face several obstacles in this area. For example, most financial institutions will not grant credit facilities unless the applicant has adequate security or collateral: in most cases, they will insist on property in the form of land. Since access to land is problematic for Gambian women, so is access to credit. Because of tradition and cultural practices, rural women are, strictly speaking, thereby effectively denied access to loans and credit.

Civil Liberties: 

Women in the Gambia have civil liberty. There are no restrictions on women’s freedom of movement or freedom of dress.

Sources: 

Afrol News (n.d.), Gender Profile: Gambia, www.afrol.com/Categories/Women/profiles/gambia_women.htm, accessed: May 2008.
CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) (2003), Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Gambia, Combined First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Periodic Reports of States Parties, CEDAW/C/GMB/1-3, CEDAW, New York, NY.
CEDAW (2004a), Summary Record of the 645th Meeting, CEDAW/C/SR.645, CEDAW, New York, NY.
CEDAW (2004b), Summary Record of the 646th Meeting, CEDAW/C/SR.646, CEDAW, New York, NY.
ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) (2003), Integration of the Human Rights of Wo¬men and the Gender Perspective: Violence Against Women, E/CN.4/2003/75/Add.1, UN, New York, NY.
Morison, L., C. Scherf, G. Ekpo, K. Paine, B. West, R. Coleman, G. Walraven (2001), “The Long-term Reproductive Health Consequences of Female Genital Cutting in Rural Gambia: A Community Based Survey”, Tropical Medicine and International Health, Vol. 6 No. 8, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 643-53.
UN (United Nations) (2004), World Fertility Report 2003, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, New York, NY.
US Department of State (2007a), Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Gambia, The, US Depart¬ment of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Washington, DC.
US Department of State (2007b), International Religious Freedom Report: Gambia, The, US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Washington, DC.

Saving Rural Mothers’ Lives

By Omer Redi

Five years ago, Nigist Abebe had difficulities winning the trust of mothers in her door-to-door services Credit:Omer Redi Ahmed

Nigist Abebe has grown in confidence over five years on the job. Today she is one of 34,000 rural health extension workers at the heart of Ethiopia's primary health care strategy.

One of her most important functions in Dengo Furda Kebele, the village she was born and raised in, is supporting women through pregnancy and childbirth.

"I counsel mothers in the village about maternal and child health, administer proper medication, prepare pregnant women for delivery. In general, I encourage them to get free medical services that would save their lives," she told IPS.

When Nigist started the job, she says, Dengo Furda was lost half a dozen mothers in childbirth each year, roughly in line with the national average. She says there has been a clear improvement.

"Last year, we recorded just two deaths," she said.

An estimated 94 percent of Ethiopian mothers give birth at home and in 2005, when the Health Extension program started, 720 mothers died per 100,000 live births.

Nigist, now 23, applied for the one-year training to become a health worker six years ago, immediately after she completed grade 10. Her friends advised her that it could be a good job opportunity.

She attended a technical and vocational training institute, where she studied 16 areas covering malaria, HIV, and maternal and child health.

She graduated in 2005 and became one of three new extension workers serving the thousand households of Dengo Furda.

In 2009, she was recruited for an additional month-long training on pre and post-natal care and safe delivery by the district health department.

Now she sees every pregnant woman in the village - volunteers alert her to every pregnancy in the kebele, so if they don't come to her, she goes to see them.

Before her training last year, she says she helped mothers during labour without proper knowledge of safety, appropriate medication and the warning signs of potential complications.

"We didn’t know the procedures. I now feel confident with the service I provide to these mothers and know when it is beyond my capacity," she said.

For example, she administers misoprostol tablets to control life-threatening bleeding after childbirth, which accounts for 22 percent of maternal deaths in Ethiopia.

Nigist readily identifies women who are at greater risk of bleeding: under-18 pregnant mothers and women who have had many children close together are the chief ones, she said.

When she comes across a mother with early indications of more serious complications, Nigist refers them to a better-equipped health centre ten kilometres away, where trained obstetricians who can help a woman deliver safely.

Nigist and her counterparts at other health posts evaluate every pregnant woman and decide if she should go to a health centre to labour if there are signs of complications. After childbirth, the extension workers visit mother and child at home, ensuring that a vaccination schedule is followed and monitoring children's nutrition.

Though statistics on maternal deaths are not available in East Shoa Zone where Nigist works, the scheme is believed to have reduced the maternal mortality rate.

"I can’t exactly state the rate of reduction, but I can tell you for sure maternal death has gone down," Diriba Degefa, head of health department at the zonal level, said.

The East Shoa Zone, with a population of 1.3 million people, has increased the number of health centres – like the ones Nigist refers risk-cases to – in its 13 districts from 12 to 52 in five years. The completion of four more, already under construction, will enable it to meet the government’s target of one health centre for every 25,000 people by June 2011. About 299 health posts with two health extension workers each have been set up throughout the zone. Each health post is responsible for every 5000 people (mostly a kebele population) and every five health posts are linked to health centre for referral as well administrative supervision.

When the health extension workers were first deployed, villagers in Dengo Furda and the wider Boset district didn't believe they had the necessary skills or knowledge to improve maternal health. The experience of the past five years has changed that.

Nigist seems to like what she does; her main desire is to improve her knowledge and skills.

"Though it is difficult here, I will still continue to work. But I would really be happy if we get further education and training," she said. "Saving the lives of mothers and children is really fulfilling."