Year: 2016
Women’s Rights Activists Protest Sierra Leone Safe Abortion Bill
Women’s Rights Activists Protest Sierra Leone Safe Abortion Bill
By Moiyattu Banya
A group of over 50 Sierra Leonean women have marched on the nation’s parliament house to affirm their support for a Safe Abortion Bill passed last year.
Authorities prevented the women from invading a meeting convened by Christian and Muslim leaders on Wednesday to discuss the bill which was brought before parliament in December 2015, but is yet to be signed into law by the president.
The bill would legalize abortion for women and girls with pregnancies of up to 12 weeks and even after 13 weeks under special circumstances which include sexual assault, rape, incest or medical complications which might put the life of a mother or child at risk. Legislators have worked closely with women’s activist organizations and key stakeholders to debate the benefits of the bill for women as well as the healthcare system in Sierra Leone.
The women, who were from a coalition of different women’s rights groups, have championed the bill as a victory for reproductive rights saying it would reduce illegal and unsafe abortions. Sierra Leone has the world’s highest maternal mortality rates in the world according to the World Health Organization, with a high proportion of deaths resulting from unsafe abortions.
“It is not a fight against morality or religion,” Jayne Flynn-Sankoh, an activist said. “It(the bill) is a pathway to the independence of women …the Bill seeks to protect the sexual and reproductive health rights of women.”
“We are not saying that we don’t want to have babies, we are saying let us make a decision.We need to protect our women and girls who are getting pregnant through rape, incest or have a medical condition that may put her life or the fetus in danger. It is about safety and choice,” Ajara Bomah, another activist, said.
The activists say they will continue to organize more advocacy efforts around the Bill.
Click here
to listen to Nassau Fofana, a former gender advisor to the President’s interview on BBC radio about the bill.
5th Chief Executive Officers Forum Report, AUGUST 2015
5th Chief Executive Officers Forum Report, AUGUST 2015
AWDF’s 5th CEO Forum on Leadership and Communications for Women Leaders of Women’s Rights Organisations in Africa took place in Nairobi, Kenya between 10 -12 August 2015. The three-day convening brought together 21 vibrant women executives from 8 organisations across Africa, including Botswana, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. The program featured two main facilitators, Hope Chigudu and Paula Fray, who will serve as coaches leading the participants through a 10-month coaching program following the forum. Over the years, the focus of the CEO Forum has deepened and expanded. The forum and coaching program are also growing just as the participants are also developing their leadership and communications portfolio.
With each forum, the experience shared by the organisers and participants pushes the Capacity Building Program to take risks and try new and different processes. So, the forum and coaching program are interactive and responsive, shifting and changing over time like the women leaders who take part. Through this process, the Capacity Building Program is creating a unique framework that promotes African feminist leadership and coaching as a model for implementation for women’s rights organisations throughout Africa and, potentially, around the world. The idea is to mobilise more resources to support African women and organisations to build a compelling leadership practice that infuses the whole organisation. This can provide routes for the democratisation of leadership among staff and board members, so that human resource talents and skills can be adequately tapped and utilised for greater viability of the organisation. This can provide much needed support to the CEO and senior management team. With feminist leadership, leaders are built to carry the vision of the organisation into the future.
Bringing Gender Dimensions back from Obscurity
Bringing Gender Dimensions back from Obscurity
Introduction
Attempts to address the gender dimensions of governance, peace and security in Africa are often
plagued by several undermining tendencies. One tendency is that gender and, derived from this,
women’s concerns are presented as a standalone issue by an active women’s movement. This is done
without thorough engagement with the entire peace, security and governance environment. Mainstream
peace and security processes generally deal with gender and the women’s agenda as a peripheral
issue. They relegate it to the shadows of the governance and security debate. Policy interventions
aimed at achieving gender related transformation in peace and security have not delivered meaningful
change on the ground.
This policy paper discusses this disconnect between policy, scholarship and activism and the reality
on the ground; and its underlying causes. It makes proposals for relocating gender considerations in
mainstream governance, peace and security discourse and practice. Ultimately, the hope is that this
might begin to bring a systematic shift in the way all parties address gender issues. As such, this paper
brings several interrelated issues into focus:
● The relationship between governance, peace and security.
● The value of examining processes through which state and society forge a common understanding
around the protection of their citizens – and the place of gender in this. A key question is: why does
gender inequality remain relegated to the background while other issues occupy the foreground
of national conversation?
● The opportunities peace and security processes provide for reform of security governance in favour
of excluded citizens, particularly women, who are often at the receiving end of gender inequality.
The paper highlights the role of policy frameworks such as UN Security Council Resolution 1325.
● The constituency of actors who can help elevate the gender equality agenda as articulated in
Resolution 1325 in the policy and decision making arena.
● Despite efforts, the failure to achieve transformation in society and change for women toward
gender equality.
The summary section of this paper above includes three sets of recommendations for analysts, policy
practitioners and women’s organisations and activists.
Policy paper by: Dr Fumni Olonisakin
Bringing Gender Dimensions back from Obscurity (web version)17_12_15
Feminist Organizing for Women’s human rights in Africa: Current and Emerging issues
Feminist Organizing for Women’s human rights in Africa: Current and Emerging issues
Introduction
There have been some significant gains for women in Africa over the past 15 to 20 years. Women are taking positions of leadership in increasing numbers in political, economic, legal and social fields. In Rwanda, women constitute 64% in parliament, ranking it as the leading nation globally for representation by women in a legislature. In 2005, Africa witnessed the first woman president with the election of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia. In 2011, we had the second woman president, President Joyce Banda. There is legislation in countries such as Ghana, Kenya and South Africa against domestic and other forms of gender based violence. In 2010, the African Union (AU), launched the Decade for Women.
While these achievements are welcome, there is still a big deficit in implementation of key international and national policies and laws. Thirty years after the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), many girls and women still do not have equal opportunities to realise their rights as recognised in law.
The report below examines this in depth.
Policy Paper by: Everjoice Win
Feminist Organizing for Women’s Human Rights in Africa (final web version)