WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY:
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR)

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UNIFEM WOMEN, WAR AND PEACE WEB PORTAL: CAR

"Its main objective is to promote and defend the rights of the woman and the child who are the most vulnerable and to improve their legal status. It also contributes to the consolidation of peace, democracy and the rule of law though mobilisation and education.
It sees to it that the Family Code and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that protect the woman and the child are respected. The association has also been involved in the different electoral campaigns during which it trained and informed people, especially by providing other women with legal advice. We had to orientate them. […]In general the CAR woman is under-represented in high positions. In the government or the National Assembly, for instance, there are very few women. […]Women themselves are the first obstacle to their emancipation. Very often women underestimate themselves, and then, due to social, cultural and old customs, the woman does not make any effort to improve her status. Also, the woman has an inferiority complex and the man a superiority complex. What we do is educate and mobilise women to make them aware of their role in society and fight for their emancipation. In this fight we associate men, because women emancipate themselves vis-à-vis men."

Marie Edith Douzima-Lawson, Chairwoman of the Association of Women Lawyers. On the work of her organization in CAR. October 4, 2002.