Women’s issues top the agenda globally
By Lillian Aluanga

October 29, 2006 - (The Standard) Twenty-one years ago, women gathered in Nairobi for the first UN International Women’s Conference to be held in Africa. Last week, they were back. This time to evaluate progress made over the years following the development of strategies aimed at fostering the advancement of women.

Speakers reminisced a time gone by when gender issues were treated with disdain and suspicion, a time when women could only dream of getting appointed to the Cabinet, becoming MPs, or even head parastatals or universities.

But 20 years later, things are different. Kenya has 18 women parliamentarians, the highest in the country’s history, more women have been appointed to the Judiciary, and provincial administration as well as other senior public service positions. The Free Primary Education programme has seen more girls enrol in school. The Children Act has been put in place and after months of haggling, the Sexual Offences Bill was finally passed into law.

A Family Division now exists at the High Court and following a landmark call in Nairobi dubbed the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies, the National Commission on Gender and Development is now operational.Just a week ago, President Mwai Kibaki, issued a directive that 30 per cent of all public service appointments be given to women.

While the radiant faces of the delegates — who included ministers, MPs, university dons and women leaders in various fields — lent credence to the fact that progress has been made towards empowerment of women, one thing remained undoubtedly clear. Many battles have been won, but the war in realising greater equality and opportunity for women is still far from over.

Despite making up more than 50 per cent of the country’s population, women remain grossly under-represented at policy making levels. Societal and cultural biases and practices such as Female Genital Mutilation continue to pose a health risk to the girl child, insecurity and conflict continue to expose more women and children to the vagaries of hunger, poverty and sexual abuse while HIV/Aids ravages millions of women in sub Saharan Africa.

For some, the Nairobi +21 Conference offered a chance to ask difficult questions on just how much women had achieved in more than two decades and identify areas where progress had been slow in order to take corrective measures. For others, the conference bore nostalgic memories, having attended Nairobi ‘85’ as teenage girls.

"I remember coming for the Nairobi Conference when I was 17. I was just a young girl then but I am now a married woman. This meeting has given me a chance to reflect on what my life has been like for the past 21 years. There have been some disappointments, challenges but I have also grown as a woman. We need to ask ourselves what the 21 years have meant to us," said Thokozile Ruzvidzo, the Director, African Centre for Gender and Social Development at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

But the question of how much had so far been achieved following the 1985 Nairobi Conference was one that obviously weighed heavily on the minds of the delegates at Nairobi’s Kenyatta International Conference Centre during the one-day event.

"We need to ask our governments what they have done in furtherance of women’s issues in their countries. We need to demand better resource allocation of gender ministries both at the human and financial levels, said Ruzvidzo, while giving an overview of how the strategies adopted during the previous Nairobi Conference (Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies) have impacted regional bodies in Africa.

Among resolutions adopted at the 1985 Conference were the establishment of government bodies to advise, implement and monitor progress towards equality, promotion of women to positions of power at all levels of government, elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and equal employment opportunities as well as equal pay for work of equal value.

Ruzvidzo, like many other speakers, urged women to push for a 50-50 representation in leadership roles, even as she urged for revitalisation of the Women’s Movement in Africa. "The women’s movement in Africa is dying and should be revived. I miss the dynamic force that was in Beijing," she said.

While appreciating the gains made by women over the years, former Maendeleo ya Wanawake chairperson, Ms Wilkister Onsando, says there is need to create a kitty for women, similar to the National Youth development fund.

The Young Women’s Leadership representative Ms Saida Ali gave a moving account of how young women continue to be marginalised both within and outside women’s movements since they uniquely fall within youth and women’s groups. Ali hit out at the media for continually portraying women as materialistic and opportunistic saying this had greatly contributed to the negative perception of women in society.

"There is need for the media to rebrand the image of the young woman. Women politicians rarely make the news and when they do, it is often negatively represented," Ali said to applause from the delegates. She reminded the delegates of the vulnerability of the young African woman to HIV/Aids. She also called for the provision of free sanitary towels as part of the free primary education programme.

Unifem’s Country Programme Officer, Ms Fumni Alexander, credited the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies for redefining the space for talking about the development of women’s issues. Expanding this space, Alexander said, has not only forced the UN to work closely with the civil society but has also led to the infusion of the ‘language of rights’ in the work of the United Nations.

"Issues on the girl child, sexual abuse, reproductive rights and choices have now become part of the UN development agenda," said Alexander. She however cautioned on the continuous erosion of some of the gains made by women as cases of sexual abuse and gender based violence become rampant.

Alexander extolled the importance of transformative leadership for the benefit of women and girls and challenged women appointed to leadership roles to make an impact. This, she noted, would help to pave the way for others. Showing initiative in finding out the criteria for prioritisation of issues on the national agenda, Alexander said, was crucial since this was threatening to push women’s issues to the back burner.

From: http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143960284