The postponement of the sighing of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender has turned out to be a bitter pill for Gender activists in Southern Africa who have worked tirelessly to put together notes on how best the Southern region could ensure that there is gender equality and equity as well as elimination of all forms of gender based violence among other recommendations.
The Heads of state have deferred the signing of the protocol in order to give member states enough time to conclude their consultations on the issue.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa announced at the close of the 2007 SADC Heads of States Summit which was held recently that the protocol would hopefully be signed by the next summit next year.
“ It is shameful for the SADC Summit to defer the gender protocol ,” Said Sara Longwe, a Feminist consultant and Gender activist in Zambia
Gender pundits had seen the summit that took place in Lusaka recently, as an opportunity to present gender concerns and suggestions for Southern Africa, to the 14 heads of state that attended the summit.
They planned to present the recommendations by way of a document called the SADC gender protocol, which was submitted in draft format, aimed at advocating for gender equality in the region.
Southern African First ladies were also part of the groups that were advocating for this protocol and had high hopes that it would be signed and lead the way for the speedy implementation of SADC gender Commitments, amongst them the prevention and eradication of all gender inequalities in the region.
The first ladies held a parallel summit called the SADC First Spouses Summit 2007 and developed a gender declaration which was presented to heads of state.
Through the declaration, the first ladies affirmed their commitment to lobbying and advocating for accelerated implementation of regional commitments on gender, which would contribute to the empowerment of women and children within the Southern African Region.
Speaking on behalf of the fist ladies, Zambia First Lady, Maureen Mwanawasa called for the change of all discriminatory laws and legislation at regional and national levels, mobilisation of resources for regional and national level projects geared towards improving the standards of living of women and children and the allocation of resources to education, health, social welfare and poverty eradication among other reforms.
“ We advocate for the signing of the SADC protocol on gender and development, an important step towards accelerating the implementation of SADC gender commitments,” said Mrs Mwanawasa
The protocol is advocating for a number of things including a 50 percent representation of women at all levels and in all aspects.
Representatives of partner organisations met at Lusaka’s Long Acres Lodge to brainstorm and deliberate on how best the submissions would be made with organisations such as The Women and Law in Southern Africa(WILSA),WILDAF, Gender Links, Gender and Media Southern Africa,(GEMSA), Media Institute of Southern Africa(MISA) and SAFAIDS, among other organisations presenting talks on different themes.
GEMSA, through the Zambian office together with other partners had been spearheading the process in the country.
According to GEMSA-Zambia chairperson, Mwiika Malindima, the meetings were a culmination of a two year long campaign towards getting the SADC declaration on gender and development elevated into a protocol.
Representatives came from all corners of Southern Africa and were hopeful that their concerns would be taken into serious consideration by the heads of state .
“ We will submit the protocol to the heads of state and can only hope that our concerns will be taken..”, said Kubi Rama, the Chief Executive Officer for GEMSA regional office in South Africa.
Activities before the summit were organised by gender organisations to update members on the current status of the protocaol, lobbying and advocacy efforts in each country, to asses the targets that have been set; country and regional strategies for achieving them and to agree on the future of the alliance, its functions, strategy, coordinating structures and priorities after the Lusaka Summit.
The discussion revolved around such themes as education, governance and peace building, the economy, women’s rights, health and HIV and Aids, gender based violence and Information ,education and the media.
Before this meeting, workshops around gender were held to prepare partners for effective participation and submission to the document and Zambian government departments such as the Ministry of Gender through the Gender in Development Department (GIDD) and the Home Affairs Ministry through the Victim Support unit among others, were engaged as a way of beefing up the partnership and getting the good will of government towards enforcing the call for gender equality and equity as well as eliminating all forms of gender based violence.
Gender violations in Southern Africa, are the order of the day especially amongst women and children who are at the weaker end of the gender pendulum.
Women in countries around Southern Africa have most of the time fallen prey to rape, battery and verbal abuse both in the house and outside, while children have been defiled and their rights suppressed through hard labour and other forms of exploitation.
Gender activists had hoped that through the gender protocol, if taken in by the heads of state, some of these concerns would be addressed and hopefully result into the execution of acceptable justice.
Background of the protocol
The campaign for the SADC Gender Protocol was started by various NGO’s interested in gender issues in the SADC region, after they conducted an audit on the declaration of gender and Development in 2005, at the 10th anniversary of the 4 the world conference on Women in Beijing and target set by SADC in the achievement of 30 per cent women in Decision Making.
According to a paper on the SADC Gender and Development Protocol , the audit showed that while considerable progress had been made from signing the declaration in 1997, several gaps had remained.
The paper states further that despite elections in most SADC countries over the past 2 years, the average representation of women in parliaments of the region stands at 20 per cent and only three countries, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa had achieved the 30 percent target of women in parliament and that that was just one area of decision making.
“Laws, systems and services for addressing gender-based violence are patchy and inadequate, new forms of gender violence such as trafficking are on the rise, in virtually every country, there are growing contradictions between customary law and modern law when it comes to women’s rights and these contradictions are not addressed in the constitutions,” the paper states.
Its was for this and other reasons that these gender stakeholders decided to form a gender protocol alliance to get the declaration elevated into a protocol, through concerted consultations that would broaden ownership of, and support for the idea.
The SADC Gender Protocol was then formed with the aim of “getting heads of states to raise the target for women in decision making from 30 percent to 50 per cent in line with the African Union Position and to set a target date of 2020 for achieving this.”
The plan for elevating the declaration into a protocol was also thought of in such a way that it would have several new time bound targets, such as with regards to ending gender violence.
The draft protocol which encompasses and enhances all existing regional and international commitments for achieving gender equality , has been described by the civil society and partners as ‘ a global first that would place SADC at the cutting edge of innovative strategies for giving global and continental commitments meaning at sub-regional level.’
The objectives of the protocol as outlined in the draft includes bringing together in one, legally binding regional instruments and all the commitments to gender equality that have been made through among others, the Beijing declaration and its platform for action, the SADC declaration on gender and development, the protocol to the African charter on human and people’s rights on the rights of women in Africa and the MDG’s.
The protocol also calls for women’s rights to own their own property and administer and manage it regardless of marital status, to participate equally with men in all electoral processes including environment for the equal participation of women in the electoral process and easing burden of roles played by women.
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