WUNRN
South Africa Sets Pace for Regional
Gender Equality
11 April - Later this year, women in
Southern Africa expect a leap forward when it comes to gender equality as Heads
of State are discussing more binding commitments to raise women's share of
decision-making positions to 50 percent. South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki is
putting heavy pressure on his colleagues, who also can point to considerable gains.
The story goes that when President Mbeki meets his counterparts from the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, they grumble that he is
putting too much pressure on them. With 42 percent women in his cabinet - second
only in the world to Sweden - Mr Mbeki makes it hard for his colleagues to
justify why they still lag so far behind.
Their gender performance will
come under scrutiny at the SADC Heads of State summit in Lusaka in August, where
activists are mounting a campaign to get them to elevate the SADC Declaration on
Gender and Development to a more binding Protocol.
In Johannesburg this
week, South Africa's Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) is convening national
consultation on the draft Protocol that would break new ground globally in that
it would be the first time that existing commitments to gender equality are
brought together and enhanced in a binding sub-regional
instrument.
Botswana's Minister of Health Sheila Thlou has described the
difference between the Declaration and draft Protocol as one between a "nice to
do and a have to do."
The draft Gender and Development Protocol follows
an audit of the 1997 Declaration by a consortium of non-governmental
organisations, who argue that moral suasion has not worked. Legally binding
measures are now being sought to move SADC from a "region of commitments to one
of implementation."
President Mbeki, who has made gender equality a
cornerstone of his legacy, will be looked to give strong backing to the idea of
a regional instrument that incorporates all the existing global commitments into
one comprehensive set of targets and indicators for achieving gender equality;
and setting new targets where these do not exist.
An example of this is
in the area of decision-making, where the African Union (AU) has come out in
favour of gender parity, but has not set targets. Under pressure at their 2005
summit - that also marked the tenth anniversary of Beijing Fourth World
Conference on Women - to make a move on this front, regional leaders increased
the target for women in decision-making from 30 percent to 50 percent. The draft
protocol gives this a timeline of 2015.
Some argue that it is not useful
to up the ante when the current target has not been achieved. The counter
argument is that countries like South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania that have
achieved the thirty percent for women in parliament, not to mention Namibia with
42 percent and Lesotho with 58 percent women in local government, should not be
held back.
Experience has shown that even when they are not legally
binding, targets of any kind have a dramatic mobilising effect. None of the club
of 14 SADC countries wants to be shown up as the worst performer.
For
example Mauritius, which sat at the bottom of the list with 5.6 percent women in
parliament, made a marked turnaround in the July 2005 elections when this
proportion increased to 17 percent, with a remarkable three-quarters of the
women who contested seats in the socially conservative island winning them.
In other recent elections, all SADC countries except Botswana - where
the drop sparked a massive outcry - have increased the proportion of women in
parliament. The increases have been especially marked in the most conservative
countries such as Swaziland, Malawi and Mauritius.
Although only three
countries have achieved the existing SADC target of thirty women in parliament,
on average women comprise twenty percent of the region's legislators: second
only to the Scandinavian countries where the average is 38 percent. And where it
took the Scandinavians sixty years to achieve this, SADC has shown that rapid
change is possible.
But decision-making is only one of the gender gaps
that needs bridging. The proposed Protocol seeks to use the positive experience
of having a target in this area to set several more strategic benchmarks.
These include requiring that all SADC countries amend their
constitutions to include guarantees of gender equality by 2010 - in line with
the more recent constitutions in the region such as those in South Africa,
Mozambique and Namibia.
In doing so, countries would also be required to
specify, as the South African constitution does, that should there be a conflict
between customary and state law, the national constitution will take precedence.
In a region where customary law governs the daily lives of the majority
of women, rendering them minors for all of their lives, this is possibly the
most significant of all the proposed changes. Recent test cases pitting
customary law against the Bill of Rights in South Africa have shown that while
this area of change is painfully slow, constitutional provisions for gender
equality are vital if root causes are ever to be tackled.
The new
measures would also include a target of 2010 for all countries in the region to
adopt comprehensive legislation and to make budgetary allocations for ending
gender violence: one of the most glaring reflections of the gap that exists
between gender equality on paper and in reality. South Africa has yet to enact a
Sexual Offences Bill, on the cards since 1996, despite having one of the highest
levels of gender violence in the world.
The proposed SADC Protocol comes
with an annual reporting framework and a review mechanism comprising gender
ministers and experts from the region. As South Africa celebrates its thirteenth
anniversary of democracy on 27 April, SADC's gentle giant is well poised both to
accelerate the pace of change in the region, as well as turn the spotlight on
the gaps that still exist between policy and practice in this
country.
By Colleen Lowe Morna.
Ms Morna is executive
director of Gender Links and former CEO of the South African Commission on
Gender Equality.
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