WUNRN
SOUTHERN SUDAN - IMPORTANCE OF
WOMEN'S INCLUSION IN REFERENDUM
By
Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, founding board member of the Nobel
Women’s Initiative and a member of the Advisory Council for the AU Year of
Peace and Security © IPS
The
African Union has declared 2010 the Year of Peace and Security in Africa and
will soon launch the African Decade of Women. What better opportunity to act on
these pledges than at the 15th African Union Summit, Kampala, Uganda? The
upcoming referendum in Sudan gives African leadership an opportunity to
demonstrate its commitment to improving the lives of women on this continent by
ensuring that they actively and freely participate in the referendum.
Southern
Sudanese will go to the polls in January 2011, to decide whether to remain a
part of a unified Sudan or secede and become Africa’s newest country. Given
that Sudan is Africa’s largest country – bordered by nine countries, also
plagued by conflict, rampant corruption and stunted development – it behooves
our leaders to prioritise Sudan.
News coming out of Sudan in the last few
months paints a bleak picture: the security situation in Darfur is
deteriorating, the Darfur peace negotiations in Doha, Qatar, are barely limping
along, and the recent national elections were well below international
standard. The Sudan referendum will impact the future of millions of
Africans.
Recently the Sudanese government appointed
the African Union High Level Panel for Implementation in Sudan led by former
South Africa President Thabo Mbeki to facilitate negotiations on Sudan’s
referendum. Mbeki and the panel are charged with leading negotiations between
the ruling National Congress Party and the Southern Sudanese Liberation
Movement in the south on all outstanding issues in the lead up to the
referendum.
Mbeki and the panel have a big responsibility.
They must support the Sudanese government and the Sudanese people
to ensure an inclusive, transparent and comprehensive process. The referendum
will be dealing with issues that are of vital consequence to the people of
Sudan, including the division of national economic resources, the redefining of
citizenship, and border demarcation. The process must be, above all, inclusive.
And an integral part of the responsibility
to be inclusive is ensuring that those most affected by the referendum have a
voice – namely, Sudanese women. Achieving lasting peace and security in Sudan
is not possible without women’s full inclusion and especially within
decision-making processes. Yet, up to now, women are almost invisible.
Following April’s elections in Sudan, only
two of 35 cabinet ministers and six of 42 ministers of state are women. There
are no women at the decision-making level in the Darfur negotiations at Doha –
a process that is plagued by problems and proving to be ineffectual. And now
there is a conspicuous lack of women in formal leadership positions for the
referendum. Indeed, of the nine people appointed by the Sudanese
government to the Referendum Commission, there is only one woman.
This is far from the 30 percent advocated by Mbeki and his panel,
the 25 percent demanded by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and well below
international standards.
The year 2010 not only marks the start of
the African Union Decade of Women but also the 10-year anniversary of United
Nations Security Council’s resolution 1325, which mandates women’s full
participation in peace processes. In short, there is simply no excuse for
women’s exclusion from current peace negotiations on Darfur – nor from the
upcoming referendum or other decision-making processes in Sudan.
Thus far, the work of Mbeki and his panel
has demonstrated an understanding of why Sudanese women need to be at the
forefront of all conflict-resolution processes, in Darfur and across Sudan.
This commitment to women’s leadership must be renewed and acted upon as the
panel’s work on the referendum moves forward.
The panel – and the African leaders supporting Mbeki and his
colleagues – have a historic opportunity to demonstrate their support to
Sudanese women.
In declaring 2010 the Year of Peace and
Security in Africa, the AU set the gauntlet to take extraordinary measures to
engage in activities to promote and consolidate peace processes across the
continent.
What better time is there for the AU to demonstrate its
commitment to Sudan’s peace process by demanding greater space for Sudanese
women to play a vital role?