IVORY COAST-COTE
D'IVOIRE - POLITICAL CRISIS
IMPACTON WOMEN
& WOMEN'S RIGHTS ORANIZATIONS
04/02/11
Côte d’Ivoire has been in a political impasse since the declaration of
contested results of a second round of presidential elections held in November
2010. Since both candidates claimed victory and have been sworn in, the country
has two presidents and two governments. In order to understand the impact of
this situation on women and women’s rights organizations, AWID spoke with two
women’s rights defenders, Mata Coulibaly President of SOS EXCLUSION and
Honorine Sadia Vehi Toure, President of Génération Femmes du troisième
Millénaire (GFM3), as well as with an Ivorian politician who prefers to remain
anonymous and to whom we have given the pseudonym of Sophie.
By
Massan d’Almeida - AWID
On
November 28, 2010, Côte d’Ivoire held a second round of presidential elections following
a first round which took place in October 2010 after several postponements.
Fourteen [1] candidates participated in the first round, and Allassane Ouattara
and Laurent Gbagbo, the two candidates who garnered the most votes made it to
the second round of the polls. Gbagbo is the incumbent President. After the
elections, the Independent Electoral Commission declared Ouattara the winner,
but these results were invalidated by the Ivorian Constitutional Court which declared his rival, Gbagbo, the President elect of
Côte d’Ivoire.
This
precipitated a crisis in the country. Gbagbo “refused to yield to international
pressure and withdraw from his position” [2] in favour of Ouattara who was
recognized by the entire international community.
Mata
Coulibaly and Honorine Sadia Vehi Toure, the two women’s rights advocates whom
we interviewed, explained how the population is experiencing this situation:
“We are going through a crisis and this is very difficult. There is tension in
the country. Our days are filled with uncertainty because at any moment, a
strike can be called,” said Coulibaly. Toure added: “This is a real crisis and
we are under tremendous stress. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. The
social situation is deteriorating day by day. So it is highly stressful and
frustrating”.
The
political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire has had major diplomatic, financial, economic and social
repercussions on the population, including on women and the organizations that
defend their rights.
Gbagbo’s
refusal to step down has prompted several international organizations,
including the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and the
Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) to take punitive measures
against him, his family and close friends, and the state.
Impact
of the crisis on the daily lives of Ivorians
The
economic cost of Cote d’Ivoire’s conflict between 2002 and 2007 was severe: the gross
domestic product (GDP) per person dropped by 15 percent between 2000 and 2006
and poverty consequently increased. Côte d’Ivoire’s rank in the Human Development Index (HDI) dropped from
154 in 1999 to 166 in 2007 [3], and later rose to 149 in 2010 [4]. Before the
post-electoral crisis, the economic outlook for Côte d’Ivoire seemed to have improved, with a growth of 3.8 percent in
2009 and optimistic forecasts for an increase of revenue from cocoa and
petroleum exports.
The
current crisis aggravates a rather precarious situation and has accentuated the
impoverishment of the population. It has had a serious impact on the daily
lives of Ivorian households causing prices of essential products to rise
sharply and encouraging speculation [5]. As Toure emphasized: “Market prices
have soared so much that some essential products such as oil, sugar, meat and
onions are difficult to obtain. This is a real hardship for households. Before
the crisis, many female-headed households could only afford one meal a day, so
one can only imagine how much more difficult it is now for those families.
Everyone is suffering.”
Coulibaly
added: “Life seems to go in slow motion. Prices have soared. For example,
sometimes there is a shortage of natural gas. A quantity of coal that
previously cost CFAF100 now costs CFAF200. A kilo of oignon dur* has increased
from CFAF450 to CFAF1,000 while onions from Niamey have increased from CFAF600 to CFAF1,500, and a kilo of
beetroots from CFAF1,900 to CFAF3,000. These examples illustrate the impact of
this crisis on the shopping basket and this price increase has a tangible
impact on the living conditions of Ivorians. Salaries remain the same although
prices are surging. This situation forces women to economize more in order to
feed their families. Regardless of whether it is a woman or man who is the head
of household, everyone has similar difficulties to overcome.” Sophie confirmed
that some food prices have doubled, while those of other products, such as oil,
have tripled. She said that it is extremely difficult for middle-income
households to feed themselves because everything has become so expensive.
The
situation is no different in other cities and towns in the country. Coulibaly
stated: “The current crisis has affected the whole Ivorian territory. In
Korhogo in the north, Bouaké in the centre of the country, and Man and Duokoué
in the west, food prices have almost doubled. The population is tired and is
growing poorer every day. In addition, the private sector is threatened with
redundancies, which could lead to famine for parts of the population. We have
just learned that with the closure of the Abidjan and San Pedro ports, we will run out of gas in a few
days. Côte
d’Ivoire
exports all its products. Another concern is that HIV/AIDS patients are no
longer provided with anti-retroviral drugs and this has resulted in a
proliferation of the disease and the aggravation of existing cases.”
Toure
paints a similar picture of the situation, stating: “Impoverishment is felt by
everyone throughout the territory. Before the elections, the country had not yet
unified and therefore in the central, northern and western areas, the living
conditions were already poor. The south was not spared, but it suffered to a
lesser degree. But now I can assure you that now no area is better than
another. Whether it be towns, villages, urban or rural areas, it is the same
unbearable situation all over.”
Violence,
and rights and security violations of human rights advocates
After
the first, relatively peaceful round of elections at the end of October 2010,
reports of violence and abuse in different regions of the country began to
emerge. These incidents indicated a serious deterioration of the general human
rights situation and are a reminder of the atrocities committed during the last
decade. African, European and American human rights organizations, in
particular Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, have repeatedly
sounded the alarm about the situation.
The
United Nations Human Rights Council held a special session on Côte d’Ivoire in Geneva on December 23, 2010, during which the American
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, made a speech and the High Commissioner on
Human Rights, Navi Pillary, strongly condemned the human rights violations
committed in Côte
d’Ivoire.
The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has also
voiced its concerns about the situation.
Most of
the violence reported to date is carried out during night raids led by the
security forces and other groups in the neighbourhoods of Abidjan that are
considered to be predominantly populated by Ouattara’s supporters. Human rights
organizations have noted a series of kidnappings under similar circumstances.
The victims of these kidnappings were declared missing or were found dead. [6]
Coulibaly confirmed this stating: “Acquaintances of ours have been kidnapped.”
According to Sophie, these are “raids that are violent, ethnic-based and
politically motivated, targeted against individuals or groups of people whose
neighbours have informed on them. The perpetrators are mercenaries who are paid
to commit these murders.”
According
to independent sources, human rights and women’s rights activists are living in
a state of constant anxiety with respect to their safety. An experienced civil
society advocate, who requested to remain anonymous, told IRIN: “I have been in
hiding ever since being threatened over two weeks ago. Sometimes, it looks as
though the situation is about to calm down. This is often the impression in the
daytime, but one never knows what will happen once night falls.” [7] Toure
confirmed: “We are working within a context of fear. We are truly sad about
what is happening in our country. We cannot carry out our work openly for fear
of reprisals. In spite of this, we are working, relying on God, and hoping that
our country will rapidly overcome this situation.” Coulibaly stated: “As a
representative of the Democracy and Human Rights Fund (FDDH), I do not feel
safe.”
Impact
of the crisis on work on women’s rights
The
punitive sanctions imposed on Côte d'Ivoire have had a very negative impact on non-governmental
organizations that depend mainly on international funds for their survival.
Toure explained that most of their financial partners in the United Nations
system and the World Bank have closed their offices, which has in turn forced
the NGOs to suspend most of their activities. Furthermore, due to political
instability, it is increasingly difficult to operate as normal. Coulibaly
stated: “Nothing is sure. We have to tailor our plans according to how events evolve.
We are afraid to go to work and sometimes we receive information or hear
rumours that cause us to stay away from work.”
Other
ramifications of the crisis: The widening of the division
The
riots that broke out in September 2002 in Côte d’Ivoire divided the country between the south, run by the Gbagbo
government, and the north, controlled by rebel forces led by Guillaume Soro,
the current Prime Minister in the Ouattara administration. However, in 2008,
after signing the Ouagadougou Agreement, the country began a reunification
process, which led to the consensual organization of the recent presidential
elections. However, some people are afraid that the alliance between Soro and
Ouattara will cause a revival of the divisions, and will introduce a religious
dimension to the divide. Nonetheless, it should be emphasized that there are
different opinions on this subject as highlighted by Toure. “No matter what is
being said, the people in Côte d’Ivoire do not promote division,” she said. “It is the politicians
who have put us into this situation because of their personal interests. In the
south, there are Christians and Muslims, and there are also people from the
north, and we live together in harmony, at least those who have understood that
division does not suit us, which is most of us. The same is true in the north.
Therefore, there is no real division in Côte d’Ivoire, even if this is what they want you to believe. Ivorians
have suffered through ten years of crisis. In the end, everyone was tired of
this. Our will to leave it behind was shown by the high voter turnout in the
elections: 83 percent in the first round and over 70 percent in the second
round.” However, Coulibaly does not agree: “The division is inevitable. The
politicians accuse the people of the north of being rebels. Women are divided
in the markets. Some pro-Gbagbo market women tell their pro-Ouattara
counterparts to ask their leader to build them their own market.”
The
current situation in Côte d’Ivoire is worrying. The Ivorian population, which underwent
almost a decade of crisis, strongly desires that a peaceful outcome to this
situation be found quickly for the benefit of everyone. Human and women’s
rights organizations are particularly affected because funding opportunities
for their work are becoming scarce. Furthermore, growing fears for their
personal safety reduce their capacity to engage, and very few of them dare to
openly express their analysis of the situation. Coulibaly confided to AWID
that, as far as she knew, no public action has been undertaken by human rights
organizations and that only the Civil Society Agreement of Côte d’Ivoire (CSCI), which is a leading organization in the country,
has made proposals for a solution. Other organizations prefer not to issue
statements because they do not share the same point of view or analysis of the
situation. However, Toure stated that there are discreet initiatives being
carried out by around 20 organizations and women’s networks to encourage the
two protagonists to protect the lives of women and children, and to seek a
peaceful outcome to the crisis.
*Literally
“hard onion” – a variety of onion common in Cote d’Ivoire
REFERENCES
1. RFI,
http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20101028-cote-ivoire-trois-favoris-passent-attaque
2. IRIN, Côte
d’Ivoire: La pression de l’économie – Compte rendu, http://www.irinnews.org/fr/ReportFrench.aspx?ReportID=91589
3.
Ibid.
4.
PNUD, http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_FR_Tables_reprint.pdf
5. France 24, http://www.france24.com/fr/
6. IRIN, Côte
d’Ivoire: Violations des droits de l’homme – Compte rendu, http://www.irinnews.org/fr/ReportFrench.aspx?ReportID=91604
7.
Ibid.