Make the World Safe for Diversity

Part of my personal reference documents are kept in the boot of my car. These references are in the form of notes and materials from the workshops that I have attended in recent times. Over the weekend whilst I was cleaning the car, I decided to go through the documents to refresh my thoughts on certain topics. It was in the process of doing this that I came across some of the notes I took during the 2nd African Feminist Forum (AFF) held in Uganda last year.

These notes were from the session “reconciling personal values and beliefs”. The essence of the session was basically to look at how personal values and beliefs influence the work of feminists fighting for equality and justice for all African Women.

A number of participants shared their experiences at this session. One person for instance mentioned an incident in which she was approached by a journalist who wanted to know if she was willing to do some research on the rights of lesbians in her country. According to this person, because of her own personal values and beliefs she quickly said no. Later upon reflecting on the issue she realized that she definitely could have handled it better.

At this session, the statistics of the millions of women who die every year in Africa from unsafe abortions was also presented. There is a huge difference between the numbers of women dying from abortions in countries where it is legal as compared to the countries where abortion is still illegal. As frightening as the statistics are and continue to be, some women are unable to be involved in what is needed to make abortion safe because of religious and moral reasons.

In his book the “Audacity of Hope” Barack Obama wrote and I quote “he believes that only a few women made a decision to terminate a pregnancy casually; that any pregnant woman felt the full force of the moral issues involved and wrestled with her conscience when making the heart wrenching decision. A ban on abortion would force women to seek unsafe abortions as they had once done in America and as they continue to do in countries that persecute abortion doctors and the women who seek their services” end of quote. This was in response to a man who approached him to say he disagreed with his views on abortion

I agree with Obama when he concludes by saying that we need to find ways of reducing the number of women having abortions.

It is extremely unfortunate for any woman to lose her life or develop a life threatening disease from an unsafe abortion. The issue on abortion has to be looked at dispassionately so as to ensure that women in the prime of their lives do not die prematurely.

I recall at the same AFF during one of the sessions I had a chat with a Sister sitting by me who thought that gay people needed counseling to reform. In her view if we continued to entertain gay people the population would decrease to a point where the human race may go into extinction. I immediately responded that I did not believe that day will ever come.

She then asked me what my own thoughts on gay rights were. I remember telling her that I believe we should learn to be tolerant of other people’s sexual preferences. She then asked me what I would do if I ever found out my child was gay. My response which still continues to be my worry is that I am afraid of how society may discriminate, label, ridicule and in some cases even abuse that child because he or she is different. I told her about the true life story of a 17 year old boy who was lynched to death by his peers because he dressed and acted like a girl. The mother of this boy never imagined that her community would be so intolerant to that extent but that is exactly what happened. I concluded by saying that it is for this reason that I want to play my role to ensure that every individual’s human rights are respected at all times.

In the words of John F Kennedy “if we cannot now end our differences at least we can help make the world safe for diversity”. Are you playing your part to make the world safe for diversity?

Gertrude Bibi Annoh-Quarshie
Finance Manager
AWDF