Images from the International Colloquium in Liberia

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Picture 1: On the last day of the Colloquium, Yvonne Chaka Chaka held a concert - AWDF staff were in full attendance despite all the activities that we had been part of during the Colloquium.

Picture 2: AWDF's Executive Director Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi and President Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia

Picture 3: AWDF's Executive Director Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi and alumnae of the African Women's Leadership Institute

Picture 4: AWDF's Executive Director Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi and Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and President of Realizing Rights

The Changing Roles of African Women

Last Friday I delivered a lecture to my alma mater on “The Changing Roles of African Women: 1800 to date”. Yes, that was a huge area to cover (but that was what I was requested to do). The audience was an International Baccalaureate History class and the lecture covered the:

Pre colonial era
Colonial era
Nationalist Struggles for Independence
Post Colonial era?
Opportunities for African women
Challenges for African women

It was fun to interact with the class but what was probably even more interesting to me was some of the random questions that some of the students posed to me:

“Do you think women and men are equal?”

My response: “It depends on how you define equal?”

“I think women and men are not equal. We are different…”

Suddenly several hands shot up in the air, “Its socialisation”.

Someone protested “…but they (the college authorities) ask the boys to pick up the tables and the girls to pick up the chairs after assembly”

“Its socialisation” some more voices insisted. One particular student pointed out how in previous eras such as the rule of the Songhai empire women had played roles in the military which is currently seen as a role for men…

My response to round up that particular question session was to talk about the difference in the concept of equality and diversity as well as to state my preference for the latter which acknowledges the importance of considering the different needs of individuals which may include a historical context of discrimination for e.g.

Another question from the students:

“What do you think of abortion?” Several students’ hands shot up in the air…

A student responded “I don’t think it’s fair that men do not have a choice about abortions, it is unfortunate for women…

“If it’s unfortunate for women then I should be the one to make that choice”, one student retorted.

I tell you I had no idea when I was heading into class that I would have such an enjoyable session. I was especially pleased that young people are already having conversations on abortion, gender equality and African women. What are your thoughts?

Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications

In Solidarity: Statement from the Women's Solidarity Support Group condemning the use of violence against women during political clash in Freetown

Statement from the Women's Solidarity Support Group condemning the use of violence against women during political clash in Freetown , 16 March 2009


We the women of Sierra Leone are horrified and shocked by the alleged rape, sexual violence and physical assault against a number of women during the recent clash in Freetown between the two political parties.

An injury to one woman is an injury to all women. We are appalled by the fact that after the women of this nation have endured over a decade of violence and trauma during the war, women’s bodies continue to be targeted. The violence this week follows numerous national commitments made by this and the last Government to end violence against women. We recognize that the Government has put in place laws and policies to prevent these abuses. Now is the time to prove that they will be enforced.

We therefore demand:

A proper investigation of the alleged crime to ensure that the criminals responsible for these heinous acts are brought to justice. The Inspector General of Police, Mr. Acha Kamara must act to ensure this happens.

Statements from the Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, and the leaders of all political parties condemning the blatant use of violence against women on 16 March 2009 and within the context of political conflict.

The President has championed the cause of Sierra Leone ’s women. We hope that he too will forcefully condemn these abuses against women.

There is no peace if women are not safe. There is no development when women continue to live in fear. We call on the women and men of Sierra Leone to join together to end the culture of impunity.

17 March 2009


Women’s Forum
The Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone
The Talking Drum Studio
ENCISS
International Rescue Committee
Campaign For Good Governance
Bambara Town Women’s Association
Forut Sierra Leone
Centre for the Coordination of Youth Activities
WIMSAL
International Alert
SLADEA
FAWE
50/50 Group
GEMS
YWCA
MARWOPNET
Action Aid Sierra Leone
Network Movement for Justice and Development
Sierra Leone Teachers Union

The Changing Roles of African Women: 1800 to date

I once remarked to my friend who teaches at my old college, "Oh, I would love to come and deliver a guest lecture" and he has taken me up on it. The subject? The Changing Roles of African Women: 1800-1990. My rection "Oh, no", "I do not have the time", "I need months to research".

The conclusion? I am delivering the guest lecture this Friday mainly because I think it's a worthwhile thing to do - it presents herstories to young people - and it's a subject which I am very interested in (but need to do a whole lot more research on). I was also inspired by the motivation of the teacher who is leading this class and it is simply that there is not enough taught about the history of African women.

Putting together this presentation has reminded me of the importance of documenting our own stories and in this day and age putting that information into cyber space. There were some women i googled (Madam Tunubi and Madam Efunsetan - who were women who had taken part in the slave trade although the trade as a whole was carried out by men)and what I got back was minimal. I did get the impression that some information about these women were in books BUT this information needs to be online. Online is where a lot of people go to for research.

What are your thoughts? Is online research the future or is it for lazy people who cannot be bothered to read books? What else needs to be done to document the stories of African women? I think we all need to take responsibility for the latter. I am currently interviewing my grand aunt with the goal of writing her biography.

Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications

In Solidarity: An Open letter to and eleven point demand for the President and Prime minister from Kenyan citizens and civil society organisations

Delivered through a meeting with the Prime minister on March 9, 2009


We, the undersigned Kenyan citizens and civil society organisations, have sought this meeting following the assassinations of Kingara Kamau and George Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation and a student last week.

We note that these assassinations come in the context of non-implementation of Agenda Items One and Two of the mediation process last year—that is, ending the violence and disarming and demobilising all armed groups and militias and restoring fundamental rights and freedoms;

On Agenda Item One, ending the violence and the disarmament and demobilisation of all armed groups and militias, we reiterate there the position of the human rights movement that the heavy-handed security approach is insufficient for the task and has also allowed for the security services to stigmatise young, un/deremployed males in low-income rural and urban areas leading to the disappearances and extrajudicial executions of the same. It has also allowed for the security services to extort money from the public on threat of the same;

On Agenda Item Two, the restoration of fundamental rights and freedoms, we reiterate the position of the human rights movement that the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of assembly, association and expression have been suspended since last year, allowing for the security services to harass, assault (including sexually assault) and illegally detain many human rights defenders seeking to legitimately and peacefully protest various government actions and inactions;

We further note that we raised these concerns at a meeting with the minister of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs last year, who promised us she would seek audience for us with the minister of Internal Security on the same—a promise that has not been honoured;

We finally note that last week’s assassinations have occasioned, as we believe they were intended to do, an atmosphere of fear and threat among human rights defenders who have consistently tried to demand that these concerns be addressed. As we speak, several human rights defenders who have documented, with evidence, these disappearances and extrajudicial executions, have received verbal threats, have had to move to safe houses within the country and have even had to leave the country;

This atmosphere of fear and threat has been fostered by the repeated statements of heads of security services, their spokespersons and the supposed government spokesperson linking human rights organisations themselves to armed groups and militias—accusations for which evidence has never been tendered to the public to support or formal charges brought against them in court;

We therefore demand:

In the immediate and short term:

1. That the government, through the President and the Prime minister, publicly reiterate their commitment to full implementation of Agenda Items One and Two—and the rights of all Kenyans to life, safety and security of the person, the freedoms of assembly, association and expression as well as the freedoms to be assumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law;

2. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by offering financial support to the families of those assassinated with respect to funeral expenses and livelihood losses;

3. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by enabling the demonstration planned by University of Nairobi students for tomorrow, march 10, to protest the assassinations to proceed peacefully, with full support of the security services and with no negative consequences such as the closing of the University of Nairobi;

4. That the government, through the President and the Prime minister, publicly reiterate their commitment to human rights defenders by ensuring that all dis/misinformation being peddled to the public about them cease and by guaranteeing their protection from the increased levels of risk and threat resulting from last week’s assassinations;

5. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by proceeding with the independent investigation into the assassinations, for which the United States of America has already offered the services of its Federal Bureau of Investigations;

6. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, demonstrate that commitment by immediately dismissing from office, the Police Commissioner, the Police Spokesperson the head of the Criminal Investigations Unit, the Provincial Police Officer for Nairobi and the acting Officer in Charge of Police Division at Central Police station among others—who all bear direct political accountability (if not legal accountability) for the harassment, assault (including sexual assault) and illegal detentions of human rights defenders;

7. That, also concretely, the President and the Prime minister, release to the public any information it has regarding the supposed linkage of human rights organisations, such as the Oscar Foundation, with mungiki, by bringing charges to bear in a court of law against such human rights organisations;

In the medium to long term:

8. That the government, through the President and Prime minister ensure the release to the public of any proposed laws and policies to address matters of security sector reform—such as those announced recently by the minister of Internal Security—to allow for public debate and discussion of the same;

9. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister, push forward not only the laws and policies required for security sector reform, but also the core, critical and fundamental demand of the reports of both the Commission of Inquiry into the Post Elections Violence and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions—that for impartial, independent internal and external accountability mechanisms for all security services and the utilisation of those mechanisms to achieve individual legal accountability for all disappearances and extrajudicial executions of all individual security service members involved in the same;

10. That, concretely, the President and the Prime minister ensure the delivery to the public of a benchmarked and timebound plan of action on implementing the security sector reform proposals of the reports of the CIPEV and the UN SR;

11. Recognising the manner in which Kenya’s security agreements with bi/multilateral bodies (notably the governments of the United Kingdom and the USA as well as the European Commission) on matters ranging from anti-terrorism to training to piracy and regional peacekeeping capacity contribute to the apparent sense of impunity and lawlessness of our security services, that the President and the Prime minister arrange tripartite discussions between the government, such bi/multilaterals and civil society on the same to ensure that legitimate security interests being so pursued are not at the expense of fundamental rights and freedoms.

In conclusion, understanding that some of these demands need consultation and discussion within the government, we request a further meeting with you on the same within a week’s time at which the President and the minister of Internal Security are also present.

We thank you for your public statements on the concerns raised to date. We stress our willingness for dialogue with the government on these concerns (including constructive criticism on both sides). And we look forward to full implementation of Agendas Items One and Two of the mediation process.

(end/Kenyan citizens and csos/lmw/09)


Signed:

Akiba Uhaki
BidiiAfrika Network Group
Bunge la Mwananchi
Centre for Law and Rights International (CLARION)
Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD)
Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW)
COBADES
Constitutional Reform and Education Consortium (CRECO)
Fahamu
Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK)
Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU)
International Centre for Policy and Conflict (ICPC)
Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC)
Legal Resource Foundation (LRF)
Mazingira Institute
Muslim Consultative Council
National Council of Non-Governmental Organisations of Kenya
Pambazuka News
Partnership for Change
Release Political Prisoners (RPP)
Social Reform Centre (SOREC)
Solidarity Network Kenya
Youth Agenda
P Gitonga
Philo Ikonyo
Maina Kiai
Njonjo mue
Oikya Omtatah Okoiti, Concerned Citizen
Shailja Patel
Anders Sjogren, Political Scientist, Stockholm University
Rose Wanjiru

With the support of:
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)

In Solidarity with Kenyan Human Rights Activists: Headed for the grave

Headed for the grave

by L. muthoni Wanyeki

I am shaken. I am shocked. And that is, apparently, the intent. For all of us to be shaken. For all of us to be shocked. For all of us to hear the threat, heed the warning. The threat and the warning implicit in last week’s assassinations of Kingara Kamau and John Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation.

Let me be clear about this. I had questions about the Oscar Foundation. Last year, it appeared to me to be one of human rights organisations partisan to the Party of National Unity. I did not understand when or why it had made the shift from children’s rights work to human rights work more generally. I had questions about the methodology through which it arrived at its figures of disappearances and extrajudicial executions of those supposedly associated with the mungiki. I remember us all laughing when Professor Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, questioned them as to the sources of their funding—concerns apparently raised with him by the security services. For, unlike many of us within the human rights movement, the Oscar Foundation does not receive grants from the bi/multilaterals or foundations.

But…I found some of the ways they did their work innovative. Such as running free mobile legal aid clinics in low-income areas not just in urban areas, but also in rural areas. I knew too the solid backgrounds of some of its staff. trusted that they—just as the rest of us—had information worth sharing with the UN SR as to the extent of disappearances and extrajudicial executions in Kenya. And I certainly never imagined—not in my wildest dreams—that their staff would pay the ultimate price for bringing that information forward. Death.

I see now I should have read the signs, the writing on the wall. We all must do so. For the build up was clear. Let me sketch the outlines.

Reports, many reports, from both national and international human rights organisations into the joint police/military operations against the Sabaot Land Defence Force in mount Elgon. Denial, denial, denial—increasingly angrily so. Finally, questions and pressure from governments with whom our government has security agreements and arrangements. Suddenly, a flurry of activity. A public propaganda campaign—with a state sponsored documentary focused on the atrocities and crimes committed by the SLDF being aired, repeatedly, on almost all television channels over several weeks. A parliamentary probe. A joint police/military investigation. The verdict? Nothing’s wrong. All the human rights organisations pointing accusing fingers are wrong. And their motivations are base. They don’t care about the atrocities and crimes committed by the SLDF. They don’t care about the people. They did it to raise money.

Somehow, the issue dies down.

But then comes the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post Elections Violence. It is brutal in its treatment of the failures of the state security agencies. It notes that the Administration Police and the Kenya Police Force used such extraordinary force that no less than a third of all deaths are attributed to them. It notes that they also committed crimes ranging from looting to rape. It issues a set of recommendations for security sector reform, including the fast tracking of investigations into and prosecutions of individual members of the security services who committed rape.

The response? Preemptively, the institution of a supposed police oversight body that is not worthy of the name. The creation of a task force to investigate claims of sexual violence—from which all women’s organisations coopted into it quickly resign. Silence. Then the announcement by the minister of Internal Security of Kenya’s supposed security architecture—a plethora of new laws and policies supposedly addressing the CIPEV report’s recommendations. But not a word about either individual legal or collective political accountability—which the CIPEV report had stressed.

Again, somehow, the issue dies down—helped in no small measure by the clamour for individual accountability of politicians for the violence through the Special Tribunal and the International Criminal Court.

But then comes the report of the UN SR, which finds the Kenya Police Force and the military in mount Elgon guilty of torture, forced disappearances and systematic extrajudicial executions. The response is predictable. Denial, denial, denial.

And more. The dis/misinformation and propaganda begins. The Vice Chair and a staff member of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights are accused of being on the mungiki’s payroll. The build up. Matatu operators accuse human rights organisations of not caring about citizens and businesses affected by the mungiki’s extortion and protection rackets. We are informed that the mungiki have decided to demonstrate in favour of implementation of the UN SR’s recommendations. The media does not question this—despite the fact that the mungiki’s spokesperson denies that they are involved and despite the fact that, strategically speaking, it would be ludicrous for the mungiki to do so at this time. The demonstrations supposedly happen. The supposed government spokesperson parrots the claims, informing Kenya that the Oscar Foundation is raising money for mungiki through the human rights organisations that support mungiki. He blithely ignores the facts that: a) the mungiki make so much money through their extortion and protection rackets that they hardly need external assistance and b) the Oscar Foundation does not receive external funding. Hours after his statement, the two staff members of the Oscar Foundation are dead.

For the record, the human rights movement has consistently and repeatedly called for the disarming and demobilisation of all armed groups, criminal gangs and militia in this country as per Agenda Item One of the mediation process. It has also said, however, that disarmament and demobilisation will entail far more than a heavy-handed security response. And it has said that even that heavy-handed security response must be within the boundaries of the Constitution and the law—not to mention the regional and international human rights instruments we are party to.

If armed groups, criminal gangs and militia still exist in this country, they do so because of their relationships—complex and ever-changing with the political powers that be and the security services that those political powers control. This is obvious. This is why disarmament and demobilisation is so apparently difficult to achieve. And this is why it is simply ludicrous to claim that they exist because of the ‘support’ they get from the human rights movement.

We are clearly in dangerous times. The Kenyatta and moi regimes reserved assassinations for those among the political powers that be. Human rights defenders and other intellectuals contended instead with illegal detentions, torture, forced exile. In the Kibaki/Odinga regime, the goalposts have shifted. Backwards. This does not portend well. For any of us. For any of us.

To his credit, Odinga came out loud and clear following the assassinations, calling for independent, external investigations. We wait to see what Kibaki will do. And that will tell us whether we’re all headed to the grave.

L. muthoni Wanyeki is the Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC)

Happy International Women's Day from the International Colloquium

Greetings from the International Colloquium in Liberia!

Today I have met (okay seen, sometimes from a distance) many powerful women. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, President Talya Halonen of Finland, the Governor-General of Canada (who is also black!), Baroness Amos, Mary Robinson the former President of Ireland...I could go on and on.It has been very inspiring to be in the presence of many of these women who are all affirming the same position. Women's leadership should be encouraged, nurtured and developed for the benefit of the whole world.

AWDF also held our grand debate on the motion "We have wasted our time getting women into decision-making positions. They have not made a difference". Aargh! you can imagine the liveliness of the debate. The conclusion reached by the moderator Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, Executive Director of AWDF was that "We have not wasted our time getting women into decision making positions BUT some women have wasted our time".

What are your thoughts? Do women leaders make a difference? What kind of support do you think the women's movement need to provide women in politics?