Tag: Gender

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project Who Benefits? — Global Issues

  • Opinion by Marianne Buenaventura Goldman, Reitumetse Nkoti Mabula (cape town, south africa)
  • Inter Press Service

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Sep 05 (IPS) – The Role of the New Development Bank in Monitoring Project Impacts on Communities

The 15th BRICS Summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa this month has once again put the spotlight on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) as a shining example of multilateralism and the New Development Bank’s (NDB)commitment to financing sustainable development projects within BRICS countries and other developing countries. During the 2023 BRICS Summit, the New Development Bank and the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA) signed a 3.2 billion Rands loan agreement for the implementation of Phase Two of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) in Lesotho. This funding complements contributions by other financiers, notably the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

LHWP is a multi-phased water infrastructure project which involves construction of a number of dams in Lesotho to transfer water to South Africa, while generating hydropower for Lesotho. The entity that is responsible for implementation of LHWP in Lesotho is the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA). The TCTA, a state-owned entity charged with financing bulk raw water infrastructure in South Africa, is responsible for financing and building the LHWP.

News of the signing of this agreement was received with some interest and enthusiasm in many quarters in Lesotho, partly because of the participation of Prime Minister Matekane during the Summit, as an observer, and largely due to the perceived benefits of this loan for Basotho. On the other hand, the news was also viewed with skepticism by civil society organisations working with communities directly affected by LHWP in light of the adverse social, economic, environmental and gender impact which communities continue to experience daily. The truth is, whilst it is laudable and important for both Lesotho and South Africa that the NDB provided this crucial financing for socio-economic development of their peoples, it is equality imperative that this development should not come at a cost to vulnerable and marginalised communities who have been forced to host this project.

The benefits for communities in South Africa are straightforward; according to the media release issued by the NDB on the 21st of August 2023, LHWP Phase II will increase the water yield of the Vaal River Basin by almost 15%, supporting economic growth and livelihoods of approximately 15 million people living in Gauteng Province, including communities in three other provinces which also stand to benefit from increased water supply. However, these benefits are not guaranteed for thousands of people and communities directly affected by this project in Lesotho.

LHWP Phase II has garnered its fair share of criticism and controversy recently, for its operations and impact on the people of Polihali, Mokhotlong. These include heavy handed police intervention against people who rightfully express dissent and protest to some aspects of the project or how it is implemented. There are also complaints about the project’s implementing authority, the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA)’s compensation policy. These include unfair compensation amounts to communities which were based on unilaterally determined compensation rates and periods, non-payment of communal compensation which has prevented communities from developing income generating projects, and lack of developments such as provision of water and sanitation for communities.

Implementation of LHWP requires acquisition of land from local communities; it is estimated that 5,000 hectares of land will be flooded by the Polihali Dam.1 This acquisition of land will result in significant negative impacts on the livelihoods and socio-economic status of the local populations. Communities are going to lose arable land, grazing ranges for livestock which is the main store of wealth for communities in the area, medicinal plants, useful grasses and wild vegetables which form the basis of livelihoods for communities.

Another challenge of the construction of this Dam is the required resettlement and / or relocation of communities. It is currently estimated that 270 households and 21 business enterprises will need to be relocated, mainly due to the impoundment of Polihali reservoir.2 About 12 communities will be relocated, and an additional 5 communities will be required to resettle entirely, a process that will have great economic and socio-economic and cultural implications for generations to come. Regrettably, there is no livelihood restoration strategy that has been developed by the LHDA to ameliorate the plight of these communities or at least no such strategy has been shared and/or discussed with communities and their representatives.

Negative gender impacts have also been noted; women within LHWP Phase II project area are already marginalised because of cultural stereotypes and practices which prevent them from owning land. The LHWP Phase II Compensation Policy has only served to solidify and exacerbate the problem of gender inequality through its gender biased payout of compensation procedure which deprives women of compensation for land previously managed or shared. This increases their economic vulnerability and susceptibility to gender-based violence. In fact, there have been concerning news reports in recent months, of increasing number of gender-based violence cases including teenage pregnancies and girl-child school dropouts, sex work/transactional sex, sexual violation especially of young girls, and increased HIV infection prevalence. These have been linked directly to the influx of immigrant contractors and labour workers who have come to work on the LHWP, continuing a trend which was first observed during implementation of the previous phases of this project. It is worrying to note, that at this point in the of implementation LHWP Phase II, there is still no gender policy, and the implementing authority still insists on turning a blind eye to the vulnerability of women as a result of this project.

The news of the NDB providing a loan for Phase 2 of the LHWP, totaling an amount of 3.2 billion Rands (US $ 171.5 million) raises further questions on the NDB’s policies and practices concerning transparency, accountability and its environmental and social safeguards, including gender. The NDB has indicated its plans to further strengthen gender mainstreaming in all its projects in its second five year General Strategy (2022-2027). As called by BRICS civil society organisations since the start of NDB operations, the NDB needs to urgently put in place a gender policy, with support of gender specialists at the NDB to oversee that gender is integrated in all aspects of its projects, in strong partnerships with its clients such as the TCTA and the LHDA.

All eyes are on the former Brazil President, Dilma Rousseff, new President of the NDB on her ability to transform the NDB from a multilateral development bank whose track record appears to be gender neutral towards one can proactively empower women and delivering on gender equality as part of New General Strategy and operations. In a recent statement, Rousseff explained that a priority of the NDB will be to “…promote social inclusion at every opportunity we have. The NDB needs to support projects that help to reduce inequalities and that improve the standard of living of the vast communities of the poor and excluded in our countries.”

The NDB has now grown beyond the BRICS countries, and recently included new member countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Egypt and Uruguay and has greater aspirations to add many more countries. Given the NDB’s expansion, it is critical that the NDB begin to live its vision of being an accountable institution for the South, by the South. The NDB should urgently put into practice its policies such as on Information Disclosure. By doing so, the NDB will enable communities to access information on projects that directly affect their lives and livelihoods. The NDB also needs to work more closely with its clients to follow through on the NDB guidelines provided in its Environmental and Social Framework. The Civil Society Forum of the NDB (South Africa / Africa), including Lesotho community-based organisations calls on the NDB to learn from past mistakes experienced during the implementation of Phase 1 of the LHWP. During Phase II of the project, the NDB and other development finance institutions such as the DBSA and AfDB should ensure that the LHDA convenes effective and timely community consultations, provide basic services such as clean water, and ensure adequate and fair compensation to all affected communities – especially women who have in the past been left behind.

During the 2023 BRICS Summit, which took place on 22-24 August, Minister Naledi Pandor of South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation underscored the need for the NDB to do outreach at the local level in terms of sharing information on the projects the NDB funds, including vital project information, including the $3 billion the NDB plans to invest in South Africa. All eyes are now on South Africa and Brazil with leadership from NDB President Rousseff and Minister Pandor to push for stronger and more inclusive development outcomes of the NDB, with women front and centre of all future NDB projects.

The LHWP Phase II is an example of the challenges faced by communities affected by large infrastructure projects with funding from Public Development Banks (PDBs) such as the NDB, AfDB and the DBSA. As the hundreds of PDBs convene at the 4th Finance in Common Summit (FICS) in Cartegena, Colombia on 4-6 September to join forces to transform the financial system towards climate and sustainability, it will be important that PDBs transform their models to be more effective in promoting positive development outcomes for communities. PDBs have been advocating to increase volumes of finance for development. Civil society across the globe are in solidarity, making their voices heard at the FICS expressing concerns that limited attention is being given to the need to shift the quality of that finance to ensure it does not exacerbate the current crises and to ensure it shifts the power in decision making. Such attention is even more needed as the current financial architecture hinders the ability of governments to protect people and the planet.

1https://www.lhda.org.ls : accessed on the 11th July 2023
2 Ibid

Marianne Buenaventura Goldman is co-Chair, Civil Society Forum of the NDB (Africa) & Project Coordinator, Forus
Reitumetse Nkoti Mabula is Executive Director, Seinoli Legal Centre

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Lawmakers Call on G20 to Prioritise Spending on Youth, Gender, and Human Security — Global Issues

Asian Parliamentarians believe it’s important to prioritise spending on ageing and youth populations. Credit: APDA
  • by Ranjit Devraj (new delhi)
  • Inter Press Service

NEW DELHI, Sep 05 (IPS) – Legislators from around the world, this week, officially submitted to the Sherpa of the G20 meeting set for September in New Delhi a declaration calling on governments to prioritise spending on ageing, youth, gender, human security, and other burning population issues.

The submission to the G20 Sherpa follows a workshop held on August 22 in New Delhi to discuss the Declaration first presented at the G7 Hiroshima summit in April by the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (GCPPD) under the UNFPA. 

“We have now submitted the Declaration to Amitabh Kant, Sherpa to the G-20 so that it can be taken up,” Manmohan Sharma, Executive Secretary of the Indian Association of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (IAPPD), told IPS.

Deepender Hooda, Vice Chair of the AFPPD and a member of India’s Parliament, said the workshop in New Delhi was significant not only because India is hosting the G-20 summit but also because India was expected to have overtaken China as the world’s most populous country reaching 1,425,775,850 people in April.

Lawmakers met in New Delhi to discuss the prioritisation of resources to prepare a declaration to the G20. Credit: APDA

Keizo Takemi, member of the House of Councillors, Japan, and Chair of the AFPPD, observed that India faced many challenges that are hard to overcome, and these included the large size of its population, limited school attendance, and a high rate of unemployment. “Prioritisation of population issues is the most important,” he emphasised.

Hooda, a leader of the opposition Congress party from the state of Haryana, said he was concerned at the dwindling budgetary outlay in social sectors like health and education over the last few years in India. “Currently, for some reason, inclusive growth in education and health has fallen,” he told delegates.

A presentation to the workshop by Suneeta Mukherjee indicated that India is among the top five nations leading the ‘out-of-school’ category, with 1.4 million children in the 6-11-years-old age category not attending school. Also, out of every 100 students, 29 per cent drop out of school before completing elementary education.

Mukherjee, an Indian career bureaucrat who has served at the UNFPA, said the situation appeared to be worsening at the upper primary level given that the dropout rate at the upper primary level had gone up to 3 per cent in 2021-2022 while it was only 1.9 per cent in 2020-2021. The annual dropout rate of secondary school students was 14.6 in 2020-2021.

Citing recent studies in her presentation, Mukherjee said 36 per cent of Indians between the ages of 15 and 34 believe that unemployment is the biggest problem facing the country. She said one survey showed 40 per cent of graduates identified unemployment as their most pressing concern.

Said P.J. Kurien, chairperson of IAPPD: “It is important that all MPs take up population-related issues. They need to ask what percentage of the budget is devoted to education and health and ensure that every child goes to school with special attention given to girls.”

Echoing Kurien, Sharma said it was up to members of parliament to ensure that no child is left out in his or her constituency. “The solution is in your hands, but the prioritisation is missing.”

Delegates outlined at the workshop legislative steps taken by Parliamentarians in their countries in implementing the International Conference on Population Development’s Programme of Action and 2030 Agenda.

Josephine Veronique Lacson-Noel, Member, House of Representatives of the Philippines, said over the last two decades, her country had enacted such legislations as the Magna Carta of Women, Reproductive Health Law, 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave, Act Prohibiting Child Marriage, Universal Health Care Act, Youth Council Reform and Empowerment Act, and an Act to enable conditional cash transfers.

On the anvil, she said, is the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill, a law to recognise, evaluate and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work done by women, and another to accord social protection for older persons and the promotion of active aging.

For 2023, the budget allocation for reproductive health was $14.9 million dollars, and that for training teachers to implement comprehensive sexuality education was $13.8 million, Lacson-Noel said.

Andrea W. Wojnar, UNFPA India representative and country director for Bhutan, said with the right expertise and skills, India’s 1.4 billion people could be turned into 1.4 billion opportunities.

Wojnar said India, with its large youth cohort — its 254 million youth in the 15-24 age bracket — can be a source of innovation and solutions, especially if girls and women are provided educational opportunities and skills to access new technologies and are empowered to fully exercise their reproductive rights and choices.

With close to 50 per cent of its population below the age of 25, India has a time-bound opportunity to benefit from the demographic dividend, according to Wojnar.

“Women and girls should be at the centre of sexual and reproductive policies and programmes. When rights, choices, and equal value of all people are truly respected and held, only then can we unlock a future of infinite possibilities,” Wojnar said in a statement.

“As the national fertility rate falls below 2.1 (the replacement level), India is at a unique historical opportunity, witnessing a great demographic transition as a youthful nation,” Wojnar said, adding that India also has the largest number of outmigrants and is affected by ageing, urbanisation and issues around sustainable development.

Wojnar warned that, overall, the Asia Pacific region was six times more likely to be affected by disaster events than other regions and is highly susceptible to changing weather patterns, calling for special attention by governments.

The Declaration presented to the Sherpa of the G-20 called on governments, among other things, to implement comprehensive legislation and policies that address all forms of gender-based violence and eradicate harmful practices such as child marriage, early and forced.

It also called for investment in sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as comprehensive sexuality education toward making future societies economically dynamic and for building peaceful, inclusive, and sustainable societies. Support for political and economic participation by women and girls could ensure the development of societies that guarantee liberty and individual choice for women and girls, it said.

Governments were asked to promote and assure equitable access to health innovation, finance, technology, and medicines in the global community which can support human security, leaving no one behind.

Acknowledgement of the grave impacts of environment/climate change and global warming was important, as also the need to promote policies that address the needs of geographically vulnerable countries, which is a threat to health and human security, the Declaration said.

Investing in young people by providing decent work opportunities and enabling them to become a driving force for sustainable development was important as also addressing active and healthy ageing to enhance people’s overall quality of life by improving areas such as health and long-term care through resilient universal health coverage, physical security, and income stability.

Governments were also asked to enact national legislation and policies and ensure political will through allocation, oversight, and monitoring of budgetary resources to build universal health coverage, which is vital to enhance the global health framework.

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Taliban’s Policies Plunge Afghan Women into Poverty and Despair — Global Issues

Beauty salons used to be one of the few places where Afghan women could gather without male control. Credit: Learning Together
  • Inter Press Service

Aug 23 (IPS) – The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons.In July of this year, the Taliban issued a decree that resulted in the closure of hair salons and beauty parlors across Afghanistan. This directive aligns with the extreme Islamist policies now governing Afghanistan, which aim to confine women strictly within their homes.

This action followed a prior decree in December of last year, which prohibited women from working in non-governmental organizations that provided humanitarian assistance particularly beneficial to women. Many of these organizations have subsequently closed down their operations in the country.

A total of 12,000 predominantly women-led businesses have been closed down in Kabul, the capital city, and 33 other provinces. The Women’s Hairdressers Union estimates that each hair salon employs on average three women.

“I was profoundly disheartened by this news,” expressed Shabnam (pseudonym), who added, “My friends were so sad that they started to cry. I tried to cheer them up, but I understand that nothing can be harder than losing your source of income and being the family’s only breadwinner.”

The closure of humanitarian organizations particularly affects women. These organizations note that female employees play a vital role due to their better understanding of women’s challenges, enabling tailored aid delivery to specific needs.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 25 million Afghan families live below the poverty line, earning less than two US dollars daily.

Before the Taliban’s return to power two years ago, numerous women held significant positions within government, non-governmental roles, as well as in national and international institutions in Afghanistan.

However, the Taliban, following a particularly stringent interpretation of Islam, intends to dismantle such progress, and it is women who bear the brunt of this policy.

This beauty parlor was discreetly situated on a side alley, but it is now also closed. Credit: Learning Together

Access to higher education has been denied to women, and they are prohibited from working outside the home – leading to economic sanctions imposed by the international community.

Several decades of warfare have devastated the Afghan economy, resulting in many households being headed by women as the sole breadwinners.

Mina (pseudonym), who reluctantly closed her salon, lamented: “Losing my job was very heavy for me because I am the guardian of four children who are under 18 years old, and all their expenses and responsibilities are on me.”

This story was produced by Learning Together, a voluntary network of Finnish female journalists. The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons.

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Sexual Violence Survivors in Tigray Need Urgent Medical, Psychological and Economic Support — Global Issues

Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, addresses the UN Security Council. CREDIT: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
  • by Francis Kokutse (accra)
  • Inter Press Service

ACCRA, Aug 22 (IPS) – The war in Tigray, northern Ethiopian, led to sexual and gender-based violence against women, but when Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, appeared before the UN Security Council Open Debate on Sexual Violence in Conflict last year, and catalogued the problems that the victims of the war faced, it didn’t shock the world.

Giving a background, Degefa said, “When the war first started, Blen, a 21-year-old waitress from Badme, along with around 30 other Tigrayan women, was held against her will and subjected to sexual slavery, starvation, and gang rape by a group of Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers who took turns with her.”

“I documented many other stories like Blen’s during multiple visits to the Tigray region before June 2021. Sexual violence was used to terrorize communities and build camaraderie amongst allied forces of the Eritrean Defence Forces, Ethiopian National Defence Force, Amhara regional militia, and special forces through the shared experience of exploiting women’s bodies.

“The consistency across victims’ accounts shows that these crimes were committed with a degree of organization, planning, and intent to dehumanize individuals and communities,” she said.

Now, a new study has confirmed that 99 percent of the survivors of sexual and gender-based violence during the conflict have not received medical or psychological care because most health facilities were destroyed and looted.

Girmatsion Fisseha – Lead Author

The authors have, therefore, suggested the establishment of an urgent survivor centre approach with medical and psychological services, together with sustained community support, to reduce the lifelong impact on the behavioural, emotional, sexual, social, and economic fortunes of the victims.

Published by BMJ Global Health journal, the study, “War-related sexual and gender-based violence in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia: a community-based study,” is a survey conducted in six zones of Tigray after the Eritrean, Ethiopian and Amhara forces left Mekelle, the capital of Tigray.

The western zone of Tigray and the districts bordering Eritrea were not included for security reasons. Women of reproductive age (i.e., 15–49 years) recruited from the study communities were included as primary respondents in this survey. Information on girls under 15 years and women above 50 years of age was also collected from the primary respondents, and the period of the SGBV incidents covered from 4 November 2020 to 28 June 2021.

Findings from this study indicate a higher incidence, nearly 10 percent more of rape, than those reported in other studies during conflicts, such as in Northern Uganda, 4.2 percent; Sierra Leone, 8 percent and Ukraine, 2.6 percent. In the case of physical violence, 28.6 percent observed in this study was higher than the findings for East Timor, Indonesia, where 22.7 percent of the women were physically assaulted.

Co-author of the study, Kiros Berhane, professor at the Cynthia and Robert Citron-Roslyn and Leslie Goldstein, and Chair, Department of Biostatistics Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University in the U.S. told the IPS why they were motivated to conduct the study. “During the war period in Tigray, there were unprecedently high incidents of SGBV reported by various humanitarian agencies, local and international media, including gang-rape and other extreme types of abuses such as insertion of foreign objectives to the victims’ private parts.

Kiros Berhane Professor of Biostatistics at Columbia University

“Most of the reports were coming from health facilities around big towns. Health professionals working at university hospitals (including many on the author list of this manuscript) observed many rape survivors admitted to Mekelle Hospital and Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (one-stop centre),” he said.

Berhane said the main objective of the study was to scientifically and thoroughly document the level and severity of war-related SGBV in Tigray beyond the sporadic and incomplete (but still shocking) reports in hopes that policies and actions could be activated to help rape survivors and further prevent the rape incidence in the community, adding that, “this study provides first-of-its-kind objectively/carefully collected primary data on scale/level of SGBV in Tigray.”

Degefa gave a chilling account of a Tigrayan woman who was fleeing the conflict zone with her children, and encountered the Amhara militia, who separated her from her family, gang-raped her and inserted a hot metal rod into her uterus and declared that a Tigrayan should never give birth.”

“Similar incidents of rape with claims of cleansing “Tigrayan blood” and mutilating women’s bodies to prevent the birth of more generations of Tigrayans have been extensively covered by different human rights reports,” she said.

Degefa said sexual violence was also used to humiliate survivors and their families and cited a case of an Amhara woman who was beaten and raped in the presence of her husband and child by two members of Tigrayan forces. Men and boys were also sexually assaulted, she said, adding that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission found in Samre town, in Tigray, 600 men and boys who were stripped and forcibly paraded, some completely naked, while Eritrean female soldiers mocked them and took pictures.

She said women with disabilities and other vulnerable communities were also at particular risk during this conflict. “Many women with disabilities were specifically targeted in the Tigray region as they were presumed to be fighters in the previous war. Girls, older women, and women belonging to a minority or indigenous communities also faced higher risks, Degefa added.

The lack of access to the region for independent human rights monitoring means it has been tough to document the impact of the conflict in minority communities and especially those living in disputed areas on the Eritrean border, such as the Irob and Kunama in Tigray.

In her opinion, the conflict in Northern Ethiopia, and the effective siege of the Tigray region, in particular, has undermined women’s rights, including access to reproductive healthcare and psychosocial support, exacerbating the impacts of sexual violence.

Degefa said the lack of access to psychosocial support services means that the mental health of survivors of sexual violence hangs in the balance. Many have already died by suicide, adding that the story of a 50-year-old Amhara woman from Shewa-Robit in central Ethiopia, who was gang-raped by Tigrayan fighters in the presence of her son in the next room and later died of suicide.

Following their study, Berhane said he would expect the Ethiopian government and the international community “to provide immediate action such as supporting survivors, their children and provide the opportunity for medical, psychological and economic rehabilitation.”

In addition, there is a need for the supply of adequate medical supplies and medications to health facilities in the war zone. The government must also work with all partners and NGOs to try and trace survivors at the community level for further medical and psychological support.

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Democracy in the Balance? — Global Issues

Credit: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters via Gallo Images
  • Opinion by Andrew Firmin (london)
  • Inter Press Service

LONDON, Aug 18 (IPS) – Civic space is deteriorating in Senegal ahead of next February’s presidential election. Recent protests have been met with lethal violence and internet and social media restrictions. Senegal’s democracy will soon face a key test, and whether it passes will depend largely on whether civic space is respected.

Political conflict

Recent protests have revolved around the populist opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Sonko came third in the 2019 presidential election and has grown to be the biggest thorn in President Macky Sall’s side. He’s won support from many young people who see the political elite as corrupt, out of touch and unwilling to tackle major social and economic problems such as the country’s high youth unemployment. He’s also been the subject of a recent criminal conviction that his supporters insist is politically motivated.

On 1 June, Sonko was sentenced to two years in jail for ‘corrupting youth’. This resulted from his arrest on rape charges in March 2021. Although he was cleared of the most serious charges – something women’s rights advocates have expressed concern about – his conviction likely makes him ineligible to stand in the next presidential election.

Sonko’s arrest in March 2021 triggered protests in which 14 people died. His conviction set off a second wave of protests. Sonko was arrested again on 28 July on protest-related charges, including insurrection. A few days later, the government dissolved his party, Pastef. It’s the first such ban since Senegal achieved independence in 1960.

All of this gave fresh impetus to Sonko’s supporters, who accuse the government of instrumentalising the judiciary and criminal justice system to stop a credible political threat.

Repressive reaction

The latest wave of protests saw instances of violence, including stone-throwing, tyre burning and looting. The state responded with lethal force. According to civil society estimates, since March 2021 over 30 people have been killed, more than 600 injured and over 700 detained.

In response to the recent protests, the army was deployed in the capital, Dakar. Live ammunition was used and armed people dressed in civilian clothes, evidently embedded with security forces, violently attacked protesters.

Journalists were harassed and arrested while covering protests. Recent years have seen a rise in verbal and physical attacks on journalists, along with legal action to try to silence them. Several journalists were arrested in relation to their reporting on Sonko’s prosecution. Investigative journalist Pape Alé Niang has been jailed three times in less than one year.

The government also limited internet access and TV coverage. TV station Walf TV was suspended over its protest coverage. On 1 June, social media access was restricted and on 4 June mobile internet was shut down for several days. In August, TikTok access was blocked. Restrictions harmed both freedom of expression and livelihoods, since many small traders rely on mobile data for transactions.

Third-term tussle

A major driver of protests and Sonko’s campaign was speculation that Sall might be tempted to seek a third presidential term. The constitution appeared to be clear on the two-term limit, but Sall’s supporters claimed constitutional amendments in 2016 had reset the count. Thousands mobilised in Dakar on 12 May, organised by a coalition of over 170 civil society groups and opposition parties, to demand that Sall respect the two-term limit.

On 3 July, Sall finally announced that he wasn’t running again. But it hasn’t ended suspicion that the ruling Alliance for the Republic (APR) party will go to any lengths stay in power, including using the state’s levers to weaken the opposition.

There’s precedent here: ahead of the Sall’s re-election in 2019, two prominent opposition politicians who might have presented a serious challenge were excluded. In both cases, barely weeks before the election the Constitutional Council ruled them ineligible due to prior convictions on corruption charges that were widely believed to have been politically motivated.

That Sonko and Pastef might have stood a chance in 2024 was suggested by the results of votes in 2022. In local elections, the APR lost control of Dakar and Sonko was elected mayor of Ziguinchor city. And then in parliamentary elections, the APR lost 43 of its 125 seats and Pastef finished second, claiming 56 seats, leaving no party with a majority.

Reputation on the line

Senegal long enjoyed an international reputation for being a relatively stable and democratic country in a region that’s experienced numerous democratic setbacks. With West African countries such as Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and now Niger under military control, and others like Togo holding deeply flawed elections, Senegal stood out. It’s held several free elections with changes of power.

The country’s active and youthful civil society and relatively free media have played a huge part in sustaining democracy. When President Abdoulaye Wade sought an unconstitutional third term in 2012, social movements mobilised. The Y’en a marre (‘I’m fed up’) movement got out the youth vote to oust Wade in favour of Sall. Wade himself rode a similar youth wave in 2000. So Sall and his party are surely aware of the power of social movements and the youth vote.

A small step forward was taken recently when parliament voted to allow the two opposition candidates who’d been blocked in 2019 to stand in 2024. But the government needs to do much more to show its commitment to democratic rules.

Upholding protest rights would be a good start. The repeated use of violence and detention of protesters points to a systemic problem. No one has been held to account for killings and other rights violations. It’s high time for accountability.

Media freedoms need to be respected and people detained for exercising their civic freedoms must be released. For Senegal to live up to its reputation, Sall should strive to enter history as the president who kept democracy alive – not the one who buried it.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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#AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign to Elevate Voices of Young Afghan Girls on Global Stage — Global Issues

The #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign is a compelling and poignant campaign developed in collaboration with ECW Global Champion, Somaya Faruqi. CREDIT: ECW
  • by Cecilia Russell (nairobi)
  • Inter Press Service

NAIROBI, Aug 14 (IPS) – Two years ago, the then 19-year-old Somaya Faruqi and the Afghan Robotic Team travelled from Herat City to Kabul, the heart of Afghanistan—the Taliban had taken over Herat city, cutting off electricity and internet. The all-girls team’s great passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) had driven them to Kabul to rehearse for a competition.

“After three days, I woke up, looked outside the window, and saw the Taliban in the streets. I was very shocked and could not believe it. I never imagined that the Taliban could take over Kabul. There were thousands and thousands of people trying to flee the country, and after three days of trying, we flew to Qatar with the help of the Qatari government. I wondered what would become of my sister and classmates who were left behind,” Faruqi tells IPS.

It did not take long for the de facto authority to unveil their plans. Two years down the line, the Taliban has waged a gender war and women and girls are on the receiving end. The Taliban edict has banned adolescent girls from the classrooms. After year six, they are to stay at home, says Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says the ban on girl’s and women’s education has the effect of forcing them to live once again in the shadows. CREDIT: ECW

“Afghan girls are banned from accessing secondary and tertiary education because of their gender, and this is the most ruthless form of discrimination. They cannot understand why they are not allowed to attend school like their brothers. Their pathway to education has been cut, and they are in pain, suffering and (often) struggling with suicidal thoughts. We must stand in solidarity with them, for in the words of Martin Luther King Jr, injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Their distress should shake us to the core,” Sherif tells IPS.

She says that the situation in Afghanistan is one of the worst in the world. To elevate Afghan girls’ voices on the global stage, ECW has launched the #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign. A compelling, poignant campaign developed in collaboration with Faruqi, who is an ECW Global Champion.

Faruqi finished her 12th grade in Qatar, from where she applied to college and received a scholarship from the Qatar Fund for Development to pursue engineering studies in the United States. Her astounding progress and brilliance are a testament to the devasting blow being dealt to millions of Afghan girls.

“The situation in Afghanistan gets worse from one day to the next. Women and girls are prisoners in their own homes, in their own country. They cannot leave their homes without a male guardian- a father, brother or relative. They have been denied the freedom to pursue any interest outside their home, and they sit around with nothing to do. Through this campaign, I want the world to know that there is a country today where girls are denied fundamental human rights, forced out of school and into marriages,” Faruqi explains.

The campaign is to be launched on August 15, the second anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.  is in Gordon Brown—UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group on the eve of the launch, stressed the need for the international community must hear this poignant call from the heart of Afghan girls and young women.

Faruqi affirms the need to hear from those inside Afghanistan, at the very heart of the ongoing injustice, to hear how their lives have been turned upside down and how a fragile future now hangs in the balance if the global community remains silent.

Sherif says the situation is particularly horrific because girls are simply not being left behind in the education system due to conflict or climate disaster; an official ban is keeping them out of school. As a firm fist pushes millions of girls out of school, the immediate impact is a rolling back of time to a place where women lived in the shadows. This devastating decree means that 50 percent of the population is not able to access education.

“This is not reflective of Islam. The foundation of Islam is learning. The first word in the Quran is read. It does not advocate for girls not to go to school. The ban is unacceptable,” she emphasizes.

The campaign uses moving images by a young Afghan female artist and determined testimonies from Afghan girls. It features a series of equally inspiring, heart-wrenching and determined testimonies from Afghan girls whose lives have been abruptly upended by the ban preventing them to pursue their education and dreams.

Their powerful words are conveyed together with striking illustrations depicting both the profound despair experienced by these Afghan girls and young women, along with their incredible resilience and strength in the face of this unacceptable ban on their education.

ECW invites partners and the wider public to stand in solidarity with Afghan girls by posting messages from Afghan girls across social media every day—from 15 August, the date when the de facto Taliban authorities came into power in Afghanistan 2021, until 18 September, which marks the start of the official ban on school for adolescent girls.

Sherif says the campaign is in line with sustainable development goal 4 and will run through the UN General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit from 18-19 September at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Summit aims to mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the SDGs with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030 – progress that cannot be achieved with Afghan girls left behind.

“ECW, through our in-country partners, has invested in formal and non-formal education in Afghanistan since 2014. More than 70 percent of the Afghan population is in dire humanitarian need. It is a country on the brink of collapse in terms of people’s well-being. We are therefore calling for urgent funding to continue to fund community-based education through our grassroots organizations. We should never stop supporting Afghanistan; people are suffering,” Sherif emphasizes.

ECW has been supporting education programmes in Afghanistan since 2017. The ECW-supported extended Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in Afghanistan supports more than 250,000 children and adolescents across some of the most remote and underserved areas of the country. The programme delivers community-based education, organised at the local level with support from local communities, and is critical to keep education going. Girls account for over half of all the children and adolescents reached by the MYRP.

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Taking Stock of Two Decades of Trailblazing Protocol on Womens Rights in Africa — Global Issues

Women and girls in Kenya’s West Pokot celebrate as the government cracks down on those practising harmful Female Genital Mutilation in the area. CREDIT: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
  • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
  • Inter Press Service

NAIROBI, Aug 09 (IPS) – It promised to be the most defining, groundbreaking, and transformative protocol on African women’s rights. Specific in its approach, broad in its reach, and unique in its all-encompassing nature, covering issues such as HIV/Aids, widow inheritance and property disinheritance in a most unprecedented manner.

To halt and reverse the systemic and persistent gender inequality and discriminatory practices against women in Africa, the African Union Assembly adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique.

The Maputo Protocol was designed in line with the realities of the plight of women on the continent. Providing tailor-made solutions to lift women from beneath the crushing weight of a cultural system that disadvantages women from birth. Twenty years on, it is time to take stock.

“The 20th Anniversary of the Maputo Protocol is a historical advocacy moment for women’s rights advocates. It offers an opportunity to demand from African Governments real and tangible change for women and girls in their countries,” Faiza Mohamed, Africa Regional Director of Equality Now, tells IPS.

“By acceding to the Maputo Protocol, lifting reservations, fully domesticating, and implementing the Protocol, and ensuring their compliance with accountability processes. Beyond this, it signifies the generational changes over two decades and points to the need to reflect on future generations and to future-proof the Maputo Protocol and the SOAWR Coalition.”

The Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) is a coalition of over 80 civil society organizations, a pan-African women’s movement that pushes for accelerated ratification of the protocol in non-ratifying states while holding governments accountable to deliver for women in line with the Protocol.

Youth delegates at Maputo Protocol 20th anniversary celebrations, July 11, 2023. CREDIT: Equality Now

Mohamed stresses that the SOAWR Coalition is a remarkable testament to the power of women’s organized movements and their capacity to influence transformative policy agendas, leaving a lasting impact.

“Through its persistent efforts, SOAWR has successfully kept the protocol on the agenda of AU member states, leading to significant influence as 44 out of 55 African states have ratified or acceded to the Maputo Protocol. This achievement has turned the Protocol into a potent public education tool for women’s rights, both at the national and grassroots levels,” she explains.

“Notably, there has been substantial progress in the advancement of national jurisprudence on women’s rights, as well as in the empowerment of women themselves. Thanks to the coalition’s effective public sensitization campaigns, formerly taboo subjects like sexual and reproductive health rights, female genital mutilation, and polygamy have become open and advanced topics in various countries.”

The coalition has demonstrated how much women and like-minded partners can achieve working in solidarity. Additionally, each organization continues to push the women’s agenda forward – pushing and pulling in the same direction, to realize the dream of a society where women are fully represented in every corner of the spaces they call home.

“The Maputo Protocol comes out of the African feminist fire, and we need to keep it burning. That it is one of the most progressive legal instruments that came out of Africa. That it represents our diversity and our strength because we are not a monolith. It also represents the power of collective action and also the dream of the Africa we want,” says Nigerian-born Becky Williams, a young woman who now lives in Uganda and works for Akina Mama wa Africa.

Equality Now is currently advocating for adopting the Multi-Sectoral Approach in implementing the Maputo Protocol. The Multi-Sectoral Approach (MSA) provides a framework for convening different sectors within governments and actors outside of government in a joint effort to implement women’s rights as provided for in the Protocol.

Mohamed emphasizes that if recognized and embraced by governments and civil societies, the Maputo Protocol can be a powerful tool for change as it offers women a tool for transforming the unequal power relations between men and women that lie at the heart of gender inequality and women’s oppression.

To coincide with the Maputo Protocol’s 20th anniversary, SOAWR, Make Every Woman Count (MEWC), and Equality Now released a report titled, “Twenty years of the Maputo Protocol: Where are we now?” Providing a detailed account of progress made thus far, successes, challenges and recommendations.

Regarding rights related to marriage and child marriage, the report finds that several countries have adopted constitutional reforms related to the prohibition of forced marriage. For example, the constitution of Burundi guarantees marriage equality. The constitutions of Guinea, Malawi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe set the legal age of marriage at 18 years. AU Member States have enacted legislation on rights related to marriage.

On economic and social welfare rights, half of the African states maintain constitutional provisions guaranteeing equal remuneration for work of equal value or the right to fair or just pay. More than half of African states have laws mandating equal remuneration for work of equal value.

Regarding health and reproductive rights, almost all African states maintain constitutional provisions related to health and/or health care, and many enshrine the principle of non-discrimination based on health. Notably, six countries, including Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, enshrine rights related to reproductive health care, such as access to family planning education or reproductive/maternity care.

Group photo of the delegates at the Maputo Protocol 20th anniversary celebrations held in Nairobi, Kenya. CREDIT: Equality Now

While women’s rights have come a long way, the report stresses that there is a long way to go and makes specific key recommendations, such as the need to address the right to abortion and treat each case as espoused in the Protocol. It also suggests that the Maputo Protocol should be used to protect women and girls’ reproductive health rights and advocates that Member states remove laws that fail to protect reproductive health rights.

It advocates for the passing of family laws to protect women’s rights before, during, and after marriage and establish special courts to deal with complex marriage issues. In addition, it suggests that Governments implement regional and international treaties such as the Maputo Protocol and educate women and girls on these.

It would like to see programmes that allow young women to return to school after giving birth promoted and demands that early marriage be criminalized, and customary law is adapted so that it no longer defines what happens to women in marriage.

It asks governments to provide universal health services and insurance access, especially for pregnant, vulnerable, and/or specially protected women. It requires member states to improve infrastructure, training, and equipment for health services in rural areas.

Equally important, the protocol includes the empowerment of women and girls to realize their sexual and reproductive health rights through awareness campaigns delivered in communities and schools and wishes to see menstrual hygiene management incorporated into national legal frameworks through awareness-raising activities from more actors, especially parliamentarians.

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When Bread and Sanitary Pads Become Luxury Items — Global Issues

Tatev Azizyan, a local journalist in an empty supermarket in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital. Residents have struggled with deepening shortages of food and medicine since the only road in and out of the region has been closed by Azerbaijan since December 12, 2022. Credit: Edgar Kamalyan / IPS
  • by Anush Ghavalyan, Siranush Sargsyan (stepanakert, nagorno-karabakh)
  • Inter Press Service

STEPANAKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh, Aug 08 (IPS) – Tatev Azizyan, a 28-year-old journalist from Nagorno-Karabakh, says she has explained to her child that they both have to switch to “energy save mode” to survive.

“Some bread and slices of tomato and cucumber, that’s all I can give my seven-year-old daughter for breakfast. Dairy products like sugar or eggs are long gone from our table,” Azizyan told IPS from her residence in Stepanakert, the provincial capital of Nagorno Karabakh.

Saving energy is far from easy when public transport hasn’t been working for weeks, because of fuel. Queues under the scorching sun also pose dangers.

“We often see the elderly and people with disabilities faint after spending hours in line just to get a kilogram of potatoes, or when mothers take their kids to a hospital on their arms,” stressed Azizyan.

She is among 120,000 Armenians currently under blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh. Also called Artsakh by its Armenian population, it’s a self-proclaimed republic within Azerbaijan which seeks international recognition and independence.

On December 12, 2022, a group of government-backed protesters identifying themselves as ‘eco-activists’ closed the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting the enclave with Armenia and the outside world with a demand to stop gold mining in the region.

Although mining was stopped two weeks later, the road remained closed. In April 2023 the eco-activists were replaced by Azerbaijani troops as Baku unilaterally installed a checkpoint in the only road.

In a statement released on July 25, the International Committee of the Red Cross -the only international humanitarian organisation operating in Nagorno-Karabakh- denounced civilians in Nagorno Karabakh population are facing “a lack of life-saving medication and essentials like hygiene products and baby formula.”

“Despite persistent efforts, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is not currently able to bring humanitarian assistance to the civilian population,” claimed the report.

The ongoing blockade has forced thousands of citizens to stand in line for hours to get some minimal amount of food or basic necessities. Image: Siranush Sargsyan / IPS. Credit: Siranush Sargsyan / IPS

Newborns at risk

Over the last three decades, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has resulted in nearly complete ethnic separation of the population. Hundreds of thousands of people from both sides have become refugees.

Russian peacekeepers were deployed in the region after a Moscow-brokered ceasefire ended a six-week war in the fall of 2020. The Azerbaijani side has prevented peacekeepers from passing through the corridor since June 15.

The U.S., the EU, Russia, the UK, and several European countries have called on Azerbaijan to open the Lachin Corridor for humanitarian and civilian traffic.

In December 2022, Armenia brought Azerbaijan to the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. Although both courts ordered Baku to end the roadblock and ensure unimpeded traffic along the corridor, the lifeline remains closed.

Baku had proposed an alternative route across Azerbaijani territory, an offer declined by Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, who said it was too dangerous.

On July 26, the EU’s High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said supplies through Azerbaijan should not be seen as an alternative to the reopening of the Lachin corridor. This approach was stressed by the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, during his last call with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.

Meanwhile, the situation inside the enclave worsens by the day.

“The number of miscarriages has increased due to a lack of medicines, stress and an unbalanced diet. Both mothers and babies are at increased risk,” Vardges Osipov, the executive director of the Maternity and Child Health Care Center in Stepanakert told IPS.

“In July alone, the number of miscarriages has increased almost three times,” the doctor warned.

As of July 25, public transportation across all of Nagorno-Karabakh was suspended because of fuel shortages. People have to walk on foot to reach destinations including their workplaces and hospitals. Ambulances are out of gas and no longer operate. Credit: Siranush Sargsyan / IPS

Alyona Grigoryan a mother of two and pregnant with her third child is fully aware of the dangers. After facing problems with pregnancy, she was monitored by doctors at Stepanakert´s hospital for a month and a half.

She says the fetus is safe, but she needs a balanced diet, vitamins and medicines which are impossible to find.

“My 3-year-old child had a fever days ago and since we couldn’t find medicines, ee had to resort to traditional means to bring down the fever with cold soaks,” the Armenian told IPS.

Grigoryan points to “additional challenges” when it comes to pregnancy, but she is also concerned about the mental health of her two kids.

“At just three and six years of age, they already know what war and a blockade are,” she lamented.

The acute shortage of individual hygiene products also poses a new danger to women in the besieged enclave.

International health organisations such as the United Nations Population Fund warn that restricting safe and affordable sanitary materials has contributed to health problems including depression, infections and other health risks.

However, in a traditional society like Nagorno-Karabakh, issues related to women’s reproductive and sexual health are not discussed in public, because they are deemed shameful.

Only a few of the women interviewed by IPS mentioned their right to manage their periods with dignity. None of them mentioned the lack of birth control pills or other items used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

Nagorno-Karabakh also faces water outages, power and gas cuts. The region’s vital infrastructure is fed by Armenia but all lines to this enclave pass through Azerbaijani-controlled territories. It’s up to Baku to open and close the valve on these vital supplies. Credit: Siranush Sargsyan / IPS

No end in sight

On July 26, the Armenian government sent 400 tons of aid to Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian officials expressed hope that Russian peacekeepers would escort the relief supplies.

But the convoy was blocked after Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry labelled the aid convoy a “provocation” and “an attack on Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity”

“Azerbaijan is trying to oppress us by forcing us to subjugate or leave our homeland, by depriving our people of humanitarian supplies and deliberately disrupting vital infrastructures. These are crimes that should be punished by the international community,” Gegham Stepanyan, Nagorno Karabakh ombudsman, told IPS from his office in Stepanakert.

Water outages, power and gas cuts are also a common currency in the enclave. The region’s vital infrastructure is fed by Armenia but all lines to the enclave pass through Azerbaijani-controlled territories. It’s up to Baku to open and down the valve of these vital supplies.

“My life is adjusted to a rolling blackouts schedule,” Luiza Sargsyan, 16, told IPS. The teenager has to look after her 10-year-old brother Levon after both were left alone in Stepanakert.

Luiza’s mother had to get surgery in Yerevan (Armenia´s capital) before the road was closed, and her father had to accompany her to provide care. Both parents are still in Goris -an Armenian town near the blocked road to Nagorno Karabakh- until they can finally go back home.

When that will be possible is still impossible to predict.

“I don´t even dare to say if classes will resume in September…,” admits this Armenian teenager. She´s blunt about the future.

“Coping with the blockade sucks all our energy now. It’s a daily challenge.”

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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The Gender Pay Gap Refuses to Budge — Global Issues

Women are still woefully underrepresented in leadership positions, even in industries where women constitute the majority of workers. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS
  • Opinion by Jemimah Njuki, Jocelyn Chu (new york)
  • Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, Aug 04 (IPS) – Last week, there was uproar in Kenya when a report about one of the largest banks, Equity Bank, revealed a 52 percent gender pay gap between their female and male employees working in similar positions. This difference is neither okay nor acceptable. However, documenting the gap is laudable because that is the first step in trying to fix it.

Of course, the gender pay gap is not unique to Kenya nor to the banking sector. Worldwide, on average, women only make 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. No country has successfully closed the gender pay gap. As a result of this gap, there’s a lifetime of income inequality between men and women. This has many consequences, including that more women are retiring into poverty than men.

The gender pay gap is even worse for some demographics of women, such as women of color and women raising children. In the United States Black women are paid only 69.5% of white men’s wages while Hispanic women are paid only 64.1% of white men’s wages. In sub–Saharan Africa, women with children are paid 37% less than men, and in South Asia, they are paid 35% less.

Women’s educational gains have not ended the gap. For example, in the U.S., despite gains in educational attainment, women still face a significant wage gap. While women are more likely to graduate from college than men, at every education level, they are paid less than men.

The wage gap actually widens with higher levels of educational attainment. Among workers who have only a high school diploma, women are paid 78.6% of what men are paid. Among workers who have a college degree, the share is 70.2%, and among workers who have an advanced degree, it is 69.8%. The gender pay gap also increases with age.

Many reasons have been advanced for the gender pay gap – some of them structural including occupational and sectoral segregation, devaluation of “women’s work”, societal norms, and discrimination, all of which took root well before women entered the labor market.

Within all sectors and both formal and informal economies, there is striking occupational segregation, with women typically occupying the lowest occupational categories, earning less, and having fewer entitlements to social security and pensions.

Women are overrepresented in sectors that are underpaid and undervalued, such as in social work and health care. They are still woefully underrepresented in leadership positions, even in industries where women constitute the majority of workers.

If women take time off due to unpaid care work responsibilities and then go back to a job market where pay histories are used to determine job entry bands, their pay ends up lower than their male counterparts. Discrimination and gender stereotypes also give rise to biased judgments and decisions, impeding women’s advancement and pay.

Pay audits and pay transparency measures can help expose pay differences between men and women and identify the underlying causes. This is because addressing the gender pay gap requires knowing that it exists and what is causing it, which is why the Equity Bank sustainability report, while heavily criticized, is important.

A study in Finland found that 73% of human resource representatives found equal pay audits, in line with national legislation on pay transparency, to be useful in promoting workplace equality.

In fact, about 55% of enterprises surveyed reviewed job descriptions and/or altered wages, continued examining their gender pay gap or reformed their remuneration framework, because of information discovered from audits.

Pay transparency can also provide women, unions and other employees with the information and evidence they require to negotiate pay rates and provide as well as provide them with the means to challenge potential pay discrimination.

Other actions that can help close the pay gap are laws that require reporting of pay by gender, race, and ethnicity, and that prohibit employers from asking about pay history. Requiring employers to post pay bands when hiring has also been shown to have impact.

While this is positive, further action is required from governments and employers to address the gender pay gap. The Equal Pay International Coalition, convened by UN Women, the International Labour Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is a mechanism to bring together stakeholders to commit to pay transparency and to closing the gender pay gap. But while many countries have adopted pay transparency legislation, more time is needed to assess the impact and effectiveness of the measures adopted.

There is also need for policies that lift wages for most workers while also reducing gender and racial/ethnic pay gaps. Minimum wages and strengthening workers’ rights to bargain collectively for higher wages and benefits is critical for closing the gender pay gap.

Women, who tend to occupy lower-paying jobs, have been shown to benefit the most from increases in minimum wages. An analysis of the increase of minimum wages in Poland between 2008-2009 concluded that higher minimum wages contributed to a lower gender wage gap among young workers.

Deeper changes in societal and cultural norms, especially those on care for children and interventions that seek the equal sharing of responsibilities in caregiving and domestic work by men and boys are needed.

The inequalities between women and men in the world of work will persist unless we act. And we need to act together.

For Equity Bank, this transparency is the first step in taking action to close this gender pay gap. A lot, however, depends on what they do next.

Jemimah Njuki is the Chief, Economic Empowerment at UN Women, and an Aspen New Voices Fellow

Jocelyn Chu is a Programme Specialist at UN Women

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"No" to Sex Education Fuels Early Pregnancies in Central America — Global Issues

Two pregnant girls walk through the center of the capital of El Salvador, a country with one of the highest rates of pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14, and where, as in the rest of Central America, what prevails are conservative views opposed to the teaching of sex education in schools, which is essential to reducing the phenomenon. CREDIT: Francisco Campos / IPS
  • by Edgardo Ayala (san salvador)
  • Inter Press Service

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 03 (IPS) – Pregnancies among girls and adolescents continue unabated in Central America, where legislation to prevent them, when it exists, is a dead letter, and governments are influenced by conservative sectors opposed to sex education in schools.

The most recent incident reflecting this situation was the Jul. 29 veto by Honduran President Xiomara Castro of an Integral Law for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy, approved by the single-chamber Congress on Mar. 8 and criticized by conservative groups and the country’s political right wing.

“We don’t know the arguments behind the veto, but we could surmise that the law is still being held up by pressure from these anti-rights groups,” lawyer Erika García, of the Women’s Rights Center, told IPS from Tegucigalpa.

The influence of lobbying groups

Conservative sectors, united in “Por nuestros hijos” (“for our children”), a Honduran version of the regional movement “Con mis Hijos no te Metas” (roughly “don’t mess with my children”), have opposed the law because in their view it pushes “gender ideology”, as international conservative populist groups call the current movement for the dissemination of women’s and LGBTI rights.

In June, the United Nations expressed concern about “disinformation campaigns” surrounding the Honduran law.

The last of the marches in favor of “family and children” took place in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, on Jul. 22.

These groups “appeal to people’s ignorance, to fear, to religion, with arguments that have nothing to do with reality,” said García. “They say, for example, that people will put skirts on boys and pants on girls.”

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one in four births is to a girl under 19 years of age in Honduras, giving the country the second-highest teenage pregnancy rate in Latin America.

According to the Honduran Penal Code having sexual relations with minors under 14 years of age is statutory rape, whether or not the girl consented.

In 2022, 1039 girls under 14 gave birth.

“The problem is quite serious, and it is aggravated by the lack of public policies to prevent pregnancies among girls and adolescents,” García said.

In the countries of Central America, which have a combined total of some 50 million inhabitants, ultra-conservative views prevail when it comes to sexual and reproductive health and education.

In El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua – as well as the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean – abortion is banned under all circumstances, including rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life.

In the rest of Central America, abortion is only permitted in certain circumstances.

The Honduran president vetoed the law under the formula “return to Congress”, so that it can be studied again and eventually ratified if two thirds of the 128 lawmakers approve it.

Zuleyma Beltrán, 41, talked about becoming pregnant at the age of 15 because there is no proper sex education in El Salvador. A second pregnancy led to a miscarriage that landed her in jail in 1999, where many Salvadoran women who miscarry or have abortions end up due to a draconian anti-abortion law. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

“I didn’t even know what a condom was”

However, having laws of this nature does not ensure that the phenomenon will be reduced, since legislation is not always enforced.

Since 2017 El Salvador has had a National Intersectoral Strategy for the Prevention of Pregnancy in Girls and Adolescents, and although the numbers have declined in recent years, they are still high.

An UNFPA report noted that in this country the pregnancy rate among girls and adolescents dropped by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2022.

However, “it is worrisome to see that El Salvador is one of the 50 countries in the world with the highest fertility rates in girls aged 10-14 years,” the UN agency said in its latest report, released in July.

Among girls aged 10-14, the study noted, the pregnancy rate dropped by 59.6 percent, from 4.7 girls registered for prenatal care per 1000 girls in 2015 to 1.9 in 2022.

The map of pregnancies in girls and adolescents in El Salvador added that the country “needs to further accelerate the pace of reduction, adopting policies and strategies adapted to the different realities of girls aged 10-14 years and adolescents aged 15-19 years.”

Such actions must be “evidence-based,” the report stressed.

The reference appears to be an allusion to the prevalence of conservative attitudes of groups that, in Honduras for example, reject sexual and reproductive education in schools.

This lack of basic knowledge about sexuality, in a context of structural poverty, led Zuleyma Beltrán to fall pregnant at the age of 15.

“When I became pregnant I didn’t even know what a condom was, I’m not ashamed to say it,” Beltrán, now 41, told IPS.

She added: “I suffered a lot because I didn’t know many things, because I lived in ignorance.”

Two years later, Beltrán became pregnant again but she miscarried, which landed her in jail in August 1999, accused of having an abortion – a plight faced by hundreds of women in El Salvador.

El Salvador not only bans abortion under any circumstances, even in cases of rape. It also imposes penalties of up to 30 years in prison for women who have undergone abortions, and women who end up in the hospital after suffering a miscarriage are often prosecuted under the law as well.

“The State should be ashamed of forcing these girls to give birth and not giving them options,” said Anabel Recinos, of the Citizens’ Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion.

“The State does not provide girls with sex education or sexual and reproductive health, and when pregnancies or obstetric emergencies occur as a result, it is too cruel to them, it only offers them jail,” she added.

Recinos said that, due to pressure from conservative groups, the State has backed down on the strategy of providing sexual and reproductive information in schools.

“Now they are more rigorous in not allowing organizations working in that area to go and give talks on comprehensive sex education in schools,” she noted.

Not even baby formula

In Guatemala, initiatives by civil society organizations that since 2017 have proposed, among other things, that the State should offer reparations to pregnant girls and adolescents, to alleviate their heavy burden, have made no progress either.

These proposals included the creation of scholarships, making it possible for girls to continue going to school while their babies were cared for and received formula.

“But unfortunately we have not been able to take the next step, to get these measures in place,” said Paula Barrios, general coordinator of Women Transforming the World, in a telephone conversation with IPS from the capital, Guatemala City.

Barrios said that most of the users of the services offered by this organization, such as legal and psychological support, “are girls and adolescents who are pregnant because of sexual violence and are forced to have their babies.”

She said that in the last five years some 500,000 girls under 14 years of age have become pregnant, and the number is much higher when teenagers up to 19 years of age are included.

“Today we have half a million girls who we don’t know what they and the children who are the products of rape are eating,” Barrios stressed, adding that as in El Salvador and Honduras, in Guatemala, having sex with a girl under 14 years of age is considered statutory rape.

“Society sees it as normal that women are born to be mothers, and so it doesn’t matter if a girl gets pregnant at the age of 10 or 12 years, they just think she has done it a little bit earlier,” she said.

Patriarchy and capitalism

The experts from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador consulted by IPS said the root of the phenomenon is multi-causal, with facets of patriarchy, especially gender stereotypes and sexual violence.

“The patriarchy has an interest in stopping women from going out into the public sphere,” said Barrios.

She said the life of a 10-year-old girl is cut short when she becomes pregnant. She will no longer go to school and will remain in the domestic sphere, “to raise children and stay at home.”

For her part, Garcia, the lawyer from Honduras, pointed out that there is also an underlying “system of oppression” that is intertwined with patriarchy and colonialism, which is the influence of a hegemonic country or region.

“We have girls giving birth to cheap labor to feed the (capitalist) system, and there is a greater feminization of poverty, girls giving birth to girls whose future prospects are ruined,” she said.

In the meantime, to avoid a repeat of her ordeal, Beltrán said she talks to and teaches her nine-year-old daughter about sexuality.

“In order to keep her from repeating my story, I talk to her about condoms, how a woman has to take care of herself and how she can get pregnant,” she said.

“I don’t want her to go through what I did,” she said.

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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