INTRODUCTION
 |
| Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi |
She
proceeded with a background to the evolvement of the fight for the right of the
woman till date (2011). With a key introduction to the1995 4th World
Conference on Women that took place in Beijing, China; christened or signposted,
the Beijing Platform for Action paved way for a document that according to her,
was the dawn for women in their search for gender justice and equality. The
document armed women with serious political, technological and analytical tool
to demand accountability from governments and institutions tasked with
advancing gender equality globally.
The year
2011, sixteen years after 1995 world conference on women, and its subsequent
adoption of the said document which was to be a dawn of the fight for gender equality, the world is markedly different: with
increasingly darker times of reckless militarization, unilateralism, unbridled
corporate greed, war against terrorism, an erosion of civil liberties, the
thriving of various forms of fundamentalism and the use of adverse trade terms
and agreements to undermine economies in many parts of the Global south.
The
implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action has taken a snail pace in
most parts of the global south. The reasons for it, she blamed on global
economic crisis, political instability, conflict, lack of adequate
communication systems, inadequate institutional mechanisms for mainstreaming
gender, and the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Globalisation
in her opinion has done the African continent more harm than good. The continent has been saddled with lots of
misguided economic policies and debt. The results have been loss of
livelihoods, unemployment, increase in the number of commercial sex workers,
trafficking in women, and rise in the number of street children, the
feminisation of poverty, and a rupture of the social fabric which binds
communities together.
The
vulnerability of women & girls to sexual exploitation has opened them up to
the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. In crisis, they suffer most.
“Indeed, women in Africa have
borne the brunt of the continent’s misfortunes.”
Micro
and macro-economic policies, programmes and development strategies designs have
blatantly failed to cover any impact on women and the girl-child, especially
those in living with poverty. Access to resources like land, capital,
technology, water and food (adequate) continues to be a woman’s problem.
Majority of women, mostly rural based and some urban ones live in continues
economic underdevelopment and are socially marginalised.
Due to
disturbing situations of war and genocide, African women especially over the
decades have suffered to a tremendous extent the problem of displacement, loss
of families and livelihoods, various forms of intense, gender-based violence,
and the responsibility of sustaining an entire community. Women and children
from Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of
Congo, and Somalia have spent the last decade living under unbelievable
circumstances.
The
continues impoverishment of the Continent, the result from several years of
violent conflict and our inability to prioritize human security has seen many
countries within the continent become violent playgrounds for ex-and current
warlords, unemployed youth, local militia, gangs of robbers and kidnappers;
taking advantage of the proliferation of small arms.
Finally,
she called for a reframing of the African democratic spaces and culture. The
citizens against the picture painted of the African continent are making a
demand of their leaders to close the huge gap between the powerful visions
needed to steer the continent forward and the grim realities of unattained
expectations and dashed dreams that shape the day to day lives of the millions
of the continent.
She
placed a call for an end to the leadership crisis faced by the continent. The
call she stressed requires new faces, voices, experiences and insights, and it
is African women who are now placing these alternatives on the table.
END.
In my
next series of a re-visitation of “DEMOCRATIZATION AND WOMEN IN AFRICA-
Progress, Stagnation or Retreat: a public lecture presentation by- Bisi
Adeleye- Fayemi (MS) in 2011; we shall delve proper into the PROGRESS aspect of the lecture
presented some years back, but still remains a perfect definition of the
realities faced by the African woman.
felix akaho junior: dzidulajunior@gmail.com
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