Gender Inequality a Hinderance to AU Agenda

Francis Ameyibor (Public Agenda) - Irregularities in adapting and implementing various laws and agreements regarding women’s rights and gender equality in Africa is a threat to the proposed union government of Africa says Ms Meaza Ashenaphy an Ethiopian lawyer on Wednesday.

She noted that in spite of most African states being signatories of well-known documents on gender equality such as the Darka platform for Action (1994), the Beijing platform for action (1995) most African Governments have failed to domesticate these laws into national policies.

Ms. Ashenafi, was speaking at gender mainstream, AU Pre-summit conference at Addis Ababa to deliberate on issues affecting women and how to inculcate it into AU agenda during the Summit from January 31st to February 2nd.

She said Africa continued to witness significant irregularities in the implementation of international and regional legal frameworks concerning women’s rights.

This is a huge challenge for the union government, as the continent cannot unite with such irregularities in laws related to half of its population.

Meanwhile gender activists from Sudan and Darfur have called on the African Union to bring lasting peace to Darfur.

The gender activists noted that the living conditions in Darfur continues to deteriorate, schools have been destroyed, women denied basic necessities of life and therefore called for harnessing of the various intervention programmes, to ensure focused intervention.

They expressed concern that the crisis had led to the loss of livelihood for women, and called on the AU to immediately ensure establishment of peace and justice in Darfur. As a way of achieving lasting peace, people should also be held accountable for crime against humanity and ensure the payment of adequate compensation to victims of the war.

Mr. Sam Ibok, AU Chief mediator on Darfur Peace Process attributed the Darfur crisis to political marginalisation and therefore called for the appropriate interventionist initiatives to focus mainly on the political standpoint.

He noted the people of Darfur had been marginalized for far too long and must be stop - "Governance have been imposed on the citizens."

Mr. Ibok suggested five critical points to be considered for lasting peace to return to Darfur and Sudan, power sharing mechanism, wealthy sharing, payment of adequate compensation to victims, security issues, humanitarian problems, and the process of land acquisition.

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