CISLAC
Musa Rafsanjani
CISLAC Advocates
CISLAC
Musa Rafsanjani
CISLAC Advocates Empowerments of African Women at United
Nations
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) on the
15th of March 2019, held a side event at the United Nations
Commission for the Status of Women 63 (UN CSW63). The event was
attended by many participants from across the globe that are of
notable repute and from different backgrounds including Prof.
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande the Nigeria Permanent Representative to the
United Nations ably represented by Mr. Alwan Habu Abdussalam,
Senior Counselor/Focal Point for Nigeria on Counter Terrorism to
the United Nations; Ms. Tazreen Hussain, Gender Advisor at Centre
for Civilians in Conflict, Washington DC; Prof. Mojúbàolú Olufúnké
Okome, Professor of Political Science, African & Women’s
Studies, Leonard & Claire Tow Professor, Brooklyn College; Mr.
Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), the Executive Director of CISLAC,
Civil Society Organizations; Development Partners; International
Community; Private Sector; Nigerians in Diaspora and the Media. The
meeting was also ably chaired by CISLAC Global Board of Trustees,
Mr. Francis John. The event aimed at provoking critical discussions
and harnessing potentials for what will ultimately lead to
showcasing the plight of the African women to the international
community and exploring gender relevant issues to promote social
security for women in Africa.
In his welcome remark, Mr. Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani
welcomed all to the auspicious occasion of the UN CSW63. He stated
that the event serves as an enabling platform for different
stakeholders and international community to interact in proffering
holistic solutions to the current trend and challenges confronting
adequate, accessible and effective multi-stakeholder approach
towards promoting social security for African women. The overall
goal of the event was to identify the central needs required for
full social security and human development, attainment of rights
and empowerment for African women and especially women in conflict.
He further stated that the highlights of this event included,
exploring social security challenges ailing African women with
specific focus on empowerment, social safety nets, statelessness,
maternal and child health, and nutritional challenges, contemporary
critical issues of internal displacement and domestic violence
against African women and how these affect their social security
and development, including that of their children.
Rafsanjani stressed the need to keep the issues of women
globally and regionally on the front burner of the international
discourse. He noted that some governments within the African region
have truly not met the expectations of the governed in terms of
delivering on some international treaties made on behalf of women.
He cited the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all
forms of Discrimination Against Women, popularly known as CEDAW, a
treaty adopted since 1979 by the UN General Assembly, and ratified
by 189 countries, he observed that this bill described as the bill
of rights for women is yet to be fully implemented across Africa.
He further noted the existence of Gender policies in most African
regions which are not being implemented. He further cited the
Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the
Rights of Women in Africa which is yet to secure universal
ratification.
The Executive Director of CISLAC reiterated the importance of
achieving sustainable development goals which is unattainable with
exclusion of women, girls and all vulnerable groups. He opined that
the cost of non-inclusion of women is shocking. According to a
World Bank report released in 2018, countries are losing worldwide
160 trillion USD in wealth because of differences in lifetime
earnings between women and men. The extent of the problem is
disproportionally more serious in Africa. UNDP in its Africa Human
Development Report for 2016 says, “Gender inequality is costing
sub-Saharan Africa on average $US95 billion a year”.
Rafsanjani further stated that Africa must discard gender
discrimination and misguided beliefs based on cultural and
religious misinterpretations, for instance, a World Bank Gender
Data Portal shows that 76.3 per cent of women in Mali and 92.1 per
cent in Guinea believe a man is justified in beating his wife if
she goes out without telling him. Africa must challenge these
ingrained beliefs which stand in the way of the socio-economic
progress of our societies.
Rafsanjani noted that it is a major disservice to the African
nations to overlook and sometimes discriminate an integral part of
the community. He observed that in terms of political and
socio-economic development women have constantly been side-lined in
Africa. He proposed exploring global economic impact on women in
Africa and traditional structures that once provided differing
levels of social security for African women. He further proposed
that women in decision-making positions and as political
influencers must be actively promoted. There is a growing evidence
that women’s leadership in political decision-making processes
improves them. When given the chance, women have demonstrated that
they can succeed even in the most politically combative
environments. They are the best champions of issues of gender
equality, such as the elimination of gender-based violence,
parental leave and childcare, pensions, gender-equality laws and
electoral reforms.
He concluded by urging governments across Africa to leverage
recommendations from the international community to improve the
lives of African women, stating that empowering women will further
propel Africa to a level of unprecedented development and a
brilliant future for the African nation.
The representative of the Permanent Rep. of Nigeria to the UN,
Mr. Alwan Habu Abdussalam, expressed sincere appreciation for the
opportunity to deliver the welcome address. He observed that
despite the vital role women play in conflict prevention and peace
building, women have been often prevented from participating fully
in the development processes, to the detriment of society as a
whole. He stressed the need to eliminate barriers to women’s
participation in peace-related activities and to ensure their full
inclusion during the formulation and implementation of
early-warning systems as well as in peacebuilding efforts at all
levels. He further stated the need to continue to advocate for
gender equality and women’s empowerment to elevate women’s voices
as well as point out the role of women in countering violent
extremism and terrorism.
He therefore urged participants that recommendations developed
during the meeting on the plight of African women become paramount
to the achievement of national strategies and sustainable
development goals. He further assured all that the government of
Nigeria is committed to supporting the empowerment of women and
agrees that the commitment to end poverty, protect the society and
ensure prosperity for all, will only be achieved if development
initiatives consider the unique needs, knowledge and potentials of
women and girls.
Mr. Alwan Abdussalam called on governments, private sector,
non-governmental organizations and development partners to
recognize the vital role of women in developing the nations. He
hoped that the side event will engender active discussion and
generate ideas among participants that will improve the quality of
life of women, families and communities.
Prof. Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome, the keynote speaker, began by
citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that
everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security
and is entitled to realization of the economic, social and cultural
rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of
his personality. She further cited other international conventions
that affirm social protection and social security such as the
International Labour Organization (ILO) which has emphasized the
importance of social security since 1919 (ILO, 2017); the
International Conference on Population and Development, the MDGs
now the SDGs. She stressed the objective of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development which is to ensure that no one is left
behind. She listed the 8 SDGs that are relevant to social
protection to include goals: 1,2,3,4,5,6,8,10,16. It also affirms
the importance of gendered social protection with the rationale
that CEDAW provides great foundation for identifying women’s rights
and the roadmap to the achievement of gender equity and gender
equality.
The Keynote speaker admitted that Africa has made significant
advancement in the areas of health, education by taking leadership
roles but that there exists gender and pay gap and power gap. She
informed all about the gender disparity in credit collaterals,
property ownership, and exclusion of rural poor women and systemic
discrimination in access to land and natural resources. She pointed
out that under formal employment employees are insecure and work
under hazardous conditions with low wages and no social protection.
When less educated, women stand the risk of being trafficked and
forced into labour, marriage, including child marriage and exposed
to harmful practices.
Prof. Okome listed quite a number of policies relevant to social
protection which included labour market policies and programs,
social insurance for unemployed, disability, work injury, old age
etc. social assistance such as cash transfers etc and stressed the
need to have all policies gendered to avoid replication of
inequality.
Tazreen Hussain, in her presentation remarked that their
organization Centre for Citizens in Conflict is dedicated to the
protection of citizens in conflict. Protection to her means
physical protection of civilians in conflict and practical
solutions to their plight. She stressed the need to distinguish
between what they do and the broader social protection and social
security as their intervention is the foundation to other wider
forms of social protection. it is also where security actors can
have the greatest impact based on their skills and experience. She
said the organization is dedicated to providing practical solutions
that protect and prevent civilian harm. They provide assistance to
military actors to track and make amends to the harm they
caused.
Tazreen intimate that when women and girls are in conflict,
there is a paradigm shift in roles of men and women, traditionally
men are the breadwinners while women are the home makers but in
conflict women become head of household, breadwinners, facilitators
and negotiators. Women are put at great risks when men are
targeted. They become vulnerable and are at risk to sexual
exploitation and sexual predators fueling sexual gender based
violence.
She said the organization works in Nigeria at national level
with policymakers and lawmakers for upstream policy engagement and
at state level in Borno state in Nigeria.
They work with state actors such as Ministry of justice,
Ministry of Internal Affairs, civil defense force, with the
National human rights commission as the lead. They have developed a
draft policy for civilian in conflict which aims to assess civilian
harm during and after conflict, acknowledge the harm and create
reporting mechanism. The policy calls for mitigating plan and
transparency in information sharing.
The Gender Advisor informed all that the Nigerian government has
taken ownership of this policy which calls for protection of
civilians, allocation of resources, strategies to be developed, and
action plan to be conducted. She intimated that if signed into law,
civil society will be expected to push for its implementation and
accountability.
Ms. Chioma B. Kanu, Manager Health, Human Development and Social
Inclusion, CISLAC, during her presentation explored international,
regional and national instruments which affirm that health is a
right of all human kind and a basic fundamental commodity and
threshold upon which the body of other entitlements: civil,
political, economic and socio-cultural, are realized. She listed
article 6 of the International covenant on civil and political
rights, article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’
Rights, article 14 of the Maputo Protocol and the Abuja
Declaration, all of which Nigeria is a signatory to, stressing the
provisions for state parties to provide adequate health care and
nutrition for women and children.
She intimated all that nearly one thousand Nigerian children die
of malnutrition related causes daily, making a total of 420,000
deaths each year. Approximately 2.6 million children under the age
of 5 are severely acute malnourished and at risk of not seeing
their sixth birthday. She informed all that nutrition intervention
in Nigeria is mostly donor driven in the face of dwindling donor
resources. This places millions of Nigerian children under the age
of 5 at risk of dying.
She reminded all of the existing government partnership with
donors to fund nutrition and strongly advised the government to
take advantage of the existing partnership and also own the health
sector in general and reduce donor dependency. She stressed that
the cost of malnutrition is very high and often hinders
socio-economic development of nations and increases poverty. She
further stressed that many children who might have survived
malnutrition in early life are condemned to permanent physical and
intellectual disabilities in later life, thus productivity of the
future leaders of the state will be adversely affected.
After the discussions and presentations, the following
recommendations were made:
TO THE GOVERNMENT:
1. Significant institutional reform that mainstreams gender and
priorities efficient and effective service delivery, with the
objective of providing across the board security, equality and
prosperity
2. Map existing institutions and social protection programs and
evaluate their effectiveness.
3. Gather gender disaggregated data relevant to social
protection and create databases of such data.
4. Provide gender-sensitive budgets to take cater for social
protection needs of women and ensure gender equity and
equality.
5. Implement decent work conditions according to best practices
(ILO, 1996-2019). The ILO has significant experience in partnering
with countries to do this. Women’s need include healthcare,
childcare and income security, especially for elderly workers.
6. Domesticate CEDAW and implement international and regional
laws to which African countries are signatories.
7. Full implementation of the SDGs, particularly goals
1-6,8,10,16.
8. Reform justice system to make justice available to all
regardless of economic capacity.
9. Pass and implement laws against gender-based violence
10. Provide shelters for victims of abuse and culturally
relevant psychosocial care
11. Support the development policies to ensure continuity of
Community Management of Acute Malnutrition programme (CMAM)
12. Prompt release of government counterpart cash contribution
for nutrition activities
13. Prioritize timely release of nutrition funds
14. Implement education for all and strengthen school feeding
program, encourage home gardening and nutrition education across
board.
15. Implement access to healthcare for all children and basic
healthcare provision funds.
16. Stronger laws and more efficient administrative regulations
and procedures as well as the implementation of existing regional
laws that are pro-stateless people would go a long way to solving
these problems.
17. The removal of provisions in the law and requirements in
administrative procedures that discriminate on the grounds of
gender, race, religion or ethnicity.
18. States should make a commitment to implement the UN human
rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, as well as the Convention Relating to the Status of
Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of
Statelessness.
19. Draw on UNHCR’s Guidelines on Statelessness to access its
authoritative interpretation of the obligations under these
treaties
20. Implement the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of
the Child
21. Strengthen the national and regional normative frameworks
for the protection of, and assistance to internally displaced
persons.
22. Implement the Convention for the Protection and Assistance
of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (IDMC).
23. Prevent, respond to and address sexual and gender-based
violence as well as violations and abuses committed against
refugee, returnee and displaced children.
24. More resources are needed to adequately address the needs of
IDPs. Financial, Educational, Health, Nutritional and Recreational
resources needed.
TO CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS
1. Engage in public education and campaigns that push for reduction
of burden of unpaid work on women
2. Advocate for provision of potable water and sanitation
facilities in schools
3. Engage in public education campaigns that support exclusive
breastfeeding
4. Engage in public education campaigns on health remedies and
intervention.
5. Engage in public education campaigns against gender
based-violence
6. Engage in awareness creation on scaling up of Community
Management of Acute Malnutrition programme (CMAM)
7. Engage on advocacy for the adoption of National Policy on
Internally Displaced Persons
8. Continuously Engage Legislators for effective oversights on
policies and legislation
9. Continuously engage the Media for effective awareness and
collaboration
10. Continuously Dialogue with UN Missions
CONCLUSION:
Participants observed that a demonstration of political will by
African leaders to fulfill their treaty and constitutional
obligations is crucial to promoting the issue of social security
and protection for African women. They also agreed that a holistic
approach to civil society advocacy is a panacea to creating
enabling environment for social protection. Participants urged
CISLAC to use its global platform to work hard towards ensuring
critical stakeholders at regional and sub-national levels are
adequately engaged.
Signed:
Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani)
Executive Director
CISLAC