“Localized” strategies by and for women and girls living in rural Africa for CSW62
Preparations for the 62nd Session on the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62) to be held in New York from 12th to 23rd March 2018 are on top gears. FEMNET and members of the NGO CSW/Africa organized the Pre-CSW62 Regional Strategy Meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from the 19th to the 20th February 2017. Key outcomes of the meeting were powerful advocacy messages and recommendations that will be used strategically and continuously to lobby policymakers at the national level, regional as well as globally. Click here to read the African Women’s CSW62 Advocacy Position & Policy Recommendations. For more on the Pre-CSW62 Regional Strategy Meeting, click/ read/ view: Summarized Storify; Online twitter conversations #CSW62Africa; View Photos and Media articles: ‘Wanjikus’ head to New York for UN event; Call to prioritize rural women’s issues at UN conference; Women meeting to kick off in Addis Ababa.
Using a user-dedicated listserve (titled ngo-csw-africa) FEMNET continues to send out quick updates/ announcements and coordinate collective and strategic engagement at CSW – to be added on the listserve, send an email request to library@femnet.or.ke.
FEMNET @ 30
We continue to receive your thoughts on what you celebrate about FEMNET @30. In case you have not yet submitted your thoughts, please send us responses to the following three questions – what do you MOST celebrate as a member of FEMNET? What would you like to see DIFFERENT as a member/ partner? Individually, what can you offer to CONTRIBUTE to FEMNET’s vision and mission? Please send your responses on email to library@femnet.or.ke and communication@femnet.or.ke – by 7th March 2018.
Rooting out Sexual Abuses in the Aid industry
February continued to witness rising momentum on the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements – with international development organizations being on the spotlight for sexual harassment and sexual exploitation. 86 percent of aid workers report knowing a colleague who has experienced sexual violence in the course of their work.
The bold leadership by Oxfam’s Executive Director stands out and is one to watch keenly in the coming months as it gives hope in not only admitting there is a problem, promising in-depth independent investigations and justice to the survivors but also embarking on review of organizational cultures and practices to root-out sexual abuses and exploitation in the work place – including building systems that can help prevent sexual violence before it happens.
Clearly, there is need for practical individual and collective resolve to eradicate discrimination and abuses of women and girls world over. The reporting of sexual abuses and violations must be supported by gender-responsive organizational and national level policies and processes. We must continue to dismantle patriarchy as we retrospect and analyze underlying questions of power and inequalities and begin to demand and co-create a just world.
#FreedomIsComing? #FreedomIsHere?
From Zimbabwe (in November 2017) to South Africa and Ethiopia (in February 2018), there is growing citizen-led pressures and demands for political and economic reforms and an end to State corruption, repression of political opposition and human rights abuses.
In fact, as opined by Amnesty International’s director of Africa research and advocacy, “it is becoming clearer that failing to respect freedoms and fulfill human rights obligations is ultimately self-defeating. This should serve as a wake-up call to all governments that the solution to lasting peace and stability lies in guaranteeing more freedoms, not less. Political shifts mean nothing if they don’t result in greater respect for human rights. People who care about freedom and equality are ultimately concerned not with which leader is in power, but whether or not they respect human rights. Only time will tell what these political changes will truly mean for us Africans — especially for the poor, the young, the marginalized, the repressed and silenced.” >> Read more on the new wave of politics going over Africa and renewal or revolution and the politics of fear is dying out in Africa.
Click here to Download/ Read/ Share FEMNET’s February 2018 E-Bulletin
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