The Protocol on the Rights of Women: my perspective

‘The writer of the essay awarded first will be given the opportunity to attend the AU Summit in Malabo with her or his basic expenses covered.’

What’s in my quote above? Strange, is it? Ok, it has nothing to do with my interest in being in Malabo this June for the AU Summit but it’s got to do with the words that were italicised: her or his. The first time I read it, something sounded wrong. Over the years my ears have developed an uncanny ability to trace grammatical errors. Well, it isn’t a grammatical error - the initial discomfort and doubt in the grammatical correctness stemmed from the fact that all my life I had been taught to use his or her. His always came before her, so you see? Our society is ridden with such cultural and societal stereotypes promoting ‘the precedence’ of men to women and delineation of roles based on sexes that most children like me grew up with. I bet some kids would still argue the statement was grammatically wrong!

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa was adopted on 11 July 2003, at the meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique. The Protocol entered into force in November 2005, after getting its 15th ratification from Benin. The Protocol is a home-grown human-rights instrument that seeks to promote and protect the rights of African women by reinforcing international human-rights standards and adapting them to address context-specific violations of African women’s rights.[1]

The importance of the protocol is mainly in its potential to change negative power relations, gender inequality, disempowerment and impoverishment of women in Africa.[2]The protocol further explores the finer hues of inequalities and discrimination women experience. I am particularly impressed with the protocol’s stipulations on marriage rights (Articles 6), widows’ rights (Article 20), right to inheritance (Article 21), health and reproductive rights (Article 14) and recognition of the rights of vulnerable groups such as widows, elderly women, disabled women and ‘women in distress’ and its mandate for State Parties to respect and promote the sexual and reproductive health of women with obligations to provide adequate, affordable and accessible health services.[3]

In a wider sense, the protocol addresses non-discrimination, physical and sexual abuse, harmful practices, early marriages, access to justice and equal protection before the law, sexual harassment and abuse in schools, sexual harassment in the work place, health and reproductive rights, widow rights, inheritance rights, elderly women rights, women with disabilities and state reporting.[4]

To make the protocol more effective, State Parties are not only mandated to refrain from violating rights, but they must promote and protect rights through positive measures. Thus for me, the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is not merely a statement of women’s rights, it is a call to action to State Parties to ensure discrimination and other vulnerabilities that impinge on the fundamental rights of women are eliminated.

THE PROTOCOL AND MY 101 QUESTIONS

Women in our societies are subjected to several forms of discrimination that impinge on their fundamental rights as human beings. Many cultures seek to perennially place the woman beneath the man. So issues surrounding gender inequality, discrimination against women, violence suffered by women and several other vulnerabilities are rather primordial in Africa and not concepts that could easily be wished away. Why a woman cannot have a say in certain things pertaining to her personal wellbeing beats my mind and should beat any sane mind. Why can’t a woman decide who, when and how to get married? Why cannot a woman inherit property from her parents? Why cannot a woman demand a limitation of the number of children she wants to have without receiving an instant slap? Why cannot a widow remain in her deceased husband’s house and take care of her children? Why do women have to compulsorily pass through the gruesome and unhealthy procedure of genital mutilation in the name of tradition or a rite of passage to womanhood without having to say if they want it or not? Why can a man beat up his wife and send her packing to her father’s house with everybody looking on at it as ‘normal?’ The questions in my head are endless. They are not merely my reflections on the discrimination, denial and violence women are unfairly subjected to in our society every day but also a clear indication of the varied forms of these discriminations.

While growing up, abuse of women starred me in the face and my nostrils were rank with it. It was a common sight in my neighbourhood to see men treat their wives with disdain, like the women were undeserving sometimes of them, like they were lesser beings, like they were some second class citizens. As a child, I knew my mother had a huge incapacity - she was illiterate but to me that did not change the fact she was my mother, or the fact that she deserved my respect and honour. For me the mere fact of being human was enough to earn her all those.

Our world is filled with discriminations of several shades. But two kinds of discrimination beat me: one based on race and the other based on sex. I grapple eternally to find a logical justification; why a human being, even within the realms of ephemeral insanity, would indulge in these. Forgive my bluntness, but it is sheer senselessness.

THIS PROTOCOL AND ME

You ask me why the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is important to me. For one, I have a mother and two sisters that I love so much and I wouldn’t let any of the discriminations and violence women suffer come to them. And secondly, I have seen too much discrimination against women and each time something pinches me: it’s a natural inclination towards the thought that ‘this is unfair’. That alone is enough.

Besides, what is wrong with being a woman? I like being a man, no doubt, but I could easily have been a woman. Our sex, just like race, is something we cannot decide and to resort to the lazy excuse of ‘it is a man’s world or the way of our world’ is pure senselessness. I like to think myself as reasonable. If you must know why I get touchy sometimes with respect to gender inequality, then I will tell you.

Aisha was my friend’s sister. She was about 13 at the time. She had already been sold off in marriage, ready to bear kids for a man as old as her father. I was 16 and I wondered what life could possibly mean for her. I still had my tall dreams of winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Maybe she had such dreams too; maybe if she had the choice she would become a nurse or a midwife or a teacher. Whatever dreams she had were however abridged by an early marriage she couldn’t refuse.

I read the touching story of a certain widow in the newspapers. Her experience nearly brought me to tears. The ill treatment she faced in the hands of her in-laws; being labeled a witch responsible for her husband’s death; the gruesome burial ritual that involved shaving her hair; wearing dirty clothes without bathing for days; eating from a broken calabash; being locked in a room for weeks in the name of mourning and eventual disinheritance by the in-laws all brought before me the grim realities of what certain women face: societal and cultural discrimination based on their gender. She had a daughter to take care of, but no one cared.

In the university a female friend was harassed by a lecturer who was demanding sex for her to pass a certain course. She was willing to read to pass but the lecturer insisted on having his price. Of course she failed the course when she refused. Nothing happened, but who would listen to her anyway? Many women face this kind of harassment every day and it is indeed a shame. What else is there? Men beating up their wives constantly in my neighbourhood and women being sent away in arbitrary divorce with no compensation are among several other discriminations that I have witnessed.

I am the first son of my family. My father, following the ‘norms’, would only discuss matters of family importance with me, leaving my elder sister and my mum out. But every decision I take in the house is informed by due consultation with my elder sister and mother. They can also think and I recognise that.

BEYOND THE PROTOCOL: ACTIONS FOR CHANGE

I belong to the Millennium Development Goals Awareness Creation Volunteer Group of the National Youth Service Corps Scheme in Nigeria. The scheme mandates graduates of tertiary institutions to serve the country for one year and currently I teach mathematics to grade 11 students in an all-girls school. Considering the peculiarity of my environment (being all-girls) I initiated a number of programs to create awareness on the issues of gender equality. The girls found it strange that in civilized countries a woman could actually claim a share of property in the event of divorce. They were used to seeing women battered and sent away empty handed to their homes.

This protocol thus provides a powerful tool for change but it needs to be popularised. In spite of my exposure, it took this essay contest to hear of it for the first time; I dread to think when old women in my village would know there is an instrument that empowers them. For me there is the challenge to create awareness through my volunteer group for these girls. Let them know their rights and the commitments of governments across Africa to enforce those rights.

To make the protocol effective, we would require an agency, especially at the grassroots where victims of discrimination can make complaints and have the government make their case. Without such agencies, women would be too scared to speak out, knowing that outspokenness would bring further discrimination and violence.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Today I know Aisha was sold off to an early marriage, losing a youthful life, a sound education and even exposing herself to the dangers that came with teenage pregnancies. This happened when Article 6 of the Protocol (which stipulates a minimum marriage age of 18) actually protected her. The poor widow whose story so touched me and informed my writing a play on gender inequality (‘Till Death Do us Part’) two years ago actually had Articles 20 and 21 to protect her against her in-laws. The girls who succumb to the ill treatment of female genital mutilation in Delta State where I currently serve actually have Article 14, which explicitly prohibits FGM and also promotes the health and reproductive rights of women. The woman who is disinherited at the death of her husband, the one who cannot inherit a property, the one who is sexually harassed, the one who is battered and ejected from her matrimonial home at the whim of her husband, the one who cannot decide the number of children to bear and several others who experience discrimination and violence actually have ample support embedded in the Protocol for the Rights of Women in Africa.

The question now is: how many women know of this protocol and its powerful potential of protecting them? And the challenge for me now is not being in Malabo in June, but to create ample awareness for the girls in my immediate community to know of this protocol and always hold on to the rights there-in. I do not know what the challenge is for you, but I know you have a role to play. Together we can stop this senseless discrimination and violence against our precious daughters, sisters and mothers.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Itodo Samuel Anthony is a 24 year-old from Benue State of Nigeria. He is a graduate of petroleum engineering, presently teaching mathematics at an all-girls school in Delta State as part of the mandatory National Youth Service Corps Scheme for graduates in Nigeria. His interests include writing essays, poems, short stories and scripts. He strongly believes in justice and fairness for all. His models include Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi, whose lives epitomised selflessness. For him, serving humanity is a privilege, and as the Junior Chamber International Creed puts it: ‘service to humanity is the best work of life’.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES:

[1] Policy, Advocacy and Programming on the African Women’s Protocol, Programme Insights, Feb. 2008, page 1, Online ISBN 978-1-84814-028-8
[2] Ibid
[3] ibid
[4] The impact of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa on Violence against Women in Six Selected Southern African countries: An advocacy tool. (August 2009). Pp 1- 7ISBN: 978-0-9814420-1-3