His words were spoken at a gathering to mark the beginning of a new collaboration to expand efforts to improve the situation of women's rights as a precondition to overcome the deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic ravaging the sub-region. Oxfam America's Southern Africa program kicked off the new program area with a convening of key organizations in the region culminating in the press event on Constitution Hill.
The HIV/AIDS crisis is the most significant obstacle to development in southern Africa. Recent studies by UNAIDS and a special task force appointed by the UN Secretary General studying women, girls, and HIV/AIDS in southern Africa show some staggering statistics: 30 percent of the world's people living with HIV/AIDS (about 11.4 million) are in nine countries that contain only two percent of the entire earth's population. Women and girls are sharing a disproportionate burden of infection and death from the insidious disease. The task force study estimates that three quarters of the young people 15 to 24 years old in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Zambia that are currently living with HIV/AIDS are young girls and women.
These reports acknowledge one key reason women and girls are so vulnerable: their legal rights are not respected. Unequal laws on divorce and inheritance, as well as weak domestic violence legislation are leaving women vulnerable to abuse and poverty in an insecure environment. In some cases, women are considered legal minors, and are not allowed to make important decisions about their own lives, even if their husbands die.
Infected women, and those simply affected by the crisis, are missing out on employment and education opportunities as they fall ill or have to care for sick family members. Societal tolerance of sexual violence and harmful traditions frequently prevent women from controlling their sexual activity and discourage legal recourse in abuse cases.
Beyond wasting the potential of women in southern Africa, the resulting social dislocation, heavy health care and burial costs, and shortened life spans from the HIV/AIDS epidemic threaten the future for an entire generation. "We have crossed the threshold between the potential impact on women's development," said Mark Heywood, Director of the Aids Law Project of South Africa, speaking at a two-day conference sponsored by Oxfam America. "We are clearly experiencing the epidemic's impact on women's rights, which is a crucial aspect of what HIV/AIDS is doing to society."
Oxfam America has concentrated resources in the area of legal reform in Zimbabwe and Mozambique over the last eight years. Grant funds have supported research, advocacy, and popular campaigns designed to improve the legal framework to support women's rights in family laws, land ownership, domestic violence, and other key areas that directly affect women's welfare and livelihoods.
The new program area titled "HIV/AIDS Policy, Law and Women's Rights Partnership Program" builds off of the legal reform work in ways designed to help reduce the vulnerability of women to the disease, and eventually eradicate it. "Oxfam America must have a strong HIV/AIDS program in southern Africa,"" explained Regional Director Julio de Sousa. "In concentrating on these essential human rights issues, we will further women's rights and contribute to the fight against the epidemic."
Staff in Oxfam America's office in southern Africa consulted with a wide range of organizations with expertise in the areas of women's rights and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Together they developed a program that will include grants to organizations working on strengthening laws and policies designed to promote respect for women's rights, and challenging the social norms and values that condone violence against women and girls and contribute to their lower social status. Of equal importance will be looking at ways to improve the social support services essential for assisting women, including law enforcement, access to health care, and counseling.
The expanded program focus is building on fruitful collaborations with women's rights coalitions in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and constructing similar partnerships in South Africa and Namibia.
At the press event in Johannesburg, Justice Van Westhuizen challenged Oxfam America and its partners in this new program area to think big, to even dream. "We must be able to dream—because without dreams we will not exist." As one of the framers of South Africa's constitution, considered one of the world's most progressive, he was well aware of the power of a dream, as South Africa enters its 10th year under majority rule.
Equality for women and a stronger southern African society free of HIV/AIDS is still in the future, but the ideas are coming into place to make it a reality. As South Africa has shown, a dream is just the start of big things.
]]>The domestic violence bill is an attempt to thrust domestic violence out from behind closed doors and into the public realm, a difficult task in Zimbabwe and other African countries where many people do not consider women equal to men, and view abuse of women in the household to be a private matter. According to the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA), one of every four women in the country suffers some form of abuse in her lifetime, and sixty percent of murder cases are related to domestic violence.
Some notable and progressive features of the proposed domestic violence bill:
The Women's Coalition includes three Oxfam America partners: the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association, the Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU), and the Musasa Project. In previous years Oxfam America also funded the work of three other coalition members, the Association of Women's Clubs, Zimbabwe Adult Learners Association, and the Federation of African Media Women's Association.
If the bill is signed as expected it will conclude nearly six years of work. The Coalition's first efforts in 1999 were to educate women about a proposed constitution to replace one negotiated at the end of the liberation war in 1982. Critics of the draft constitution said it discriminated against women based on customary law. The Women's Coalition led a public education campaign that contributed to a defeat of the proposed constitution in a referendum in 2000.
The Women's Coalition then turned its attention to legislation to help improve the situation of women in Zimbabwe, and began researching and actually drafting a new domestic violence bill. It was first proposed to the Minister of Justice in 2001. In 2004 the Women's Coalition submitted a petition to the Minister with 10,000 signatures. In 2005 the effort gained momentum as Joyce Mujuru was named vice president, and the government established a new Ministry of Women's Affairs, and appointed another woman, Oppha Muchinguri, to this highly placed position. Both were supporters of the domestic violence bill.
The Women's Coalition did encounter some political resistance. First, it had to get approval from a special committee for legislature in the president's cabinet before the bill could be introduced to Parliament.
Emilia Muchawa, director of ZWLA, attended the cabinet committee meeting, and said that there were concerns about the articles that outlaw some traditional practices. "There were seven ministers, only one was a woman," she said. "They talked it over and one said, 'if this goes through, I would be arrested.' They could not look at it objectively. We asked them to separate their public role from their private life." Although the cabinet committee was not enthusiastic, Muchawa said they did feel a sense of responsibility. "They knew that they would have to step out of their personal life and answer for their constituency," she said.
After the cabinet approved the legislation in May of 2006, the Women's Coalition then had to find a way to promote the bill in Parliament, where only 24 of the 150 seats are held by women. The bill successfully passed in the House of Assembly in July. However in debates in the Senate in October, more resistance emerged as one member of Parliament, Timothy Mubhawu, said the bill would degrade the status of men and stated flatly, "Women are not equal to men."
Women's Coalition members protested the next day outside Parliament, and officials of Mubhawu's party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), disavowed his statements and suspended him from party membership. The bill passed the Senate and is now awaiting the president's signature. "I am sure he has a positive interest in signing the bill," Muchawa said.
When it becomes law, Zimbabwe's domestic violence bill will be the latest in a series of important legislative reforms that are helping women claim and defend their rights in southern Africa. It follows two important laws in neighboring Mozambique: the 1997 Land Law, and the 2004 Family Law, both of which help women gain legal title to and inherit land, an essential asset for a secure livelihood in a country dependent on agriculture. The Family Law also established clear laws for divorce, rights for women to hold jobs, and a minimum age for marriage. Oxfam America funded leading members of a coalition of women's organizations in Mozambique that researched, proposed, and promoted these laws.
As in Mozambique, Oxfam America's partners working together in Zimbabwe played important roles in the development, drafting, and lobbying of the domestic violence bill. "Oxfam America was the first organization to invest in the Women's Coalition," Muchawa said, noting that having the Coalition in place helped the work on the domestic violence bill get started. "We had a structure around which we could coalesce on this issue," she said.
Having a variety of groups in the Coalition helped it in three important areas. The first was ensuring the legitimacy of the bill they proposed. "They took the bill out to the public, and made sure there was adequate consultation," said Margaret Samuriwo, Oxfam America's senior program officer in southern Africa. "They also educated women in Parliament, so they understood the bill and could support it. Women in both the ZANU-PF and MDC parties in Parliament worked together to garner enough support." Lastly, Oxfam support for research, which documented the extent of domestic violence in the country and its toll on women, also proved crucial in this advocacy campaign. Having the facts and figures at hand helped members of the Women's Coalition make their case in Parliament and in the media.
]]>In any society, developing or not, women are likely to be poorer, less educated, and less empowered than men. Oxfam recognizes women should be valued equally and enabled to reach their potential. What’s more, research has shown that when women earn income, they are more likely than men to spend it on family welfare. And when women are educated, they make decisions that benefit their families and influence their communities.
In the pages that follow, you'll read about how Oxfam is targeting the laws in Mozambique and the gender violence in El Salvador that severely disadvantage women. You'll also learn how Oxfam is equipping women to mediate peace in West Africa and to grow the income of their families. In every case, when it comes to empowering women, men are an equal part of the equation. Oxfam is striving to shape societies that not only permit women to be contributors, but societies that recognize that if they don't seize upon what women can offer, they are failing to leverage one of their most valuable assets.
]]>"Oxfam is deeply saddened by the loss of such a dedicated and brave colleague. For many years, Mahdi had worked tirelessly and in an atmosphere of increasing danger to help the people of Somalia, who are struggling to cope with violence and drought," said Oxfam's Horn of Africa Manager, Robbert van den Berg.
"We wish to express our condolences and solidarity with his family and colleagues and with other civil society organizations working throughout Somalia under extremely difficult circumstances," said Mr van den Berg.
Oxfam International urges that a thorough and impartial investigation into the killing be carried out and that those responsible be put on trial.
Mohammed Abdulle Mahdi, known as 'Mahdi' to his friends, was the Director of the Women and Child Care Organisation (WOCCA) and was dedicated to helping vulnerable people in Somalia for many years.
In collaboration with Oxfam International, Mahdi worked to improve the lives of many different vulnerable groups; most recently, Mahdi had been working to help people forced to flee their homes because of extreme violence in Mogadishu and across Somalia.
This most recent killing illustrates the extreme dangers faced both by ordinary citizens and aid workers in Somalia. NGO workers like Mahdi are bravely and continuously working to deliver life-saving services to people in desperate need, but they are doing so in an atmosphere of increasingly real and imminent danger. It is the right of ordinary Somalis to be able to access the assistance that many of them so desperately need, and it is the right of aid workers to carry out their life-saving work unhindered and without fear.
All parties to the conflict must live up to their obligations to the people of Somalia by allowing full and unhindered access to those in need and to respect their obligations under International Humanitarian Law.
Only by living up to these obligations will the needs of all Somalis be met.
"This senseless loss of life underlines the extreme dangers that aid workers face trying to reach those in desperate need and deprives a whole community and family of a man dedicated to improving the lives of ordinary Somalis. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this very difficult time," said Mr. van den Berg.
]]>“The Bush Administration must do all that it can to support President Kabila in his efforts to address the longstanding conflict which is once again threatening the lives and safety of hundreds of thousands of civilians,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America.
“The Administration must continue its crucial mediation role to ensure that the legitimate concerns of Congolese citizens are addressed. Both Presidents must make it clear that they will not allow the progress made over the past few years to be jeopardized by renewed fighting,” said Offenheiser.
The election of President Kabila in 2006 brought hopes of peace and stability after decades of misrule and a civil war which claimed the lives of approximately four million civilians and led to the displacement of over one million people. Despite the success of the elections, the continued fighting in the east between rebel groups and government forces is a threat to the tenuous peace in the DRC—one of the world’s poorest countries. The DRC ranks 141st out of 174 countries in the United Nation’s human development ranking.
Since last December, the intense fighting has forced over 370,000 people to leave their homes in the eastern region of North Kivu, the largest surge of internal displacement since the formal end of the civil war in 2003. Unlike displacements in the past, the scale of the latest influx is too great for the displaced to be accommodated by local families.
Meanwhile, increased fighting and insecurity have also severely limited the ability of humanitarian agencies like Oxfam to deliver vital aid to civilians in need.
As the conflict intensifies, growing numbers of civilians are placed in imminent physical danger and serious violations of international humanitarian law continue. These include the recruitment of children by rebel forces, the reported use of forced labor by the national army, and an epidemic of violence against women that is among the worst in the world. A 2004 survey found mortality rates in some parts of the country to be close to 3 times the sub-Saharan average, partly from ongoing conflict but also due to disease, malnutrition, and lack of very basic social services.
In the face of the worsening security and humanitarian situation in DRC, Oxfam also called on the US government to maintain its support for a robust UN military presence while increasing its funding and technical assistance to the reform of Congo’s military forces. Tasked with the mandate to protect civilians, the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC (MONUC), receives one third of its operating budget from the US government. With the mission’s funding up for renewal in December, it is crucial that President Bush pledges to continue his administration’s support.
“Without a substantial and effective MONUC presence, the DRC’s fragile peace could quickly unravel completely, further threatening not only the Congolese people but also the wider region. Until the DRC’s police, military, and judiciary are able to effectively enforce the law and protect civilians, US support for both the mandate and operations of the UN peacekeeping mission there is absolutely vital,” said Offenheiser.
]]>Emile Hirsch said: "My trip with Oxfam to the Democratic Republic of Congo was a mind blowing odyssey into the heart of Africa, equal parts informative and inspiring. It is a country filled with iron-willed people, suffering through one of the worst humanitarian situations on the planet. Oxfam is doing a lot of good work, but there is still much more to be done."
He began his trip in the poverty-stricken Maniema Province where Oxfam is working with former child soldiers to disarm and re-integrate them back into their home communities. In some cases, the children were forcibly taken from their homes to become fighters during the height of the conflict. These men are now working with their communities to attain forgiveness for wrongs committed and to work towards a peaceful future.
Emile's visit concluded in the province of North Kivu, where conflict is still affecting the population. At two camps for Internally Displaced People, he spoke with families driven from their homes by armed groups and saw the cramped conditions of over 9,000 people waiting for safe conditions which will allow them to return to their villages. Oxfam is providing water and sanitation to over 40,000 people that live in the four camps in the Goma, North Kivu area.
Oxfam's President, Raymond C. Offenheiser, stated that the actor's involvement can help keep the international community focused on this chronic emergency.
"By supporting Oxfam, Emile can help shed light on the issues facing Congo at this critical time. The people of Congo need our help to feel safe and protected and to keep the country on the path to peace. They have not lost hope for a better future, and we must keep that hope alive. Emile's visit emphasizes that the people of Congo are not alone," said Offenheiser.
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