Celia Candiotti works as a security guard at the main municipal office of Huamanga, the capital of Ayacucho province in Peru. She’s tall and thin, and has a narrow face and severe eyes. She’s pleasant, but professional, as you would expect from a uniformed officer who commands respect.
Several years ago she was at work when she saw a 12-foot-high wall of water, mud, boulders, and cars flooding down one of the main streets in the city.
Cadiotti ran straight into the maelstrom to rescue people.
“You can’t fight your destiny,” Candiotti says, citing her training as a nurse and a firefighter. “I didn’t even think, I just responded -- I waded right in.” She rescued several injured people before she found a young girl, perhaps seven years old, trapped in a car. “She said to me, ‘I’m gonna die.’ I said ‘no’. But the water was coming in the window fast.”
That day the landslide killed about a dozen people, but thanks to Candiotti, that one young girl survived. The Ministry of Women gave Candiotti an award for heroism.
Candiotti noticed something then: people lined the street, horrified by the disaster, but did not help. She remembered this later when she went to a training session for the staff at the municipal office. The topic was how to understand and reduce racism and discrimination at their work, so they could ensure equal access to the services citizens need from the local government.
When it came to the pervasive racism in Ayacucho, Candiotti was much like the bystanders she saw on the street that day: concerned, but not sure what to do.
The training session was organized by APRODEH, a human rights group Oxfam has been funding to work on ways to reduce racism and discrimination in Peru. The organization led efforts to help local governments pass new laws – ordinances – that require equal access to services, equal treatment by officials, for everyone, whatever their gender or ethnicity, whatever language they speak, however they dress, and whatever their age or appearance.
Addressing the racism and discrimination directed toward indigenous people, women, and handicapped people is an important component of Oxfam’s work to reduce barriers that keep people in poverty. And training for municipal workers, who play an essential role in helping citizens gain access to crucial services from local government, is one way APRODEH and Oxfam are working to changing the way people think about each other—and themselves--in Ayacucho.
For Candiotti, a woman who grew up on the coast in a family of Italian immigrants, understanding and confronting the racism and discrimination she could see in Ayacucho since she moved here eight years ago is a tremendous blessing. She says APRODEH’s training helped her and others understand that all people have basic rights. “People from the highlands are not any less than me, and we all have to learn to relate to each other. I could see the changes in the staff here,” she says, standing in her uniform near the front of the municipal hall. “We left the training calm and happy, a joy has taken over us.”
Now, Candiotti says the staff of the municipality behaves completely differently. Whereas before the indigenous staff would be reluctant to even speak Quechua, the local indigenous language, they are now happy to help indigenous people who come to the office no matter what language they can speak. “When people come and inquire in Quechua,” she says, “we all speak Quechua now, our attitude has really changed. We used to make fun of an elderly señora dressed in traditional clothes, but not anymore.”
When she’s at work, Candiotti wears a uniform slightly too large for her slim, athletic frame, with a cap pulled low over her forehead. She’s got a serious look about her, but when she describes the changes in the staff attitudes her eyes get a little wet.
Near the front entrance, she meets with some indigenous, Quechua speaking women under an arch leading in to the massive, Spanish colonial courtyard. Her warmth comes through as she answers questions, gives direction, and laughs at a joke.
Candiotti acknowledges that perhaps some destinies can change: “There’s always been discrimination,” she says near her post at the front entrance. “But little by little, this is changing.”
]]>There’s a poster in the office of APRODEH in Ayacucho that depicts a group of highland indigenous people riding on a bus. Each passenger is regarding the others with suspicion: “I don’t like the look of that one,” one is thinking. Another thought bubble over the head of a fellow passenger says, “that cholo might rob me,” using a derogatory term for an indigenous person.
It’s a realistic scene, says Wilfredo Ardito, a 45-year-old attorney who APRODEH’s work on racism and discrimination in Ayacucho. He says Peru is an extremely ethnically diverse country, but years of racist attitudes towards the native people have resulted in the indigenous people themselves rejecting their own identity, refusing to speak their own languages, and turning their backs on their own culture. “They even use derogatory words against people like themselves,” Ardito says. “People lack self esteem, they respect white people more than themselves.” This is one of the key aspects of APRODEH’s training: helping people accept who they are, and to be proud of themselves. “Part of the process of eliminating racism is accepting your own face,” Ardito says.
APRODEH teaches staff at municipal government about discrimination and racism as a means to raise awareness and encouraging local communities to pass local ordinances to promote equality as part of a comprehensive effort to fight poverty in Ayacucho “We know it is more effective to have a local law,” Ardito says. “Most people don’t know about the national laws, not the police, not the judges.” One strategy that has proven effective is to work directly with elected regidoros, sort of like county commissioners, who represent specific constituencies in municipal affairs.
Socorro Arce, 45, is a regidora in Huamanga who helped organize a training session for all the female elected politicians in the department of Ayacucho – about 113 of them. This led to a network that is helping to promote women leaders, a space where Arce says “we can exchange ideas, and talk about human rights and gender, and we support new ideas like the ordinances, so we can reduce discrimination against people who speak Quechua, have a different religion, or women who are pregnant.”
Arce started fighting against injustice while in a religious high school, which she says was run poorly and discriminated against the darker skinned, poorer girls. “That’s why I became a leader -- the girls were really submissive, and I started to change that mentality,” she says. Arce was expelled twice, once for leading a strike against the school by students objecting to corporal punishment. “They would make us stand facing a wall with our hands on our heads for hours, it was like torture. I told them, ‘If you keep punishing us like this, we won’t go to class’,” she says she announced one day. “I was about 14 or 15 then.”
When APRODEH was looking for an ally to promote local ordinances, program officer Arturo Lopez decided to approach Arce because “she’s really accessible, I called her and she said ‘come on over,’ and she helped negotiate with the other women leaders.” He called the right person, it seems. Starting in her high school days, Arce says struggling against injustice was always high on her agenda. “In all the positions I have held as a leader, I have always spoken out against discrimination.”
Lopez and Arce are an unlikely pair. He is soft spoken, she is an aggressive talker, an avid networker. “I really like Arturo,” Arce says over a glass of fruit juice overlooking the central plaza in Huamanga. “He’s really calm. I’m more like an earthquake.”
Together they convened the women leaders, held a training session, and these women then went out and helped their communities pass four new ordinances in Ayacucho APRODEH says are fighting back against racism and discrimination at the local level.
]]>To Wilfredo Ardito, the links between poverty and racism in Peru are obvious.
“The differences between life in the highlands, and in the jungles, and life in Lima are extreme,” he says in APRODEH’s office in Ayacucho. “Life expectancy in Lima is 80, and in the highlands it is 50. The campesinos [rural people] are poor, illiterate, malnourished, and people think this can’t change. So when budgets are approved, there is money for a [football] stadium in Lima instead of for reducing maternal mortality in the mountains…there is an attitude that campesinos can suffer, they can exist in this state of poverty, it is all right.”
After 10 years of economic growth in Peru, Ardito says wealth is concentrated in very few hands in the country, and the situation of the poorest people has not changed much.
APRODEH’s strategy is to encourage local leaders to promulgate local ordinances to address problems of racism and discrimination, and then train local municipal staff and officials to implement and enforce the new laws. The training sessions, Ardito says, are particularly effective. “People are skeptical at first, or they think we are going to talk about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement...then they realize it is about their experience, and that they share with others experiences of racism.” This goes for indigenous people, as well as for mestizo (mixed race) and white people who may have been brought up to behave in certain ways towards others who are different. The realization of this can be profound, and life changing.
Oxfam America supports efforts to reduce racism and discrimination against indigenous people and women in Peru because these are the most impoverished people in the country. Helping indigenous people gain more respect for their basic rights will help them gain their fair share of quality education and health care. Eliminating discrimination will also help women gain access to better jobs and other services, and generally improve the situation for the country’s poorest people.
Building respect for indigenous people will also help communities value their own indigenous culture. This is essential because many indigenous groups have developed efficient, sustainable ways of living and working the land in some environmentally sensitive areas. The indigenous ways of using natural resources are being forgotten as people feel they must reject their indigenous identity in order to take advantage of all that modernity and western culture can offer. This is part of the reason why APRODEH and others are encouraging indigenous youth to speak their native languages and be proud of who they are—so they can live a decent life, take advantage of all that their government and society can offer them, without forcing them to assimilate into western culture and forget their past.
These municipal ordinances are helping Peru pull these problems out of the shadows,” Says Santiago Alfaro, Oxfam America’s program officer for indigenous rights in Peru. “Government employees can now see the negative effects of racism and discrimination on the quality of life in the country. APRODEH’s work in Ayacucho is echoing across the country, and there are now more and better legal tools available to help indigenous people remove barriers to public services.”
]]>So, three times a week, and sometimes more, women from the Abu Shouk and Al Salaam camps head out on four-hour treks to scavenge for fuel. If they don't come upon any trees, the women resort to clawing through the hard-packed earth to reach bits of root that they can burn instead.
But hard work is only part of their problem. Looming larger for these women is the constant threat to their safety: By venturing even a short distance outside of the camps they could face harassment, sexual assault, or even death. Since early 2003, conflict has wracked this region, forcing more than 2 million people from their homes. Many of them have sought shelter in camps like Abu Shouk and Al Salaam. But the demands of daily living—the need for wood, for jobs, for food—often require them to leave the safety of those camps.
Now, Oxfam America, together with the Sudanese Agency for Environment and Development Service (SAEDS), has launched a $132,000 program that will help thousands of displaced women stay safer in this volatile place. The agency is providing 4, 200 households with fuel-efficient stoves that, in many cases, will completely remove the need for women to hunt for wood. Two thousand of the stoves are kerosene-fueled; another 2,000 are efficient wood-burning stoves; and 200 of them use gas. The project will benefit about 25,200 people.
Women were excited about getting the stoves, said Sahar Ali, an Oxfam America program officer, who paid a monitoring visit to Abu Shouk in late January.
"Traditionally, the provision of firewood and fuel for cooking has been the responsibility of women," said Ali, in a report she filed after the visit. "There are few other sources of cooking fuel available to them."
But with the introduction of kerosene and gas, they now have other options. And the small round stoves that burn wood efficiently—as opposed to open fires—means women will need to make fewer of the dangerous scavenging trips.
Still, convincing women that gas is a smart way to cook has taken some doing, said Ali. They worried about its hazards.
"This is the first time for them using gas, and most of the houses are made from wood," said Ali. "If it burns, it burns all the camp. They said we prefer kerosene—not the gas."
The hesitancy about gas notwithstanding, the new stoves are bringing another important benefit to the region, too: some relief for the environment.
"North Darfur is mostly desert, and the few trees that provided a nearby source of cooking fuel when the camps were first created more than two years ago are all gone," said Ali in her report.
It's a trend that Ibrahim Suliman, a program coordinator for SAEDS, has watched for the past four decades as it's crept across the region.
"When I was a child, most of Darfur was covered in forest—even North Darfur," said Suliman, a native of Dar el Salaam, a small village about 30 miles south of El Fasher. But in the last 30 years, those trees and grasses have given way to desert. Why?
"Because of overgrazing," said Suliman. "Because there is no planning for animal breeding. And the firewood for cooking. And for houses—people build their houses from wood. And charcoal traders."
But with the introduction of the stoves, some of that degradation can be slowed since less wood will be needed for cooking. Suliman has even convinced his mother to switch to kerosene.
"She's very happy. It's clean," he said.
SAEDS is taking its concern for the environment a step further: It has launched a replanting project in Dar es Salaam and plans to begin a similar effort around the camps.
"Our philosophy is to restock the forest and all these things will be improved," said Suliman. "If we try to stop cutting trees and every year we try to plant many new trees, within four to five years we will be able to restock a big amount of trees. And we'll be able to at least make the environment more attractive than before and people can find grasses for their animals and be able to cultivate again. It might take a long time, but we have to start."
In Dar el Salaam, thanks to SAEDS, about 4,500 new saplings are now growing.
"In five to 10 years, I'm sure it will be green," said Suliman.
Near El Fasher, trees might also grow again. Oxfam's project with SAEDS calls for the planting of 10,000 seedlings around the camps. Families who have recently received the fuel-efficient stoves will be mobilized to do the planting.
]]>Tato Boru, 48 and the mother of five children, is a peacemaker. She leads the Moyale area women's peace council which Oxfam's local partner, the Research Center for Civic and Human Rights Education (RCCHE), helped to found.
Here, near the Kenyan border, many people make their living as herders. Droughts plague the region, and their consequences—shriveled pasture and water sources sucked dry—are particularly severe for families of herders and their animals who depend on those resources for survival. Tension over shortages can trigger disputes, as can concern about land demarcation lines drawn by the government. Add guns to the mix, and conflicts quickly turn lethal. Over the years, fighting in the area around Moyale has taken many lives.
One of several similar committees, the council Boru heads advocates for peaceful coexistence among the different ethnic groups in the region and helps mediate between them when conflicts start to simmer. There are also councils for young adults and village elders.
Giving an example of how her group works, Boru told about a recent dispute that erupted when a group of Somalis settled in a nearby village predominantly occupied by Gabra.
"There was a stone attack and there were a few gun shots, but no one was hurt. We felt it was time for our intervention," she said. "We went...and told them that land is the gift of God and we all can share it."
Accompanied by members from the other two councils, the women urged the sparring groups not to resort to violence, but to engage in discussions first, and if that didn't work, to take the matter to court. In the heat of disputes like this, council members try to visit the troubled village at least once a week. As things cool down, they cut back their visits to once a month.
Raising awareness is one of the key objectives of the peace council, and something its members take on regularly in both formal and informal settings. Occasionally, the women will ask community officials to organize a gathering of local people at which the council will then make a presentation. Other times, community events, such as weddings, can serve as an opportunity for peace teachings.
Peace initiatives like these are helping women reclaim a degree of authority that was once theirs—an authority that gun-fueled violence has severely eroded. With RCCHE's help, women are now speaking out about the suffering armed conflicts shower on their families. They are finding a voice and sharing their burdens of loss and sadness.
"Before this, we weren't in a position to disclose our feeling about conflict. We simply suffered with it. But now, we've got a chance to speak on peace and work on it. Our awareness and participation bring change," said Boru.
"In the late '90s, there was an awakening to the value of traditional conflict resolution methods," said Muthoni Muriu, Oxfam America's director of regional programs. "That's when the role of women in peace building really came on stage."
It's a role that is rightfully theirs: Women bear the brunt of hardship when violence rips through a community, leaving husbands dead, homes in ashes, livestock looted.
"They lose fathers, brothers, and sons," said Boru, seated on a low stool in the cocoon-like quiet of her tukul. "They take care of the wounded, the children, the animals. Even if they don't die, they have to shoulder so many of the burdens...the horror."
There is acknowledgement among men in this patriarchal culture that women bring something unique to peace work.
"They are better than men," said Boru Roba, a man and the leader of a peace committee for elders.
"Women can play both a fueling role and a cooling role in conflict," added another man, Galma Roba, a representative for traditional leaders. "If men get initiated for conflict and women interject, the men might change their minds."
Highlighting the awful consequences of conflict—the death, the destruction—against the broad benefits of peace is at the core of the women's strategy. It's an argument few can refute.
"When we try to sensitize them on the importance of peace, there is no man who opposes us," said Mako Dalecha, a mother of five children and a member of the peace council. "Peace—and rain—are the basis for life in our area."
]]>The 25th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic has come and gone, and after all the UN meetings, the hand wringing, and the finger pointing, there remains one key element that has received little press: In the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic—in southern Africa, home to one of every three people in the world living with HIV—it is women like Leona, in Mozambique, who are shouldering a disproportionate burden of the disease.
The problem here is lack of respect for women's rights. In some places in southern Africa women are prohibited by law from owning or inheriting property, and so have few financial assets. This limits their independence, putting them at risk financially, emotionally, and sexually. It is not surprising that more than half of the world's HIV-infected women, more than nine million of them, live in southern Africa, according to the UNAIDS report released in November 2006. With little power to negotiate their sexual activity, females in some areas of southern Africa now represent three quarters of HIV and AIDS infected people aged 15 to 24. When people say AIDS has become a "feminized" epidemic, this is what they mean. In 2004, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed a task force to study the problem. The experts urgently recommended the development of non-discriminatory laws and policies designed to help women protect their rights and reduce their vulnerability.
The countries of southern Africa lack adequate resources (not to mention a vaccine and access to drugs) to care for the millions with HIV and AIDS. Yet unlike the scientific barriers to ending the epidemic, it is well within our power to support women's rights—an essential means to cutting down the number of women infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.
Creating equal rights for women in Africa, like everywhere else, is a challenge. Last May, I saw it for myself. Within an hour of my arrival in South Africa, I heard on the radio that the African National Congress's Deputy President Jacob Zuma was acquitted of charges that he had raped an HIV-positive woman, the daughter of an ANC comrade.
Violence against women is endemic in South Africa, where a woman is raped every 26 seconds. But women's rights experts I met said that the Zuma trial itself said a lot about the country's attitude toward women. There was intense scrutiny of the victim's sexual past, while Zuma's was not considered. Zuma, a potential presidential candidate, arrived at the courthouse in a motorcade with body guards and enjoyed vocal supporters in the streets as he proudly invoked his Zulu culture to explain why he'd had unprotected sex with the woman. By contrast, attempting to ensure her safety and preserve her privacy, the accuser crept into the court through the back door. The discrepancy in power and access to justice was remarkable, especially since the country was just celebrating the 10th anniversary of its progressive constitution, which has very clear provisions guaranteeing equality for men and women before the law.
But for every Zuma trial, there is progress too. The day I encountered Leona in Mozambique, she met with a legal advisor at a women's rights organization in Maputo to learn how to defend her right to stay in her house. Accustomed to claiming a dead relative's assets, her in-laws did not realize that Mozambique had a new Family Law that protects the right of widows to inherit property. "He never had another wife," Leona said, "so no matter what his relatives say, I have the right to inherit the house and things."
In addition to changing laws, proponents of women's right also need to work with cultural leaders to help encourage long-term changes in customs and traditions that discriminate against women. Women themselves are taking this on, sometimes at great personal risk. Cecilia Reis, an elderly traditional healer and guardian of culture and tradition in her community, told me that she is committed to teaching women about their rights under Mozambique's new Family Law to counter the exploitative customs that put them in danger of poverty and abuse. "You have to stand up, face men eye to eye," she told me. "This is the only way for them to see the power of women."
In one of the most notable successes of legal reform in the region, a coalition of five women rights and development organizations in Mozambique, funded by Oxfam America, researched and advocated forthe new Family Law. They showed what strong organizations and committed women can do with the right kind of assistance.
Governments, the UN, international NGOs, and other donors need to expand their horizons in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and address the gender dimension of the crisis. We all have a responsibility to ensure that women like Cecilia have the support they need to create solutions to their own problems. For the most heavily infected and affected part of the world, it is an essential component in the fight against AIDS and the fight for our future.
]]>"Our ancestors can become angry because we don't respect them," said Hilario Muthembe, a local activist working with Oxfam America's partner MULEIDE in the bustling suburb of Jorge Dimitrov outside Maputo, Mozambique. The solution? Consult a traditional healer, who can help. "A small ceremony can show we respect them," Muthembe said, "and can cure the problem."
"Traditional healers play a number of very important roles in traditional society," said anthropoligist Gordon Chavanduka, president of the Zimbabwe Traditional Healer Association. "Firstly, they are the medical experts. Secondly, they are the cultural experts, and regard themselves as the guardians of their culture.
"They are also counselors, in all issues. Even the chiefs and headmen, who are the political leaders, almost all of them have a traditional healer as an advisor, to assist them in their governing."
Susan LeClerb Madlala, an anthropologist at the University of KwaZulu Natal, says that people find a certain satisfaction in consulting a traditional healer, who can not only treat the immediate illness or problem, but provide an explanation of the ultimate source of the problem itself, something a medical doctor can't do.
"Let's say you are hanging your wash on the line behind your house, and a snake bites you. Well, a medical doctor will treat the snake bite, but he can't answer a lot of important questions: Why did the snake bite you? Why was it at your house? Who sent that snake?"
Given the prominence of the spirit world in many areas, it is essential for rights organizations like MULEIDE to acknowledge the role of traditional healers in communities where they seek to intervene. Showing them respect and working with them, instead of dismissing them as "witch doctors," will help make the gradual changes in society that can lead to better respect for women, and recognition of their rights as full citizens, protected in Mozambique's Family Law.
]]>But first, they sing and dance, accompanied by whistles and drums. The entire neighborhood arrives to see what is happening. They sing songs of solidarity, and the power of women to overcome poverty and illiteracy, and about a new law in Mozambique they are using to redefine their entire society, one family at a time.
The Mozambique Family Law, promulgated in 2004 is designed to bring women's rights under law in line with international standards. Thanks to this new law, women now have a chance to inherit and own financial assets such as cash and property, and have a job that earns wages—without the permission of a husband or male family member.
And the Family Law recognizes customary marriages registered with local government—an important distinction in places like Jorge Dimitrov where couples can't always afford formal marriage ceremonies. Now, women living with a husband for more than a year have the right to a share of family assets if the marriage breaks up.
However, some people in Hulene and the greater Jorge Dimitrov area are basically unaware of the new law, and live by customs and traditions that are at odds with it. The problems this creates are most obvious in cases of domestic violence and other family conflicts.
"We see a lot of problems with couples," said Hilario Muthembe, an activist in Hulene. "Maybe the husband has an illness, and says his wife is a witch and wishes him to be dead."
And when families consult local traditional leaders or healers, the matter can be resolved based on traditions and local customs that favor those with the most power: men. The activists in Hulene said this opens up the possibility of domestic violence, and an abrupt "divorce" leaving a woman and her children on the street with no means of support.
Encouraging local leaders to respect women's rights under the Family Law is the mission of MULEIDE, Oxfam America's partner in Mozambique. The organization has trained more than 400 legal advisors in three provinces who work with traditional healers, the main custodians of local culture in neighborhoods like Bario Hulene.
Their mission is to make sure that women understand their new rights, and that traditional healers help protect them. "We want the illiterate grassroots women of Mozambique to know that there is a legal instrument that can help overcome decades of suffering," said Rafa Machava, executive director of MULEIDE. "So we need to engage everyone to balance their customs with the new law."
Traditional healers are the key to the strategy, as they advise local elites and families, and can be the ones to help create the long-term shift in culture that will promote respect for women's rights. Noemia Fernando, one of MULEIDE's trained legal advisors in Bario Hulene, said it is essential for her and the other activists in the community to enlist traditional healers to help women. "Traditional healers have the power to treat them, get the problem resolved, and unify the family," she said. "That is why we need them with us, they can help us do our work." Fernando and her MULEIDE colleagues explained the new law to the traditional healers in Hulene, and some healers are now helping them explain the new law to their clients, and develop non-violent solutions to conflicts.
Fatima Coelho, a traditional healer for three years, got her training on the new Family Law in 2005. And she is using her training to help ensure that women's rights are respected in her work. Coelho said it is a real challenge to help couples avoid violence. "I'm trying to teach that it is better to sit down and talk instead of beating each other—this is not the way to build up a family. This is the strongest value I gained from my training with MULEIDE in 2005, it is the best way to address these family issues."
Cecilia Reis, an elderly woman active as a healer since 1962, has been an ardent promoter of women's rights and has been working with MULEIDE since 1994. She is at the leading edge of creating a new culture of respect for women in Mozambique. Her comments show her commitment, her realistic outlook, and her aspirations. And at the root of her dedication are her own personal commitment and the training she got from MULEIDE, which is critical to her work as a spiritual advisor.
"Women and men should be equal. Women have to open their eyes and claim their rights. These issues will not change overnight—we have to fight, and get our men to [understand], because they are very difficult and don't want to change. But we still have to stand up, look them in the eye and say to them, "we have to share, because the Family Law says we have equal rights."
"There is no one who will chase me away from my house, not even my husband, he knows that I have my own rights. This is what we are trying to teach our women. But some are not open minded, and they are dependent on their husbands, sometimes they accept being beaten all the time, and sometimes they die of domestic violence, because they have nowhere to go.
"And they don't even know that there are lawyers at MULEIDE, and at the courts, who can defend them. We have lost many members of our community to domestic violence.
"But what can we do? We are a poor country, so we have to work hard. The few of us who are able to do this work, we have to stand up and work strongly."
]]>But then the Family Law coalition, five groups funded by Oxfam America that helped create and promote the new law, turned to the next phase of their mission: To ensure the new law is understood by a diverse population in a vast country of 19.5 million in 10 provinces, speaking six languages (with 16 dialects).
The new Family Law contains a number of revolutionary concepts for a country like Mozambique, which is struggling to emerge from poverty, conflict, colonization, and illiteracy.
A complete overhaul of marriage laws: The new law recognizes customary or non-formal traditional marriages, and allows widows to inherit land and other property. It also raises the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18, which will help encourage the next generation of females to gain secondary education. Women now have the right to seek divorce in the case of domestic violence or infidelity, and to create and enforce prenuptial agreements.
Redefining the status of women in society: Putting women on an even footing with men is essential for fighting poverty, in any country. "The old law increased poverty for women," said Maria Orlanda, secretary general of the Mozambique Women Lawyers' Association in Maputo. "They depended on husbands for assets and there was no way for them to accumulate wealth of any kind." Under the new Family Law, men are no longer the de facto head of a household. This authority is now shared with women, who also have the right to work outside the home without the permission of a husband or male relative, and to buy, own, and manage property or other financial assets.
"You have to understand the problems of grassroots people to really help them," says Rafa Machava, executive direct or Muleide, a women's rights and development organization that is part of the Family Law coalition in Mozambique. With funding from Oxfam America, Muleide is reaching out to people—particularly traditional leaders—in small communities, training them and promoting the new law in ways that do not create conflict with their concepts of family life, and the role of women in society.
Muleide targets traditional leaders as the key for real change in communities. "They are the voice that is trusted," Machava says, "and they open doors for you, as respected people in the community."
One of Muleide's central missions is to provide assistance to women who are in danger of domestic violence. "Many perpetrators of violence claim that there is a traditional basis for the conflict in their household, based on their beliefs," Machava said. "A man may say his wife is a witch, or has been cursed by ancestors, because she can't have children. Or the wife may say that the husband did not pay enough lobola, a dowry or bride price, and this makes her unable to have children. And if for any reason a child dies, you can have these sorts of conflicts. A wife can be sent back to her family, and they will consult a traditional healer for a solution."
Muleide's activists work with the traditional healers. "Our activists ask the healer to tell the couple about the new Family Law," Machava said. "We teach them in their local language, because they don't speak Portuguese, so that there will be no conflict between the advice from a traditional healer and the law. This is a way of showing that domestic problems can be resolved without violence, and people can learn that they can seek legal help from Muleide and other organizations." The organization trained 250 traditional healers in Maputo province in 2005.
Working with a traditional healer trained in the new Family Law helps people resolve problems based on traditions with which they are comfortable, while at the same time learning to respect the new law and avoid solutions that violate women's rights. This added expertise in the new law is of great interest to traditional healers, says Machava. "They openly say they work with Muleide because it brings them more customers," she said.
]]>Amid cheers from a throng of enthusiastic supporters and international media, Make Trade Fair won the day.
Oxfam's trade campaign was launched.
Within hours of the Hong Kong debut, events were held in 25 cities including Brussels, Dublin, Geneva, Mexico City, San Salvador, and Washington, D.C. These events ranged from press conferences and symposiums to a rock concert in London’s Trafalgar Square.
Oxfam's trade campaign seeks to unite concerned citizens around the world in calling for fair trade policies that will help move millions of people out of poverty.
Nobel Prize Professor Amartya Sen, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and musician and social activist Bono were among those who endorsed the campaign. "Oxfam has got it right," said Bono. "It wouldn't cost much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them."
Also in this issue of EXCHANGE, writers Frances and Anna Lappé discuss their book Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, and we bring you updates on Oxfam's work with water and sanitation, drought in Ethiopia, and indigenous women in the highlands of Peru who are speaking out after decades of violence.
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