Friday 2 March 2012

The EAC-GIZ-EASSI Gender week in focus

The East African Community Secretariat (EAC) in collaboration with German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ), East African Sub-Regional Support Initiative (EASSI) and Arusha Municipality have jointly organized a series of activities to mark Gender Week from 5-9 March, 2012 in Arusha, Tanzania. The event coincides with the World International Women’s Day on 8th March and linked to the United Nation’s Secretary General’s Campaign to End Violence Against Women UNiTE on 9th March.

This event will bring to focus the critical need to end gender violence, especially against women and children in our region,’’ said the EAC Deputy Secretary General in Charge of Productive and Social Sectors, Jean Claude Nsengivumwa. 
He added: ‘’Domestic violence is a deadly crime, a social menace, and a costly public health problem. Domestic violence can explode anywhere, anytime. We all have to make concerted efforts to avert the violence through increased awareness.’’

International sports icon Ambassador Dr Tegla Loroupe of Kenya, a former two-time world record holder in women’s marathon, will be special guest during the event.
Ambassador Loroupe is well known in the region as a firm activist against women and children violence. She has, among others, reformed a significant number of armed warring cattle rustlers in Northern Kenya, Southern Sudan, North-Eastern Uganda and Ethiopia and is famed for having brought considerable peace to these troubled- areas which has won her numerous regional and international awards.
Among the highlights of the activities is a workshop to sensitize EAC staff on how to mainstream gender in their programmes and activities on Monday(5th March) at the Snow Crest Hotel.

The GIZ Support to the EAC Integration Process Programme Manager, Bernd Multhaup says:
The equality of women and men is an integral part of GIZ’s corporate culture’’, adding that GIZ has a long-standing tradition of gender mainstreaming, and its constantly updated gender strategy is based on the assumption that development would only be sustainable if women and men benefit equally from political, economic, social and cultural development, and if they fully exploit their potentials. 

Recent ‘EAC Gender Audit’ has acknowledged the EAC –GIZ Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) component as a best- practice for gender mainstreaming in EAC programmes.

Thursday 1 March 2012

When Women Are Seen As Objects, No Girl Can Be Safe In This Society

A report that has revealed that 20 per cent of city students are in the sex trade. Girls down to pre-teens are recruited into transactional sex. This comes on top of the survey published three-and- half years ago which showed that 40,000 girls in upper primary school were defiled annually by their teachers. This information has not caused public uproar and tangible actions to do something about the underlying attitude towards girls and women. . It shows in many ways, the delay of the Domestic Relations Bill is one; many are comfortable with the male dominance and the handling of women as property. When women are seen as objects you can own and use for entertainment, no girl or budding woman can be safe. Why has nobody concerned with the moral status of this country come out strongly in defence of these young people whose only fault is that they belong to the “weak sex”. “Weak”!? Anybody who has seen an African woman at work knows better than talk about her weakness. But so many of them have been indoctrinated in the “African value” of male dominance, that the opposing voices are hard to hear. With the new report referred to in Sunday Monitor, it is safe to say that every 10 minutes on an average, more than one underage girl is sexually molested.