Category: News & Politics

Cairo University chief blames woman’s dress for sexual harassment

The head of Egypt’s leading state university has provoked furious condemnation for claiming that an on-campus sexual harassment case was the fault of its female victim, and saying that she may be punished.

The Cairo University student was surrounded on Monday by a group of male students who sexually harassed her as she walked across a busy campus. The woman was later escorted from the university by campus security, and the incident was filmed by bystanders – many of whom appear unconcerned, or eager to join in – and uploaded to social media.

One male student can be heard saying: “Guys, I’m going to upload it on Facebook – whoever wants to watch this video, come to my page.”

The university’s president, Dr Nasser Gaber, added to public outcry when he told a television talkshow the incident had resulted in part from the woman wearing colourful clothes, instead of a more conservative cloak, or “abaya”‘. He also said that she may face punishment for the incident along with her harassers, and possibly expulsion.

Gaber told OnTV, a private Egyptian network: “The girl took off her abaya inside the university and appeared with those clothes – which was a reason for what happened … we don’t require a uniform here but clothes should be within the tradition of our society.”

He added: “The girl’s mistake doesn’t justify what happened to her at the hands of those students. We referred the whole incident to an investigation and everything is recorded by the university cameras. We will find out who is guilty – whether the girl or the [other] students – and we are going to punish them with the proper punishment, which might be expulsion from the university.”

‘Insanely appalling’
Women’s rights activists reacted furiously to Gaber’s remarks. Soraya Bahgat, the founder of Tahrir Bodyguards, a group that rescues women from mob sexual assaults during protests, said: “I find it insanely appalling that the head of arguably the most important university in Egypt said that her clothes were to blame. It was very alarming – but part of me is glad that this has come out, because it highlights one of the things that is wrong with this society, which is to blame the victim [of sexual harassment] for what happened.”

Following criticism of his remarks, Gaber said he had been misunderstood. “It is clear that a false perception has been generated among some people that I placed the responsibility for what happened on the student,” he told the website of the official state newspaper. “I assure you that this is not true and I apologise for the misunderstanding.

An Egyptian protester holds up a knife during a demonstration to demand an end to sexual violence against women on February 6 2013 in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. (Pic: AFP)

Although Gaber said that the incident was a one-off, sexual harassment is endemic throughout Egyptian society. In the past 18 months many more people have begun to mobilise against it, but sexual harassment still remains an accepted part of Egyptian life. According to a UN survey, 99.3% of Egyptian women reported being sexually harassed, with 91% saying they felt insecure in the street as a result.

Women are frequently blamed for harassment, while the crime is not properly defined under Egyptian law, which makes prosecuting perpetrators difficult. When women try to file complaints under more general harassment and assault laws, their cases are not taken seriously by police, and only there have only been a handful of convictions.

Read Sexual violence in Egypt: ‘The target is a woman’

11 years ago

Ethiopia’s building boom driven by rapid economic growth

Above Addis Ababa’s concrete skyline, cranes tower high amid blasts from nearby drills and diggers. At the feet of buildings shrouded in bamboo scaffolding, excavators dig up dirt tracks, to be replaced by paved roads and a modern railway.

It is a scene common to most neighbourhoods in the Ethiopian capital, which has turned into a giant building zone and a city in transformation.

“It looks like a construction site when we compare from the previous time,” said Berhanu Kassa, manager of B.B. Construction in the Ethiopian capital.

“Especially in the past five years, it’s a really big change,” he added, speaking at the site of his latest project, a mixed-use commercial building on one of the city’s main thoroughfares where workers offload concrete slabs from a delivery truck.

Addis Ababa’s construction boom – funded both from private and public coffers – is being driven by the country’s recent rapid economic growth.

But the government hopes it will attract further investment and help industrialise the economy in order to reach middle income status by 2025.

A light railway under construction in Addis Ababa on January 15 2014. The Addis Ababa Light Railway system contracted by the China Railway Group Limited will have a total of 41 stations. (Pic: AFP)

The public works projects, worth billions of dollars, include new roads, railways and massive power generation schemes across the country.

Meanwhile the majority of new buildings are owned by private investors, who by law must be Ethiopian citizens.

The development promises to boost Ethiopia’s economic growth, officially 9.7% last year, though the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pegs it at closer to 7%.

“The basic engine blocks of economic transformation are the infrastructure,” said Zemedeneh Negatu, managing partner and Ernst & Young in Ethiopia.

“The Achilles heel of Africa is power, lack of power, lack of road networks, lack of the basic needs that you need to transform your economy.”

Few other opportunities
But analysts point out that the boom in construction is also a symptom of the weakness of the financial system, which leaves the business community with few investment opportunities outside of the sector.

“This is the most attractive investment opportunity in the country for the time being since we do not have a financial market that is working properly,” said the head of the IMF mission in Ethiopia, Jan Mikkelsen.

“There’s no financial markets, no stock exchange, so real estate investments seem to be the most attractive from that point of view,” he added.

The majority of the new buildings are hotels, apartments and offices.

Most are being built by Ethiopian-owned construction firms, though foreign-owned contractors from China or Turkey are cashing in too.

The government said the big push in the sector – which is bolstered by state-led incentives such as tax breaks and ready access to land – is driven by the need to create jobs for Ethiopia’s 91 million people, about one in four of whom are unemployed.

“We are struggling to eradicate poverty and create jobs,” said Desalegne Ambaw, state minister for urban development and construction.

Officials say four million jobs have been created in the last three years, including an increase in construction sector employment.

But Mikkelsen warns that resources should not be pooled too heavily into infrastructure projects, no matter how crucial for development.

“There is a need for construction, but of course there’s a limit to how much you can get out of that and these are potential resources that could have been used for other means and maybe more export-oriented businesses as well given that there is an urgent need for more foreign exchange,” he said.

Imports outweigh exports by a factor of four, according to IMF data, which starves the country of foreign exchange.

A city transformed
The ambitious state-funded infrastructure projects also threaten to strain public finances in Ethiopia.

IMF forecasts see the public deficit possibly swelling to 44% of gross domestic product within several years, nearly double the current level that means the country is borrowing a fifth of what it spends.

As it is, the financing shortfall for public works projects is already ten percent of GDP.

But for now, Berhanu said he is grateful for the government’s focus on the construction sector, since his business is booming.

“From a business perspective we are busy, sometimes it is even beyond our capacity,” he said, adding that his company has grown from three people to over three hundred over the last 20 years.

Berhanu said Ethiopia’s economic growth is fuelling the expansion of his business by creating a demand for new infrastructure, and he in turn was contributing to this by creating employment and supporting local industries.

“I hire a lot of workers here, I use a lot of local materials, I use a lot of subcontractors and because of that all we grow together and the country benefits,” he said.

Zemedeneh is confident it will continue to attract investors from abroad who witness the country’s growth for themselves and said he only expects the city’s transformation to continue.

“The bottom line is you will not recognise Addis if you come 10 years from now, it will be a completely, completely different city,” he said.

11 years ago

Gambia to switch from English to a local language

Gambia’s president says that he wants to implement a policy change that would shift the country’s language from English to a local language.

Yahya Jammeh said on Friday that “we no longer subscribe to the belief that for you to be a government you should speak English language.” He spoke during the swearing-in ceremony of Gambia’s new Chief Justice.

Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh. (Pic: AFP)

He made the announcement months after the West African country announced it is withdrawing from the Commonwealth, a collection of 54 nations made up largely of former British colonies.

Though a popular destination for British tourists, Gambia has been criticised by the United Kingdom and rights groups for human rights abuses.

Jammeh, who came to power in a military coup, said Western countries have no “moral platform” to talk about human rights. – Sapa-AP

11 years ago

‘Rescuing’ gay people from Africa is no answer to homophobic laws

The recent passing of the anti-gay law in Uganda and the South African government’s mealy-mouthed reaction to it demand attention.

Internationally, South Africa sponsored and is leading the first ever UN resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity. South Africa also boasts a post-apartheid Constitution that explicitly affirms equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender. Yet our government cannot muster the political stealth to speak against (rather than just about) homophobia when it really counts – as is the case with the recent passing of the homophobic law.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni signs an anti-homosexual bill into law on February 24 2014. (Pic: Reuters)

In a statement shortly following the law was passed, the government said that “South Africa takes note of the recent developments regarding the situation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Transsexual and Intersex persons (LGBTI) worldwide….[and] will, through existing diplomatic channels, be seeking clarification on these developments from many capitals around the world.”

But what’s to clarify? This indicates a deep reluctance to name recent events in Uganda and to take a position on them. It also implies, through the seeking of clarification, that there might be some legitimate rationale for criminalising your own citizens because of their sexual or gender identity.

The South African Human Rights Commission took a bolder position and “strongly reject[s] the notion that the freedom to live and love without fear of violence and regardless of one’s sexual orientation is part of a rights framework from western countries. The struggle for these and other freedoms has been at the heart of liberation struggles throughout the African continent.”

The ANC blocked a motion in Parliament against the law, reflecting its ambivalence to speak out. On the contrary, the former president of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano’s open letter to African leaders is an example of the kind of leadership present persecutions demand.

The anti-gay law and other legislation of its kind give state legitimacy to violence against people on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation and/and gender identity. It will also, as is already the case, prompt the forced migration of some LGBTI people.

The law feeds a narrative that positions citizens with non-conforming sexualities and genders as outsiders to the dominant culture of the nation. This is linked to the false notion that homosexuality is unAfricanand, therefore that homophobia isn’t.

In its self-appointed leadership role on LGBTI equality internationally, the South African government should readily offer a counter-narrative to those that peddle prejudice in the name of “Africanness”.

Homophobia in Africa represents a set of complex and intersecting issues – deeply routed in the continent’s colonial past. Violent inscriptions of race, sexuality, ethnicity and gender took place under colonialism and are linked to present-day norms around sexuality. These historical continuities, and how sexuality is racialised, are mostly entirely absent in discussions on homophobia.

Drawing on the ‘savages-victims-saviours’ construct of law professor Makau Mutua (pdf), the west has a keen interest in homophobia that is often framed within these sets of relations. Lurking within much of the public discourse on homophobia in Africa is the notion of the civilising mission of Eurocentric culture (and its human rights frameworks) that will save African culture, and the victims thereof, from its barbarism and its savagery.

One example of this is a recently launched online fundraising effort initiated in the US.

It is a “Rescue fund to help LGBT people escape Africa” and is aimed at “Gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people persecuted and trapped in African countries that criminalise their sexuality”. The campaign states that “by contributing to this Rescue Fund you will help me [the initiator of the fund] to save more gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people from Africa escape terrifying persecution.” An online counter shows the money is flowing in. If one donates to “save” an LGBTI person in Africa one is granted a status recognition originally titled as “ultimate saviour”. There are also prizes for donors such as “Nelson Mandela coins” for “passport providers”.

People stand on a float holding signs in reaction to Uganda’s law banning homosexuality. Hundreds of people gathered on the streets of Green Point in Cape Town, South Africa, on March 1 2014 to take part in the Gay Pride Parade. (Pic: AFP)

The forced flight of LGBTI from persecutory regimes will require interventions to provide places of refuge and safety. However, promoting an “escape” from Africa to “greener” US pastures, without simultaneously addressing the underlying conditions that force this migration, is dangerous and opportunistic. Dislocated from Africa-based struggles for social justice these feel-good interventions offer no long-term solution to the systemic issues that drive homophobia. At best they are palliative and patronising, at worst they reinforce the victimhood of Africans and the saviour status of westerners.

This is part of the logic that keeps the “homosexuality is un-African” discourse in play.

Other more pernicious saviours are those US religious conservatives who have actively promoted homophobic ideologies across the world and are now pushing such legislation in the US. There is much to be done to challenge these religious groupings and leaders on their home soils to expose their active undermining of sexual and gender rights both domestically and transnationally.

State-sponsored homophobia serves to keep certain power relations intact. Battles over power and identity are increasingly being played out on the bodies of LGBTI people. These battles relate to, among others: contestations around what it means to be “authentically” African; citizens’ pressuring for democracy, inclusion and leadership accountability; basic needs being met in a context of global inequality wherein rich elites govern over the poor; and women increasingly asserting their sexual rights. The scapegoating of LGBTI people and other “deviants” deflects from this inter-connected matrix of issues in which all Africans have a stake.

In this context, South Africa’s tiptoe diplomacy on homophobia in Africa exposes the troubling underbelly of current leadership on democracy and human rights. Whilst Jon Qwelane remains Ambassador to Uganda, in the face of his imminent court appearance for homophobic hate speech, perhaps government’s tread is more firm-footed than might appear.

Melanie Judge is an activist and social commentator. Follow her on Twitter: @melaniejudge.

11 years ago

Lupita Nyong’o: The Kenyan star who stunned Hollywood

Lupita Nyong’o, winner of the best supporting actress Oscar on Sunday, stunned Hollywood in her big-screen debut with her searing turn as an abused servant in 12 Years A Slave.

The Kenyan actress and Yale School of Drama graduate, who turned 31 on Saturday, has risen in a year from relative obscurity to Hollywood’s A list, winning plaudits for both her efforts on screen and her impeccable fashion sense.

Nyong’o has already picked up the Screen Actors Guild and Critics’ Choice awards for best supporting actress for her turn as Patsey, a slave brutalised by her sadistic owner, played by Michael Fassbender.

Lupita Nyong’o accepts her Oscar. (Pic: AFP)

“It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s,” a tearful Nyong’o said Sunday upon accepting her award, after receiving a standing ovation from the audience.

“When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every little child that no matter where you’re from, your dreams are valid.”

12 Years a Slave, by British director Steve McQueen – won the coveted best picture Oscar, beating eight fellow nominees – American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Unusual career choice
Born in Mexico – the source of her Spanish name, and where her father was teaching political science at university – Nyong’o grew up in Kenya as the second of six children.

Acting is hardly a common career in Kenya for the child of a powerful politician, but her father, one-time health minister Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, said the family had always supported her dreams.

“She started acting very young, right from kindergarten, and even at home with just the family, she would come up with make-believe stories and perform them for us,” he told Kenya’s East African newspaper.

“She was always imaginative and creative.”

The career of Nyong’o – who now lives in the United States after studying at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and later at Yale – has been avidly followed by the media in her home nation, who remember her first major role on a television show.

She was inspired to follow an acting career after working as a production assistant on the 2005 drama “The Constant Gardener.” Actor Ralph Fiennes then told her only to get into acting if she couldn’t live without it.

“It’s not what I wanted to hear, but it’s what I needed to hear,” she told Arise Entertainment in a recent interview.

First time lucky
She struck gold with her first major role in 12 Years a Slave – a role she says she almost did not get because director Steve McQueen thought she “might be too pretty.”

Critics have hailed her turn in Patsey, which included some very difficult scenes, including one in which she is viciously whipped while tied to a pole.

“Acting is an exercise of deep trust in yourself and an exercise in letting go: Do [all of your preparation] and then trust that when the [filming] day comes, and you’re in the room with Michael Fassbender, what you need will come through,” she told Entertainment Weekly.

Nyong’o – who is now appearing in the thriller Non-Stop, starring Liam Neeson – faced many challenges at the start of her career.

“She told me there were already actors and actresses in the US, and the odds were against her. Her dark skin tone, her short hair, her Kenyan accent, her name,” recalls Kenyan actor Antony Mwangi, who worked with her in Nairobi.

Ahead of her triumph on Sunday night, Nyong’o said she hoped to inspire a new generation of black actresses.

“In many ways, me being on the scene is doing for little girls everywhere what Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg did for me,” she told Entertainment Weekly.

“My world exploded by them being on screen. Hopefully I will inspire and be meaningful to other people. But I can’t take on other people’s dreams for me. I can only dream for myself.”