Category: Perspective

Rwanda’s story: Women integral to governance, peacebuilding in Africa

After arriving in Kigali last month, the first thing my friends and I did was hire motorcycles and ride around the city. It was the best way to get reacquainted with it and take in all the sights and sounds and smells – it was cheap therapy.

For a few moments during that ride, it didn’t feel like I was in Africa. Kigali over time has developed into a lovely city. The growth is something that you see when you meet the locals and look at the infrastructure. A country once wounded so badly is shining and we Africans are all visibly proud. The story that is being told about Rwanda is that where there is a will, there is a way.

When the 1994 genocide happened, I was eight years old. I vividly remember huge black helicopters hovering over us for days. There were lots of gunshots and very loud bangs, which my parents told me were ‘bikompola’ (bombs/grenades). I didn’t understand what was going on but I took notice of everything. I come from a small district south west of Uganda, which borders Rwanda. The effects of the genocide happening to our neighbours were very visible.

A view of the centre of the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Rwanda is positioning itself as a regional hub, twenty years after the genocide ravaged the country. (Pic: AFP)
A view of the centre of the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Rwanda is positioning itself as a regional hub, twenty years after the genocide ravaged the country. (Pic: AFP)

Fast forward 20 years on to October 2014. I got to visit Rwanda again, this time to attend an African Union-hosted forum where we discussed Silencing the guns: Women in Democratisation and Peace Building in Africa. It was a pertinent theme – some African countries have barely known peace for up to 50 years. The continent has been in constant turmoil and conflict, and it is widely known that women and children bear the brunt of it. Initiatives like this pre-forum aim are aimed at including them in the process of peacebuilding rather than keeping them on the periphery.

The African Union has a vision for the continent for the next 50 years known as Agenda 2063. One of many goals is a peaceful and secure Africa. “By 2020 all guns will be silent. Mechanisms for peaceful resolution of conflicts will be functional at all levels. A culture of peace and tolerance shall be nurtured in Africa’s children and youth through peace education.”  This is why the conversation on silencing of guns was very relevant and timely.

Rwanda’s post-genocide story is unique in so many ways. Speaking at the event, Dr Aisha Abdullahi, commissioner for the AU department of political affairs, said: “Rwanda is a shining example that we can forgive,  that we can achieve healing and reconciliation, that we can prosper even when we do not have oil or minerals. Effective governance is key”. However women have got to be at the centre of the processes involved, she emphasised.

Women bring to the table a unique way of governance –  the kind that is sentimental and well thought-out. We are relational beings and while all we do and should listen to the facts and the judge, women bring the ‘Ubuntu’  aspect as well. While in Kigali, we went to visit a reconciliation village in Bugasera, a short distance away from the city centre. We heard testimonies from women who, after the genocide, turned their sons in to the authorities as they suspected they had been involved in the violence. They needed to go through the systems, either go to jail or to a reconciliation camp, one mother said frankly.

Photographs of people who were killed during the 1994 genocide are seen inside the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum. (Pic: Reuters)
Photographs of people who were killed during the 1994 genocide are seen inside the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum. (Pic: Reuters)

In Rwanda (and elsewhere), it is women who hold communities together. It is their husbands and children who were killed, it is their brothers and sisters who were wounded, but that does not stop them from advocating for equal justice for all. And history and scholars are on their side.

Over the past couple for years economists have agreed that there is nothing more central to development than the economic, political and social participation and leadership of women.  They go on to say that this is particularly true in post-conflict societies where women often make up the majority of the population. Women have the primary responsibility of raising the next generation. The majority of refugees are women and children, and not just in Africa. Female education, increasing women’s authority and uplifting their political voice have a profound effect on development in post-conflict situations. And this is what Rwanda has done. The have given women more control over resources, which is very important. We see it in our everyday lives: women will tend to give more and invest more in the livelihood of their homes and communities.

In other countries around the world, only about 20.4% of the members of parliaments are women. Rwanda prides itself on having the highest percentage of female MPs in the world – nearly 64%.

Rwanda is an example of the new trend to use electoral gender quotas to fast-track gender balance in politics. Africa has only six years to be able to achieve reconciliation and silence guns on the continent as per the aspirations of Agenda 2063, but one thing remains: effective governance is the only road to getting us to achieve a peaceful and secure continent. But women have got to steer the conversation, be a part of it and also be acknowledged by the very many partners in the process.

Ruth Aine is a Ugandan blogger and social media trainer. She blogs at aineruth.blogspot.com.

Buckets and soap – birthday gifts for a president in an Ebola zone

It has been a vexing problem for courtesans of queens, princesses and the powerful throughout history – what do you get for the woman who has everything?

For the guests celebrating the 76th birthday of Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the answer was straightforward: a few buckets, some bars of soap and gallons of disinfectant.

A head-of-state might normally blanche at such a thrifty tribute, but Ebola-hit Liberia is living in strange times and Sirleaf was more than happy, according to an official statement on Thursday’s celebrations.

“She noted that the commemoration of her birthday should be a moment of reflection for all Liberians and partners standing up together in the difficult period to fight the Ebola,” Sirleaf’s office said, expounding at length on the austerity of the occasion.

The gift came from an association of former pupils who had travelled from an agricultural school 70 kilometres  east of the capital Monrovia to wish their leader many happy returns.

“We will join the government in fighting and driving away this pandemic that has attempted to devastate our country – but our country will not be devastated,” alumni representative Kenneth Best said in a stirring speech quoted by the presidency.

A man pushes a wheelbarrow containing a woman thought to be a victim of the Ebola virus at the Ebola treatment centre at Island hospital in Monrovia on October 2 2014. (Pic: AFP)
A man pushes a wheelbarrow containing a woman thought to be a victim of the Ebola virus at the Ebola treatment centre at Island hospital in Monrovia on October 2 2014. (Pic: AFP)

If Sirleaf didn’t feel like breaking out the champagne, it is hardly surprising. Her government is leading the fight against an Ebola epidemic that has killed almost 5 000 people in west Africa, around half of them in Liberia.

Her office was at pains to point out that the presidential birthday was a time for sombre reflection rather than wild celebration.

Sirleaf received well-wishers throughout the day in her austere office in the Foreign Ministry, including members of her cabinet, the chief justice and senior officials in the governor of the central bank.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom, for the gathered guests, who recited poems and belted out birthday songs, according to the presidency.

One senator even brought news that he had managed to sign four financial bills into his county’s local laws, “as a present for the Liberian leader’s natal day”.

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, a US-based worldwide association of African-American female students and its male equivalent, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, presented Sirleaf with a cake decorated with a presidential portrait.

The booksellers of South Sudan

In 2012, as civil war loomed – and with just a quarter of the South Sudan’s population able to read and write – Awak Bior’s decision to found a bookshop may have seemed risky. But for Bior it was a necessity.

“Literacy rates are very low in South Sudan,” she says, sitting on a wooden bench at Leaves bookshop in the capital Juba. “It’s to create a way for people to see that reading is a pleasurable thing; it’s something that can give you some advantage personally and professionally.”

Bior had been a frequent traveller between South Sudan and the UK, where she grew up, with her bags stuffed full of books. Her own love of reading was nurtured by regular visits to her local library with her parents. Now, aided by a small but enthusiastic team, she runs South Sudan’s leading bookshop.

The country’s few other book stores mainly sell religious books or textbooks; Leaves’ wooden bookcases are lined with the latest novels and non-fiction from the UK, east Africa and elsewhere, while also promoting a culture of reading through public debates and book launches.

The small bookshop with big ambitions has already attracted devoted customers. Dhieu Williams, a radio presenter, is a regular visitor. He recently picked up a copy of Fidel Castro’s autobiography, My Life. “It’s not only me reading the books I buy, it’s my cousins and brothers as well,” he says.

Peter Biar is an even greater advocate for reading, a passion he traces back to stumbling across a quote by Cicero – “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” Biar, like many young men in South Sudan, was a child soldier “educated in the struggle”. Now he treasures every book he owns.

Leaves has more male customers than female, a reflection of the fact that only 16% of women can read and write, and even fewer have the kind of income which allow them to buy books, which can cost over 100 South Sudanese pounds, around £13.

Women with their faces painted with the South Sudanese flag pose during celebrations marking three years of independence in Juba on July 9,2014.
Women with their faces painted with the South Sudanese flag pose during celebrations marking three years of independence in Juba on July 9,2014.

In December 2013, civil war broke out once again in South Sudan. Thousands have been killed and nearly two million displaced. This makes Leaves even more relevant, the bookshop’s manager, Yohanis Riek, believes.

Speaking to a local radio station, he says that “now more than ever we need books. Self development is key to resolving the South Sudan crisis.” The fighting, largely carried out by young, illiterate soldiers, has also pushed South Sudanese citizens from every walk of life to consider what sort of state they wish to live in.

The rebel leader, Riek Machar, prominently displayed a copy of Why Nations Fail, by political scientists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, in his bush headquarters. Machar and other politicians have been calling for federalism, and there is increased public criticism about the political failures that led to war.

“We have more South Sudanese customers now than we did during the time of stability,” Leaves’ manager Riek says. “Maybe they are interested in knowing more about politics, and how they can live together.”

The government, led by Salva Kiir, is also being accused of clamping down on dissent, at one point indicating there should be no open public discussions of federalism. So far, Leaves’ public debates have not been affected.

Founder Bior says freedom of expression is vital for South Sudan’s future. “What we are trying to encourage is an environment where people can exchange ideas, debate and be able to come to solutions together. I think when you look at different countries that are successful, one of the things they have in common is that you can access information. If censorship starts to become more common in South Sudan, that would be a disaster, because it would hinder development and social improvement.”

Bior says the next goal is to move out of the current small premises into a bigger bookshop, to create a refuge for readers. “Most people do not read even if they want to read, because their houses are crowded, they don’t have private space.

“Electricity is another issue. In Juba in the evenings, children gather around security guard compounds just so they can read and study. We’d love to be able to fill that gap in providing a place for people to read, whether for pleasure or for study.”

James Copnall for the Guardian Africa Network

From wife-beaters to peace-preachers: Tackling domestic abuse in Zimbabwe’s hinterland

A third of Zimbabwean women have experienced physical violence at the hands of their spouse or partner. (Pic: IRIN / Jaspreet Kindra)
A third of Zimbabwean women have experienced physical violence at the hands of their spouse or partner. (Pic: IRIN / Jaspreet Kindra)

Jairos Maruwe used to beat up his wife so badly he once knocked her unconscious and broke her arm. It landed him in jail at least once, but it was the way he was raised.

“We grew up thinking that women are our tools and we can do whatever we want with them,” the 34-year-old farmer in northeastern Zimbabwe’s Marondera region told IRIN.

“We have this tendency to resort to violence and emotional abuse when we think they have wronged us,” he said.

That was then.

Now, Maruwe is the secretary of the local branch of a group set up to reduce domestic abuse in Zimbabwe, where one in three women, according to a 2013 study, experience physical violence by their spouse or partner during their lifetime.

“It is important for us as men to accept that we are the main culprits where GBV [gender-based violence] is concerned,” he told IRIN.

“The reality is that, in most of the cases, we are the ones that are wrong. My involvement in the GBV group has taught me that there are many ways of solving domestic disputes without having to resort to violence. I now preach the anti-violence gospel,” he said.

Maruwe is among hundreds of men in 26 rural districts (Zimbabwe has 59 districts in all, over 40 of which are in rural areas) to have taken part in an innovative project set up this year by local NGO Padare/Enkundleni, with funding and logistical support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). The scheme encourages men to get involved in the fight against GBV.

It forms part of a four-year, US$96 million Integrated Support Programme (ISP) on Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV prevention launched by the government last year in conjunction with UN agencies, international donors and local NGOs in an effort to reduce maternal mortality, cervical cancer, HIV and GBV.

ISP aims to provide services to 7 000 survivors of sexual assault and rape, in addition to reaching more than a million people with interventions to address some of the underlying issues that result in violence against women and girls.

Village groups
Kelvin Hazangwi, director of Padare/Enkundleni, told IRIN rural communities have been largely by-passed by anti-GBV initiatives which have tended to focus on towns and cities.

He said they had so far trained about 50 men in each district on community engagement, gender and human rights issues and methods for working with men to combat GBV. Those men then transfer their skills and knowledge to village groups (each with up to 50 members).

The men in these groups meet to talk about local reports of domestic violence and how to deal with them, in part by engaging with known perpetrators about the negative effects of GBV.

“While there are numerous initiatives and tools to fight GBV, men, who are generally seen as the perpetrators, have largely been ignored as agents of change,” Hazangwi told IRIN.

The groups write “commitment charters” which promise, among other things, to speak out against GBV and use dialogue to stop violence, to end child marriages, and to create partnerships with relevant local institutions such as the police and health centres. The charters, which are written in local languages, are posted on billboards close to busy places such as rural business centres, while local male artists are hired to paint murals at local community halls and livestock dipping points.

Padare is also targeting two schools per district where groups of a 100 male students have been formed to educate their peers about GBV.

In Marondera, where anti-GBV men’s groups have been set up in several villages, the programme is already paying dividends, say activists.

Rugare Samuriwo (60), an elder in Maruwe’s village and a member of the men’s group, told IRIN that cases of domestic violence had dropped sharply since the programme began.

“The village is now more peaceful. Involving us [men] in fighting violence in the home works, because we have the power to change our own attitudes by talking to and counselling each other. Men are now generally ashamed to be violent because they have been made aware of the negative effects of doing so,” said Samuriwo.

Hazangwi said there are plans to evaluate the programme to establish its efficacy; to date there has not been any independent assessment of the project’s impact.

Obstacles
Samuriwo admitted they faced resistance from some male villagers who refused to be part of the group and still felt that beating up their spouses and subjecting them to abuse was a way of asserting their authority in the home.

Female victims of domestic violence, he added, generally still avoided reporting their cases to the police or health institutions.

According to the 2013 study (a baseline survey on GBV in Zimbabwe), only one in every 14 women who were physically abused reported it to the police and one in 13 sought medical attention.

Ebola and the outbreak of stupidity

Given the extent of the Ebola epidemic, it’s obvious that people should take proactive and preventative measures against it. The death toll has exceeded 4 500, and the worst-affected countries in West Africa are battling to contain it. On the one hand, volunteers like Kathryn Stinson, bloggers like Edith Brou and sites like Ebola Deeply are genuinely doing their bit to help raise awareness. On the other, the US media and paranoid Americans are responding with hysteria and misinformation. Now we have what’s dubbed fearbola. Really though, it’s just stupidity in bad disguise.

So, world, here’s what you shouldn’t do:

1. Ask ridiculous questions. 

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Teju Cole won’t always have the time to answer them.

2. Remove your children from their school in Mississippi because you’ve found out that the principal recently visited Zambia. Capture

Quick geography lesson: Zambia is in Southern Africa, not West Africa, and has no confirmed cases of Ebola. ‘Mississippi on Alert’, then, for no good reason.

3. Avoid going to a store because someone who has Ebola went there too.

A nurse visited a bridal store in Ohio shortly before being diagnosed with the virus. Now no one is shopping there because: paranoia. To convince customers to return, the owners have scrubbed their shop down and brought in ultraviolet ray machines to rid it of any traces of the virus. This, after the health department told them it was unnecessary as Ebola doesn’t live long enough on surfaces to pose a risk.

4. Fly in this outfit

This photo of a woman in a homemade protective suit at Dulles International Airport outside Washington has gone viral, and not because her outfit is on trend. There have been eight cases of Ebola in the US; gloves, a mask and body gown are not necessary here.

5. Prevent kids from attending a New Jersey school because they’re from Rwanda – which has zero reported cases of Ebola and is over 4 000km  from the affected West African countries.

Two East African students were meant to begin classes on Monday at a school in New Jersey, but following a backlash from other parents, the school asked them to stay home for three weeks. Rwanda (perhaps in retaliation to this incident?), announced on Tuesday that it will start screening all Americans entering the country for Ebola, regardless of whether they are exhibiting symptoms or not.

The list could go on – from a man in Cleveland charged for inducing panic after he made a my-wife-has-ebola joke, to a college in Texas that has rejected applicants from (Ebola-free) Nigeria.

As panic and ignorance about the epidemic continue to spread, it would be more useful to rely on facts instead of fear-mongering. Pack away the Hazmat suits and pick up a map.