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Empower African Women to Realize the African Dream

Obiageli Ezekwesili

It is hard not to be inspired by the widely-recognized economic growth story of Africa: more than a decade of robust growth for a region that has become a credible destination for investment and has rebounded from the global financial crisis faster than most other regions of the world.

International Women’s Day reminds us not only of the sacrifices and resilience of African girls and women, but of the missed opportunities to tackle the gender-related obstacles that keep half of Africa’s population out of the most vibrant economic sectors on the continent.

In Africa, the feminization of poverty still remains acute. One in 20 girls born today in Angola, Mozambique, Liberia and Sierra Leone will die in childbirth. An African woman is 25 times more likely to die during labour than a European woman. Girls still face genital mutilation in 28 African countries. More than 800,000 Africans, most of them female, are victims of human trafficking.  Three young women are infected with HIV/AIDS for every young man in Africa.

The African woman, however, is also Africa’s face of hope, strength and opportunity. The rate of female entrepreneurship is higher in Africa than in any other region of the world. An African country – Rwanda – boosts the highest female representation in parliament. The primary enrollment rate has climbed from 84 girls for every 100 boys in 1991 to 91 in 2009.

Significant strides have been made on the path towards gender equity, but great challenges remain. The ratio of girls to boys in secondary school has barely moved in the last 18 years – from 76 girls per 100 boys to 79. In tertiary education, there are only 68 young women for every 100 males. In stark contrast to Rwanda, female representation in parliament across Sub-Saharan Africa is only about 18 percent.

The road to achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Africa can be built only on a gender-inclusive agenda, unleashing the productive power of women. That agenda should advance women’s education and access to information, protect women’s rights, improve women’s access to agricultural inputs and security over their land, promote female entrepreneurship, and increase the participation of women in government and public life. Urgent action in five key areas would help.

First, more African girls must go to and stay in school long enough to be armed with the skills essential for success. Girls need support at the secondary and post-secondary levels, where the crucial school-to-work transition is made. It is also vital for girls to acquire skills beyond the classroom – the kind that allow for innovation and entrepreneurship when faced with limitations.

Second, protecting women’s rights is essential for enhancing their access to economic mobility.  Family laws on inheritance, marriage, labour markets and land rights are greater determinants of economic decision-making and empowerment than are business regulations. Legal restrictions on mobility, work outside of the home and control of personal assets are in dire need of reform in many African countries.

Third, women must gain access to productive resources. If women and men had the same access to agricultural inputs, productivity on women’s farms could increase by 10 to 30 percent. It will take innovative programs to provide women with these inputs and concerted action to protect their rights to land, ultimately altering the course of agricultural productivity for women, and for the continent.

Fourth, with African women currently absorbed by businesses concentrated in the less productive areas of the informal sector, breaking free will require access to credit – not just microfinance but to higher credit amounts at low interest rates with longer maturity terms. These need to be complemented by the right kind of technical support for female entrepreneurs, delivered in a timely fashion.

Progress is possible and can come swiftly, as primary school enrolment has shown. It cannot only be symbolic, though. While education is an essential starting point, it is only the first of many hurdles in shrinking the gender gap in earnings and empowerment.

Africa needs to hear the voice of the missing half, who can help set a more representative and inclusive agenda with the right priorities – including advocating for greater commitments for pro-poor, pro-children and pro-women policies and reforms.

Success will require that African governments work with citizens and the private sector, civil society, communities and Africa’s friends in the development community. It will require sustained political will and a commitment to enforce laws that strengthen the agenda on policies friendly to girls and women.

At the World Bank, we are bringing our contribution to help build a foundation for progress, keen to listen to the ideas of the poor and recognize that Africans must lead this process. Our “Road Map for Gender Mainstreaming” addresses gender challenges. Our Gender Action Plan fosters women’s access to land, agricultural inputs, infrastructure, labour markets and financial services, while our Adolescent Girls Initiative trains mentors and empowers young African women to transition to work.

Our private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation has invested a combined U.S. $170 million under a Gender Entrepreneurship Markets initiative which has benefited thousands of women in 23 sub-Saharan African countries.

The subject is close to our hearts. Gender equity and development will be the focus of the bank’s flagship World Development Report for 2012. It is one of the themes for our three-year funding period for 2011 to 2014, for which the bank has raised $49.3 billion to benefit the world’s poorest countries, 38 of them in Africa.

 Last week, the bank’s board of executive directors endorsed our new Africa strategy. Among others, the tools for implementing the strategy – partnerships and knowledge – will leverage our funding to deepen and accelerate economic growth that generates jobs, is broad, diversified and inclusive. This will benefit the poor and women, on whom the well-being of children and future generations is so dependent.

So far, gender has been an obstacle, yet every obstacle is an opportunity in disguise. The expansion of economic and social empowerment of the African woman is the key to the realization of the African promise.

Obiageli Ezekwesili is the World Bank Vice President for the Africa region.

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Libya: UN alarmed at Reports of Violence Against Sub-Saharan Migrants

UN News Center

8 March 2011 – The United Nations refugee agency today voiced alarm at increasing accounts of violence and discrimination in Libya against sub-Saharan Africans in both the rebel-held east and the Government-controlled west, including the reported rape of a 12-year-old girl.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “reiterates its call on all parties to recognize the vulnerability of both refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and to take measures to ensure their protection,” spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing in Geneva.

Yesterday Sudanese refugees arriving from eastern Libya at the Egyptian border told UNHCR that armed Libyans were going door to door, forcing sub-Saharan Africans to leave. “In one instance a 12-year-old Sudanese girl was said to have been raped,” Mr. Edwards said.

“They reported that many people had their documents confiscated or destroyed. We heard similar accounts from a group of Chadians who fled Benghazi, Al Bayda and Brega in the past few days.”

The number of people who have fled the violence since the start of mass protests against Muammar Al-Qadhafi three weeks ago has passed 212,000, including 112,000 in Tunisia, more than half of them Tunisian and Egyptians migrants; 98,000 in Egypt, over two thirds of them Egyptian; and 2,000 in Niger, mainly Niger nationals.

UNHCR has also heard from the Algerian Government that more than 4,000 people have arrived in Algeria by air, land and sea, including evacuations from Tunisia and Egypt.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres is in Tunisia today to meet with officials and visit the border area, where he will meet with local community members who have offered aid, shelter and solidarity to the tens of thousands of migrants and refugees.

Another group that has been facing particular hardship are Bangladeshi migrants, with some 3,500 stranded at the Egyptian border, many of whom have been waiting for up to 10 days for onward transport. They are becoming “increasingly agitated,” Mr. Edwards said, and one Bangladeshi man died over the weekend after a fight over food distribution.

Many are sleeping outside in the bitter cold as available shelter is filled to capacity. Over 14,000 meals were distributed to people stranded at the border yesterday, where overall some 5,000 people are awaiting onwards transport.

At both the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, most of those awaiting evacuation are Bangladeshi single men. There is a critical shortage at present of long-haul flights to Bangladesh, other Asian countries and sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Edwards said, noting that UNHCR and the inter-governmental International Organization for Migration (IOM) are using cash contributions to charter planes and several donor countries have offered long-haul flights.

“Nevertheless, with an estimated 40 to 50 flights needed to repatriate all the migrants, further support will be needed to ensure that everyone is transported home,” he added.

At the Tunisian border with Libya, the number of arrivals has dropped considerably, compared to a week ago, with 2,485 people arriving yesterday, coinciding with intensified fighting in western Libya that has reduced mobility. Recent arrivals describe numerous military road blocks along the route, with the majority reporting that they are searched for mobile phones, memory cards and simcards,” Mr. Edwards said.

UNHCR’s tented transit camp in Choucha, close to the border, currently holds 15,000 people, 311 of them with protection concerns, including Somalis and Eritreans.

Meanwhile, a convoy of trucks from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) entered Libya last night and is due to arrive in the eastern city of Benghazi today with 70 metric tons of high-energy, fortified date bars, the first delivery of UN food aid to enter the country.

WFP is mobilizing food for the hungry as part of a $39.2 million emergency operation to feed more than 1 million people in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia over a three-month period. Preparations are under way for delivery of another 70 metric tons of the locally-produced date bars, and 150 metric tons of wheat flour, taken from the stocks of WFP operations in Egypt.

A shipment of 1,182 metric tons of wheat flour which turned back from Benghazi on Thursday amid security concerns, set sail for Libya again today.

Some 80 metric tons of WFP high energy biscuits, airlifted to the Tunisian border last week, are now being distributed as part of the food rations for new arrivals there.

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Early Humans Began in Southern Africa, Study Suggests

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News

Modern humans may have originated from southern Africa, an extensive genetic study has suggested.

Data showed that hunter-gatherer populations in the region had the greatest degree of genetic diversity, which is an indicator of longevity.

It says that the region was probably the best location for the origin of modern humans, challenging the view that we came from eastern Africa.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hunter-gatherer groups in southern Africa were among the most genetically diverse populations

“Africa is inferred to be the continent of origin for all modern human populations,” the international team of researchers wrote.

“But the details of human prehistory and evolution in Africa remain largely obscure owing to the complex histories of hundreds of distinct populations.”

‘Very exciting’

Co-author Brenna Henn, from Stanford University, California, said the team’s study – the most comprehensive of its kind – reached two main conclusions.

“One is that there is an enormous amount of diversity in African hunter-gatherer populations, even more diversity than there is in agriculturalist populations,” she told BBC News.

This is a landmark study, with far more extensive data on… hunter gatherer groups than we have ever had before, but I am cautious about localising origins from it”

“These hunter/gatherer groups are highly structured and are fairly isolated from one another and probably retain a great deal of different genetic variations – we found this very exciting.”

Dr Henn added: “The other main conclusion was that we looked at patterns of genetic diversity among 27 (present-day) African populations, and we saw a decline of diversity that really starts in southern Africa and progresses as you move to northern Africa.”

She explained that the team’s modelling was consistent with the serial founder effect. This refers to a loss of genetic variation when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from the original, larger population.

“Populations in southern Africa have the highest genetic diversity of any population, as far as we can tell.

“So this suggests that this might be the best location for (the origins) of modern humans.”

‘Landmark study’

Chris Stringer, a leading palaeontologist based at the Natural History Museum, London, said: “The new paper… suggests that the genes of the Namibian and Khomani bushmen (southern Africa), Biaka pygmies (Central Africa) and the Sandawe (East Africa) appear to be the most diverse, and by implication these are the most ancient populations of Homo sapiens.”

Professor Stringer, who was not involved in the study, added: “This is a landmark study, with far more extensive data on… hunter gatherer groups than we have ever had before, but I am cautious about localising origins from it.”

He said that the ranges of these groups were currently quite limited, but rock paintings by ancient populations that had been linked to the Bushman hinted that they were once far more widespread.

“It seems more likely that the surviving hunter-gatherer groups are now localised remnants of populations that formerly ranged across much of sub-Saharan Africa 60,000 years ago,” he told BBC News.

Professor Stringer said that he no longer thought that there was a single “Garden of Eden” where we evolved. Instead, he said, “distinct populations in ancient Africa probably contributed to the genes and behaviours that make up modern humans”.

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Fighting Malaria With Nets Nets, Mandy Moore

Mandy Moore
Singer-songwriter, actress and PSI Ambassador
Mandy Moore, Singer-songwriter, actress and PSI Ambassador

I’m extremely grateful to be invited to share my voice alongside all these incredible women on International Women’s Day. As an ambassador for the global health organization PSI (Population Services International), I’ve been fortunate to have traveled to places like the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan where I have met amazing women who rival the likes of the women on this site today.

Last fall, I traveled to the Central African Republic — a country where malaria is responsible for approximately half of all hospital visits. I was there to help launch a United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign that would provide a net to every family in need in the country.

As part of the trip, I visited a local health clinic in a rural part of the capital city, Bangui. There, I met a woman named Sophie who was with her husband and newborn baby. Her baby was inconsolable, crying from pain and hot to touch with a high fever. This was the second time Sophie had been at the clinic with her daughter. The first time her daughter she was only mildly ill, but the health clinic didn’t have any anti-malaria treatment in stock. So they referred her to the local hospital, which was an expensive bus ride away. When Sophie arrived at the hospital she realized that they couldn’t afford the medication. So she took the little remaining money she had and purchased syringes. Then she walked back to the rural health clinic and begged the doctor there to give them the medication for free. Sophie was willing to inject her daughter herself if she thought it could save her life.

Mandy Moore in the Central African Republic

That’s when I met them. The health clinic had no medication, Sophie had no money, and her daughter’s fever was worsening by the minute. Luckily, in her case, we were able to give her the money needed to return to the hospital by cab and purchase the right treatments.

That was the last time I saw Sophie and her baby. I often think of them and hope that they’re okay. But I can’t help but wonder what will happen the next time her daughter is bitten by a malaria-carrying mosquito, when there’s no group of Westerners at the clinic willing to pay her way.

Thankfully, there’s hope for mothers like her. Long-lasting, insecticide-treated mosquito nets are one of the most cost-effective and cost-efficient ways of preventing malaria. Nets can prevent malaria transmission by up to 90 percent, and through the Nothing But Nets campaign that I helped launch, the government of Central African Republic and its partners at PSI and UNICEF were able to distribute nearly 1 million mosquito nets — one for every family in need.

At the same time, thanks to a grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the local health clinic where I met Sophie is now able to provide preventative malaria treatment to pregnant women, free of charge. Malaria contributes to the deaths of an estimated 10,000 pregnant women and 200,000 infants each year in Africa, so early and effective treatment can prevent a great majority of deaths.

But tackling malaria in a country like the Central African Republic is a huge uphill battle, and my experiences there have been a healthy dose of reality, fueling my own sense of urgency to do my part in reducing the preventable suffering of the incredible women I met. This year, I will be attending the Clinton Global Initiative University, a meeting for students and national youth organizations to tackle pressing global issues. I am excited about being a part of this growing community of young leaders who don’t just discuss the world’s challenges, but take real, concrete steps toward solving them — real, concrete steps to empower women like Sophie to protect herself and her family.

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What I would Talk About if I Were a Celebrity: Spousal Rape

Valentine Day is about love, chocolate and kisses.  Mother’s Day is about extravagance, breakfast in bed and Women’s Fellowship service at church. International Women’s Day is about serious issues with dire consequences for millions of women in hundreds of countries. Marital or spousal rape is one.  The first celebration of International Women’s Day occurred on March 19, 1911, 100 years ago. Before this period, employers had their choice whether to hire women and most governments in the world, including the U.S. and Canada, prohibited women from voting. In fact, employers who decided to have anything at all to do with women relegated them to the sweatshop.

Significant progress has been made over the past hundred years but huge challenges remain for the women of today. On this anniversary, a lot has been written by more qualified experts to address some of these challenges women face. If I were a celebrity or a popular figure who people listen to, what I would love to write or talk about would be spousal rape or marital rape which occurs in several African communities and many countries.

Marital rape or spousal rape is an issue that has received very little attention internationally. I want to admit that the first time I heard the term ‘marital rape’, it sounded an oxymoron or a paradox. It was like hearing “useless treasure”, “precious garbage” or “holy dirt”. I asked myself how someone could be raped by her own partner. Isn’t that what the relationship is for?

There are millions of people, some highly educated, some not, who hold the mentality that I had. In many communities in many countries, when a woman (girl or adult) is forcibly made to have sex, it is reported as rape. No problem.  When a husband forcibly pounces on his wife and has sex with her, even when she’s least ready and least expecting it, that’s no news. She’s just the wife. In fact, journalist, don’t even cover it. Marital rape does not get any attention but it happens every single day. In many countries around the world, marital rape is either legal, or illegal but widely tolerated and accepted as a husband’s prerogative.

In a 2008-2009 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, the report states that “at least 14 percent of married women said their current husband or partner had forced them to have sex in the past year, while another 37 percent had been subjected to sexual violence at some point in their relationship”. That is 14 out of every 100 women surveyed said their husbands had entered them forcibly in one year. And 37 women out of 100, overall! That is nearly 4 out of every 10 women! Again a World Health Organization conducted a study on violence against women in Tajikistan and Turkey. In Tajikistan they surveyed 900 women above the age of 14 and found that 47% of married women reported having been forced to have sex by their husband. In Turkey 35.6% of women had experienced marital rape sometimes and 16.3% often.  How many of these were reported? How many were covered in the evening news? And how many appeared in the local newspaper? Perhaps none. The societies accept these social behaviors and actually women who come out and report these behaviors will be stigmatized. A politician wouldn’t want to waste an ounce of their effort fighting such an irrelevant matter.

As we celebrate the international women’s day, I’ll end this by suggesting a few actions that governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and communities need to take to protect the rights and dignity of women in relationships.

  • Embark on aggressive community campaigns to educate the citizenry on what sexual violence and rape in marriage implies
  • Empower the women to assert their rights and report what they perceive as rape or other forms of sexual violence
  • Enact laws to police marital or spousal rape and related violence
  • Train and provide health care professionals at the hospital who can identify what rape and other sexual violence are, who know what the law is, and how to enforce it and can show the women how to move forward. Since some of these women will eventually end up at the hospital or clinic with lacerations and other ‘fingerprints’ this will be an effective method to identify women who may have been abused.

I wish all women a Happy Women’s Day. Violence against women is violence against civilization.
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International Women’s Day, 2011: Time to Make the Promise of Equality a Reality

Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director, UN Women
Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director, UN Women

A hundred years ago today, women across the world took an historic step on the long road to equality. The first ever International Women’s Day was called to draw attention to the unacceptable and often dangerous working conditions that so many women faced worldwide. Although the occasion was celebrated in only a handful of countries, it brought over one million women out onto the streets, demanding not just better conditions at work but also the right to vote, to hold office and to be equal partners with men.

I suspect those courageous pioneers would look at our world today with a mixture of pride and disappointment. There has been remarkable progress as the last century has seen an unprecedented expansion of women’s legal rights and entitlements. Indeed, the advancement of women’s rights can lay claim to be one of the most profound social revolutions the world has seen.

One hundred years ago, only two countries allowed women to vote. Today, that right is virtually universal and women have now been elected to lead Governments in every continent. Women, too, hold leading positions in professions from which they were once banned. Far more recently than a century ago, the police, courts and neighbors still saw violence in the home as a purely private matter. Today two-thirds of countries have specific laws that penalize domestic violence and the United Nations Security Council now recognizes sexual violence as a deliberate tactic of war.

But despite this progress over the last century, the hopes of equality expressed on that first International Women’s Day are a long way from being realized.  Almost two out of three illiterate adults are women. Girls are still less likely to be in school than boys. Every 90 seconds of every day, a woman dies in pregnancy or due to childbirth-related complications despite us having the knowledge and resources to make birth safe.

Across the world, women continue to earn less than men for the same work. In many countries, too, they have unequal access to land and inheritance rights. And despite high-profile advances, women still make up only 19 per cent of legislatures, 8% of peace negotiators, and only 28 women are heads of state or government.  

It is not just women who pay the price for this discrimination. We all suffer for failing to make the most of half the world’s talent. We undermine the quality of our democracy, the strength of our economies, the health of our societies and the sustainability of peace. This year’s focus of International Women’s Day on women’s equally access to education, training, science and technology underscores the need to tap this potential.

The agenda to secure gender equality and women’s rights is a global agenda, a challenge for every country, rich and poor, north and south. It was in recognition of both its universality and the rewards if we get this right that the United Nations brought together four existing organizations to create UN Women.  The goal of this new body, which I have the great privilege to lead, is to galvanize the entire UN system so we can deliver on the promise of the UN Charter of equal rights of men and women.  It is something I have fought for my whole life.

As a young mother and a pediatrician, I experienced the struggles of balancing family and career and saw how the absence of child care prevented women from paid employment.  The opportunity to help remove these barriers was one of the reasons I went into politics. It is why I supported policies that extended health and childcare services to families and prioritized public spending for social protection.  

As President, I worked hard to create equal opportunities for both men and women to contribute their talents and experiences to the challenges facing our country. That is why I proposed a Cabinet that had an equal number of men and women.

As Executive Director of UN Women, I want to use my journey and the collective knowledge and experience all around me to encourage progress towards true gender equality across the world. We will work, in close partnership, with men and women, leaders and citizens, civil society, the private sector and the whole UN system to assist countries to roll out policies, programs and budgets to achieve this worthy goal.    

I have seen myself what women, often in the toughest circumstances, can achieve for their families and societies if they are given the opportunity. The strength, industry and wisdom of women remain humanity’s greatest untapped resource. We simply cannot afford to wait another 100 years to unlock this potential.

About the author: Michelle Bachelet is the first Executive Director of UN Women, a newly formed UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. She is the former President of Chile.

SOURCE UN Women

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International Women’s Day and Egypt’s 25 January Revolution: What Do the Women Stand to Gain From Their Struggle?

Will process result in any tangible gains for the majority of  women who participated fully in the struggle?

Egyptian women in the recent uprising

International Women’s Day is observed each year on the 8th of March since the 1900s. This year’s commemoration happens just weeks after the women of North Africa and the Middle East courageously, and alongside their male counterparts, participated fully in the struggle for freedom, equality, democracy, participatory governance and justice in their own respective countries. They participated as equals, were exposed to the same cruel conditions as male participants, suffered the same consequences as everyone else and did not seek any special treatment but change with equal opportunities for all. The question worth asking at this stage is:

  • will their full participation during the revolution result in their full involvement and representation in the structures that are currently deliberating the future of their countries?
  • or will they be marginalised and pushed back to their ‘traditional’ roles in society?

Commenting on South Africa’s situation, Sheila Meintjies notes the significant role that SA women played in the fight against apartheid but asks “how would this participation be translated into electoral politics and representative democracy?

  • Would women’s presence be reflected in political and material gains for women in society?”

These questions remain relevant in light of the disturbing developments in Egypt. The brutal and sexual assault on CBS reporter Lara Logan during the uprisings is again a  stark reminder of the challenges that women still faces since the first celebration of Women’s Day in 1911.

The reality for Egyptian women at present is that they have been completely marginalised in the nation building process with very few of them having been appointed to serve in structures tasked with deciding the country’s future. The complete absence of women in the Constitutional Committee amending Egypt’s constitution makes mockery of the January 25 revolution which was moulded around the ideals of equality; freedom and the involvement of all citizens in decisions affecting their lives.  Women organisations and other movements like the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights and the Egyptian Coalition for Civic Education and Women’s Participation have already raised concerns over these developments. A few weeks back, the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights circulated a petition which raised concerns over the exclusive nature of the Constitutional committee. The Egyptian Coalition consisting of around 102 NGO’s also issued a statement condemning the amendments to the Constitution which will make men the only candidates eligible for appointment to the position of the President.

Countries who have undergone Egypt’s journey in recent years would know of the necessity to have constitutions that best represent the aspirations and dreams of all citizens. In order for Egypt’s constitution to be legitimate, the process of making it must be inclusive and speak to the diversity of views and needs of its entire people and be highly considerate of women’s issues and concerns. South Africa’s Constitution which is regarded as the best in the world is a direct product of processes which never fell short of seeking to encompass the multiplicity of views within the nation. As a result, South Africa’s Constitution guarantees women’s rights; and affords equal treatment of all people irrespective of gender, sex, race, religion, belief, culture and so on. Egypt can also learn from the constitutions of countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Iraq and Nepal which guarantees women’s rights and political rights.

No one denies that different conditions exist in all countries, however, the rights of all people including women transcend boundaries. The importance of these rights also find expression in the Convention on All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Beijing Platform for Action, the Protocol to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of women in Africa; and  the Millennium Development Goals. It is no secret that Egyptian women have a lot of challenges to deal with and these challenges are openly discussed in various reports by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights on the status of Egyptian women. These reports speak to the needs for the strengthening of laws on sexual harassment, rape, women’s health and reproductive rights, domestic violence, honor crimes, female circumcision, human trafficking of women as sex workers, divorce laws,  inheritance laws, ownership and property rights. In light of these challenges it is clear that it can only be through participating fully in the Constitution making process and other structures building Egypt that women of that country can best ensure that the future holds a better and brighter life for Egypt’s daughters and mothers.

As the deliberations continue women should hang on to the revolution spirit and ensure that it delivers for them as well. Egypt’s revolution would be half achieved if it does not speak to the needs, dreams, and aspirations of all the people who made it possible.

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Libya’s Gadhafi No Friend To Africa

A wounded fighter is brought into a the Ras Lanuf Hospital from the battle in Bin Jawad on March 6, 2011, as tanks shell the center of rebel-held Misrata (Photo: AFP / Marco Longari)
Editoria, VOA

Strife is intensifying in Libya, where citizens of that North African nation inspired by pro-democracy protests in Egypt, Tunisia and other nearby countries are demanding the removal of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi. Unlike other discredited leaders, he is showing no sign acceding to the popular will, and in fact is conducting a brutal campaign to cling to power. Protestors have been beaten and shot in the capital Tripoli, and government troops have been sent to attack those organizing in other parts of the country to oppose him.

Amid the clashes, speculation has grown that Gadhafi has brought in foreign fighters to bolster his forces. With the eastern part of Libya now in the control of anti-government protestors, there are numerous reports that mercenaries from several sub-Saharan African countries are helping Gadhafi put up a stand in Tripoli and other areas in the west. Amnesty International and other independent groups have asked the African Union to look into the reports that fighters from member nations are being recruited to help put down the Libyan protests.

One nation that keeps coming up in the discussion is Zimbabwe. That country’s long-time President Robert Mugabe also is under pressure for democratic change, and is sympathetic to Gadhafi’s plight. When Zimbabwean Defense Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa was asked in Parliament about reports that several hundred serving and retired soldiers and pilots from the Zimbabwean armed forces recently flew to Libya, he fueled the suspicions by dodging the question. It is not my job to investigate activities in another African country, he said.

The United Nations Security Council, alarmed by the violence raging in Libya, passed a resolution February 26th that makes it clear there will be accountability for the brutal treatment being suffered by the Libyan people. It also imposed an arms embargo that in addition to banning the sale or shipment of weapons there prohibits the transit of mercenaries. The responsibilities of other nations under the resolution are very clear, and the United States insists that countries like Zimbabwe respect them.[ad#Adsense-468×60]