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Who are The Women and Where are They?

Photo credit-World Bank

This is not supposed to be an essay. I’m just kind of talking to myself about some things that cheese me off.

Former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said

“There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women”

I mentioned in one of my earlier articles that the problems African women face are enormous and they begin on day 1, or before. This is why we’ve devoted so much time and space to discuss issues affecting women in Africa and around the world on this website.

But since this afternoon, I’ve being asking, “Who are the women and where are they”?

I wrote about a handful of occurrences of violence against women, mostly from Ghana, and a few from other regions. One involved the brutal murder of an elderly woman, Ama Hemmaa, (who was burnt to death) by a pastor and his staff on suspicion she was a witch.

The most recent was the unutterable invasion of a suspected woman thief on the campus of the University of Ghana, Legon. I wish I had the video here for you to watch, because describing the incident over and over again makes me feel like telling an ‘adult story’. You could imagine the worst guys can do to a girl or read some of the earlier post on this issue.

There have been a few comments here from those who think Amina deserved what she did because a laptop is difficult to come by in Ghana. You have a point, friend; individuals who engage in such behaviors need to pay for it, LAWFULLY. That is the job of the campus police and that’s what we pay them to do. To strip the young woman naked, finger her (did I say that?) and put it on video is just antediluvian.

Granted that Amina deserved what she got, what about Ama Hemmaa?

This post is not meant to rehash the episodes; I just wanted to raise a few questions and ask for opinions.

It irritates me that women groups and organizations on campus, in Accra and in Ghana as a whole, have been silent on these issues. The silence is deadening. Some of us have done, and will continue to do our best. We’ve sent petitions to the authorities and hope they respond, someday.

I would welcome demonstrations and strikes from women groups and organization demanding immediate response from both the University authorities and local law enforcement. Not heard of any yet.

You cannot ask for equality and justice while you will not articulate what you want and demand it. Equality is not about husbands changing diapers while wives wash dishes. There will not be true equality and justice when issues like these are seen as commonplace.

I do not assume this is a universal problem. Women in other places may be more assertive, aggressive and pro-active in fighting for their rights. Those in Legon, Accra and Ghana have not yet demonstrated such a spirit.

I’m not advocating for violence, but we would not have a black President of America if Martin Luther King and his colleagues were just pissed off and stayed indoor to watch cartoons.

My questions are:

  • Why do women not come out strong and advocate for each other and for their own rights?
  • Why would women just sit and watch, while an elderly woman who just needs to enjoy her latter years is burnt for being a witch?
  • Is this situation unique to Ghana or pervasive across the continent (referring to women not speaking out for their own)?

Have any ideas and suggestions? Please drop them here for me.

Thank you.

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Mob Justice: If It Happens at Legon, Imagine What Goes on at Mmaa Nse Hwee

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The urban dictionary defines mob justice as “When a large angry mob takes justice into their own hands. Usually ends with somebody getting hanged, torched or pitchfork’d. A common method of dispensing justice in the more rural areas of a country”

Mob justice is a social and public health quandary in several communities in some African countries. A survey in Tanzania showed that 1249 people suspected of various crimes were killed by mobs in Dar es Salaam during the period of 2000–2004 (Afr Health Sci. 2006 March; 6(1): 36–38). That is almost 250 people killed by mobs per year in one city.

As for the above definition from Urban Dictionary, forget about it. The dictionary definition may be true for Sweden or Norway where mob justice is a rural phenomenon, but not for Ghana or Tanzania.

In Ghana, mob justice is a campus fantasy. It is adored at the citadel of education and enlightenment.

On Thursday March 31, a mob of students offered justice to a suspected female thief caught in one of the dormitories of the University of Ghana. I watched the video and some of the stuff I saw are unprintable. I apologize, but I cannot describe them here, for fear Google may flag my website for hosting adult content.

Mob justice is not a new trend in Ghana. I witnessed a suspected thief stoned to death at Techiman Market in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. I was in Secondary School and had gone to market one Friday to buy some groceries and was unfortunate to encounter the mob in action.

What is new and disconcerting is the fact that such a practice is permeating academic environments and being condoned. I would not be writing about the Legon incident if it happened at Mmaa Nse Hwee, a fictional rural community somewhere not yet on the map. I would be irresponsible however to join the silence when such a despicable behavior is orchestrated in a place where people are being educated to become lawyers, doctors, presidents, and pastors.

An online petition that was launched on this website was signed by hundreds of readers home and abroad. A letter was sent to the University in which we asked the authorities to

  • Speed up investigation into the sexual violence carried out by some residents of Sarbah Hall against a suspected campus thief, Amina
  • Report on the findings to the public as soon as possible
  • Announce appropriate punishments for the responsible students.
  • Institute measures that will prevent such incidence from happening on such a respected academic environment. We believe that unless the definitional and substantive aspects of the rape law and associated set of laws which deal with sexual harassment, molestation, unnatural offences, are clearly spelt out with appropriate potential punitive measures, any response given to this incident will remain historically a hollow gesture.

It’s been over week. No response. And it’s been over two weeks since the students carried out their action. No actionable response yet from either the University authorities or the local law enforcement

Again, if this is accepted at Legon, imagine what goes on at Mmaa Nse Hwee.

Thanks for Reading 

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Teenage Love in Senegal and Baby Dumping in Namibia: Why Sex is not for The Ignorant

Regular visitors to TalkAfrique.com may have noticed that a disproportional amount of space is dedicated to the issues affecting women in Africa. The reasons are obvious, to say the least. The issues affecting women in Africa are enormous, and they begin the very day the doctor or mid-wife says “It’s a girl”.  Today, I discuss two disturbing statistics that are prevalent across the continent, at least, in most countries.

Senegal:

According to the UN World Health Organization, seventy percent (70%!) of teenage girls in Senegal are married. You would probably doubt this figure if the source was any other than the WHO. A report by the United Nations Children Fund early in the month showed that in Senegal, teenage pregnancies are responsible for 40% of maternal deaths in the country.

Teenage pregnancies account for up to 40% of maternal deaths in some African countries

African women are under-represented in all sectors of society except in the poverty department. Figures such as indicated above continue to be real adversaries that need to be tackled bluntly. The situation in Senegal is not an isolated incidence but rather a pervasive war of attrition that needs to be won sooner than later. In Niger, 50% of girls are married before they are 15. A couple of month ago, we posted an article here with similar disturbing facts: nearly, 5000 schoolgirls in Johannesburg, South Africa, became pregnant in just one school calendar year. It is regrettable to say that most of these girls would never become what they dreamed of becoming: teachers, pastors, parliamentarians, ambassadors, or doctors.

Namibia:

In Namibia, it’s even perhaps more shocking. Reports coming to light show that baby-dumping by teenage girls is at all-time high. Most teenage girls admit that the plausible balance between carrying an unplanned pregnancy, the stigma attached to it, the rejection by family and the society and the difficulty in obtaining or affording abortion, is to simply dump the baby. According to media reports from the state health department, about 40 bodies of newborns are found each month in human waste flushed down toilets.

I would love to hope that these incidences are unique to Senegal and Namibia but I’m afraid it rather the opposite. It is estimated that 80 women die each day in Africa from procedures they adopt to terminate unwanted pregnancies. We have a society that sweeps thorny issues under the carpet and hope they go away. Like it or hate it, teens are having sex, an exercise that is not meant for the ignorant, because the consequences could be the difference between life and death, graduation and fallout, and success and failure. When a girl is brought up in a male-dominated society where the powerful man gets whatever he desires, equipping the poor girl with ignorance is essentially sentencing them to a life of a nightmare.

It is time to close the curtain on the era when mere mention of sex in the family or school was a taboo. African teens need know more; in fact they want to know more, about sex and how to protect themselves from teenage pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Whatever we’ve been doing for the past years is not working, at least, not as we expect. The figures don’t lie.

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Warriors in Pink: Women in African Politics-Video

Dora Akinyuli, Nigerian Political Candidate

With the exception of few isolated cases, the participation of women in African politics is marginal but things are beginning to change, somehow. Currently, women constitute 49% of the parliament in Rwanda, the highest percentage in world rankings of women in national parliaments. The world average is about 15% women.

The video below shows how some women in Nigeria are hoping to change the statistics in the West African country.

“Study after study has shown that there is no effective development strategy in which women do not play a central role,” says UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. When women are fully involved, he notes, the benefits are immediate – families are healthier and better fed and their income, savings and investments go up. “And what is true of families is also true of communities and, in the long run, of whole countries.”

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In Africa, 10% of Pregnancies Experience Pre-eclampsia, But New Findings Bring Hope

In African, pre-eclampsia occurs in 10% of pregnancies

Scientists say they have identified genetic errors that appear to increase a pregnant woman’s chance of getting the condition called pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia is an abnormal state of pregnancy characterized by hypertension, fluid retention and albuminuria. If not detected and managed early it can be potentially life-threatening.

Approximately four in every 100 women develops this problem of high blood pressure and leaky kidneys during pregnancy. Black women are more likely to get high blood pressure and preeclampsia than white women. In African, pre-eclampsia occurs in 10% of pregnancies, which is significantly higher than the global average of approximately 4%.

Now researchers have found a faulty DNA which may be blamed in some cases. The report is presented in the journal PLoS Medicine. It is a discovery that could lead the way to identify and treat women at risk before it becomes life-threatening.

The US researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis analyzed DNA from over 300 pregnant women.

Sixty of these were healthy women but were hospitalized because they developed severe pre-eclampsia. The remaining 240 were women were under surveillance for other health complications. Forty of these also went on to develop pre-eclampsia.

Researchers analyzed the DNA from the subjects and found that some genetic errors were shared by five of the 60 healthy women and seven of the 40 “higher-risk pregnancy” women who developed pre-eclampsia.

The faulty DNA were located on genes that play a role in regulating immune response, confirming the suspicion that scientists had that pre-eclampsia could be provoked by hitches in the immune response. Generally, women with autoimmune diseases such as lupus have an increased risk of pre-eclampsia

The researchers plan to study more pregnant women and other genes to further their understanding.

Currently, the best way to stop the progress of pre-eclampsia is to deliver the baby. This contributes to the statistics of pre-mature babies who are at increased risks of several complications.

Further studies into these faulty genes may help to establish a protocol to identify women at increased risk of pre-eclampsia and put them on increased surveillance as early as possible in their pregnancy.

In communities where access to medical services is limited or unaffordable such as common in most African countries, these findings reveal promising potential for women in their pregnancies.

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African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) Nominations 2011

The African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) hosted the 2011 AMAA Awards Nominations this year  Night in Nairobi, Kenya.

Below are a few of the starts present?

Do you feel the elegance?

Joke Silva: If you think you're looking at a 20-something, go get something to drink. Amazing. The long bat-sleeved chiffon dress with a waist cinching corset belt is the perfect thing for Mama Joke
Rita Dominic looked fantastic in a floor-length red dress. And check the long locks swept to the side, oh, gurl.

 

Jackie Appiah: What a perfect representation of why I love African women? Check the curls and the shoulder
Mike Ezuruonye (left) and Majid Michel (right). Mike got it right in his black suit paired with a striped shirt and Majid is the real thing in the black suit paired with a white shirt
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Strip Clubs Outpace Laws in Kenya

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By Rose Odengo

Sunday, March 13, 2011

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 1 – Police raided a popular Nairobi strip club and arrested at least 15 people on the New Year Eve, the latest in a series of crack downs on night spots deemed to promote immorality in the city.

NAIROBI, Kenya: At 9 p.m. on a Saturday, a 6-inch glass heel pierces the air at the Pango F3 club. An agile exotic dancer wearing a red G-string bikini gyrates on a golden pole, entertaining the mesmerized clientele.

“Just here to have fun,” says Bhavesh, a regular patron who declined to give his full name to protect his reputation.

The disc jockey plays international hits and the spotlight focuses on Norah, a stripper, who climbs the pole and whips her long weave around as she slides down it. She lands on her head and gyrates upside down. The patrons go wild and queue to tip her 1,000-shilling bills ($12 in U.S. currency) in her G-string.

The 10 dancers work six nights a week, plus have daily aerobics sessions and dance rehearsals, says Sabrina, the dancers’ supervisor and trainer, while monitoring them from the back of the club. She says they declined to give their full names because of the stigma attached to stripping in Kenya.

Relatively new to Kenya, strip clubs are on the rise. Some cite urbanization, Internet advertising and international pressure for their advent. High pay also fuels the industry, as strippers say they can double the money they could earn at other jobs, where they may be sexually harassed anyway.

Yet because it’s a new phenomenon, no clear laws governing stripping are on the books. Advocates propose creating red-light districts to curb illegal activities around strip clubs and granting legal rights to strippers.

Clubs Previously Unheard Of

Seven years ago, strip clubs were unheard of in downtown Nairobi, says Chris Hart, a psychologist. Now, patrons and managers estimate there to be 10 public strip clubs and 20 private clubs, or houses rented for private parties. There are no official statistics yet.

Not far from Pango F3 is a competing strip club, Liddos. The strippers dance on the pole and give lap dances to the predominantly male crowd. At 11 p.m., pornography plays on two 40-inch plasma TVs. At midnight, the strippers remove everything but their bikini tops.

Hart attributes the rise in strip clubs in Nairobi to Kenya’s “catching up with the world.”

Bhavesh and other clients say they discovered Kenya’s strip clubs online. Liddos uses Facebook to update fans about new events.

Mike Katana, Pango F3’s manager, says the club attracts international celebrities such as Wyclef Jean, Shaggy, Gramps Morgan and Akon.

“When they come to Kenya to perform, they also look for their own entertainment,” he says. “They tell their promoters that they want to feel like they feel in Atlanta.”

Hart says strip clubs attract dancers because of the high income. Winnie says she used to be a waitress but switched to stripping at Pango F3 after her manager hit on her.

“If it’s all about my looks, then I’ll make as much money as I can out of it,” she says.

Katana says a stripper’s average income in Nairobi is 10,000 shillings ($120 USD) a month–almost double Kenya’s monthly per capita income. Nearly half of Kenyans live in poverty, according to the World Bank.

Lucy, 21, a former stripper, says the job isn’t easy, adding that some strippers use cannabis to help them perform.

“You smile not because you enjoy yourself,” she says. “You are here to please clients and get paid, so you fake a smile.”

Strip Clubs Illegal

Strip clubs are illegal in Kenya. The owners evade that law by registering them as bars. John Ngugi, Nairobi City Council treasurer, says that the City Council must award the bars operating licenses after the liquor licensing board awards the required liquor licenses.

“Our hands are tied,” Ngugi says. “We don’t regulate how people drink beer–if they drink their beer naked or not.”

Police occasionally raid strip clubs, but, without legislation, procedures are unregulated. Lucy recalls a 2 a.m. raid at Barrels, another Nairobi strip club, where police said the club hadn’t paid for its license.

“Police came in with guns and all the strippers were asked to take all their clothes off,” she says.

The police whisked the patrons and dancers to the police station. At dawn, Lucy bailed herself out with her tips but says she left behind eight shivering colleagues who couldn’t afford bail.

Eric Kiraithe, Kenya police spokesperson, says stripping needs clearer regulations, as the Kenyan penal code doesn’t differentiate between strippers and prostitutes. Both are misdemeanors, carrying a 3,000-shilling ($36 USD) fine.

Evan Monari, a lawyer, says no strip clubs existed when the penal code was instituted.

He says the Kenya Tourist Board should work with local authorities to create a red-light district. Another lawyer, Duncan Mwanyumba, says this will reduce illegal activities around the clubs and accord the strippers respect.

Mwanyumba says he and the International Federation of Women Lawyers will advocate for legal rights for strippers and prostitutes at this year’s Koinange Street Festival, a carnival in Nairobi’s unofficial red-light district.

Rose Odengo Women enews correspondent

Rose Odengo describes herself as a benefactor of African oral tradition. She is passionate about writing stories of Africa in order to empower disadvantaged African women in hopes of restoring their dignity to make Africa a glorious, proud, prosperous and beautiful continent. She joined Global Press Institute’s Kenya News Desk in 2011.


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The Women of Benghazi

 

 

The story from the revolution in Libya and Egypt tell us one simple truth: the desire to be free is universal. Men or women, children or adults, Muslims, Christians or Jews; the desire in the soul to be free is collective.
With husbands, sons and brothers at the front, women are supporting them with meals and supplies.

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