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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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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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The African Woman

The International Women Day has come and gone, with much pomp and pageantry. It is indeed noteworthy that a day has been set aside to celebrate and recognize the achievements and importance of women the world over. The contributions of women to national development in different parts of the world can hardly be faulted.

However, in as much as the achievements of women are recognized and worldwide, the situation of the African woman still paints a pathetic picture. In most parts of Africa, harmful cultural practices such as female circumcision, some prefer to call it female genital mutilation, forced marriages, child rape [pedophilia], denial of access to education for the female child, sex slavery in Europe and other Western nations are still the order of the day. This has made the lot of the African woman pathetic and almost hopeless as against their counterparts in other parts of the globe.

The African woman has come of age, and it is important for society particularly the African society to begin to revisit some of these harmful and detrimental cultural practices that tend to inhibit or lock up the development potentials of women. It would not be surprising to learn that the current state of underdevelopment in Africa can to some extent be attributed to the state of the African woman.
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