BOCONGO plans campaign on SADC gender protocol

MARANYANE NGWANAAMOTHO
Staff Writer | Thursday November 25, 2010 00:00

BOCONGO gender and development sector coordinator, Chigedze Chinyepi, told Mmegi yesterday that they found it necessary to take the protocol to the public because the government wants to keep the people in the dark about what it stands for. The Botswana government has remained adamant that it would not sign the protocol much to the chagrin of stakeholders like BOCONGO. 

'The government does not tell the public the truth about the protocol and we therefore want to go around the country and discuss the protocol so that Batswana can understand that the protocol intends to protect the most vulnerable in our societies.  We want to help them understand that it is necessary for government to sign it,' Chinyepi said. 

She stated that early this year, at the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva, the United Nations urged Botswana to swiftly change its Constitution to guard against gender and discrimination issues.

'Botswana was given two years to change Section 15(4) of the Constitution since it showed that the constitution allows immense discrimination based on one's gender,' she said. 

She said that since the government has not signed the SADC protocol, it is not forced to change the Constitution in favour of those who are currently left in the cold. 

In a report book produced by CEDAW, the United Nations stated that: 'The committee is deeply concerned that Section 15 (4) of the Constitution exempts adoption, marriage, divorce, burial and devolution of property on death and other matters of personal law from the constitutional provision of non-discrimination, indicating violations by the state party of rights set forth in the convention, in particular articles two and six of the convention'. 

Article two of the SADC protocol says that state parties shall harmonise national legislation, policies, strategies and programmes with relevant regional and international instruments related to the empowerment of women and girls for the purpose of ensuring gender equality and equity.

It recommends that affirmative action measures shall be put in place with particular reference to women and girls, in order to eliminate all barriers, which prevent them from participating meaningfully in all spheres of life.

Article six focuses on domestic legislation and says that state parties shall review, amend, and or repeal all laws that discriminate on the ground of sex or gender by 2015. It says that state parties shall enact and enforce legislative and other measures to ensure equal access to justice and protection before the law; to abolish the minority status of women by 2015; to eliminate practices which are detrimental to the achievement of the rights of women by prohibiting such practices and attaching deterrent sanctions and lastly to eliminate gender based violence. 

Chinyepi said that these are the requirements that the government is using to refuse to sign the protocol. By so doing, she said the government is allowing gender-based discrimination to continue in Botswana.  She said that currently, there is no provision for women who suffer abuse from their deceased husband's families who dispossess widows of everything they claim belongs to their son or brother.  She said §the protocol argues that there should be a law that protects the widows and children. 'We therefore want to continue lobbying for the government to see how important it is necessary to sign the protocol,' she said.

 SADC countries adopted the protocol on gender and development in 2008. At the time only three countries, Botswana, Malawi and Mauritius refused to sign. But last year, Malawi signed, leaving Botswana and Mauritius as the only resisters.