How to translate rights and legal entitlements into reality for many rural women who do not know how to claim their rights nor how to seek redress over unfair treatment? Credit: Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS

Agriculture is key to women’s livelihoods in rural West Africa and to the survival of the national economies. But despite women’s crucial work on the farms women’s rights to land ownership, control and access to land continues to be neglected.

The importance of African women farmers has been long recognized in international development since the famous study by Ester Boserup in 1970 a message that continues to be underlined in major reports such 2010-2011 UN State of Food and Agriculture Report on ‘Women and Agriculture: Closing the gender gap for development’.

Rural Women will be the subject of the Commission on the Status of Women in 2012 and there are are also numerous protocols and international agreements including The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR)  and The African Union Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (“Women’s 
Protocol”).

But how to translate these rights and legal entitlements into reality for many rural women who do not know how to claim their rights nor how to seek redress over unfair treatment?

There are many impediments due to patriarchal customs and laws that mean that poor women are left vulnerable. Particularly widows whose husbands die intestate and wives from polygamous unions who are not recognized as legally married. These women are easily exploited and lose access to land they work and depend on for survival. Uneducated rural women in West Africa are often not well informed about their legal rights nor have the business acumen about how to purchase or lease land using processes that involve complex economic and social negotiations, often dominated by men. Studies in the region reveal that women mostly enter into oral land transactions and fail to register their land, and most women do not inherit land but gain access via marriage. The study also revealed that violence against women by in-laws often prevented women from taking up their rights.

Women in Development and Law WiLDAF-AO in West Africa reaches out to women farmers to promote the access of women to full ownership of land and to work on the land in safe and secure conditions. WiLDAF-AO recognizes that this requires women being educated on their rights including participating in decision-making within the communities and in farmer organisations. It also means supporting women’s rights in the settlement of family disputes and community of inheritance claims and tackling violence against women in rural areas.

The MDG3 Fund has provided WiLDAF-AO with the funds to support women members of farmers’ organisations and rural women in 5 West African countries to know and claim their rights. Through the support of the Fund WiLDAF-AO is training 250 women in farmers’ organisations on how to change gender inequalities experienced by rural women in West Africa particularly around land inheritance and access to resources and economic opportunities and access to power and decision-making.
In this hands on work, WiLDAF-AO is presently working with farmers’ organisations in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo. In these countries WiLDAF-AO trains paralegals to work with the women farmers to understand the law to help them in their homes, communities and economic activities. They also initiate support women to combat violence against rural women involving the community, including men in the fight to end violence.

Apart from training, education, sensitization and legal advice, WiLDAF-AO also supports advocacy activities at community and national levels for rural women to lobby for legal changes to ensure their access to inheritance, and to support women’s agricultural and commercial activities.

At the core of WiLDAF-AO activities is to ensure awareness by rural women of their rights and their actions to make them known and ensure their application in their families, communities and in their professional lives. It also takes up cases of violence and family disputes, namely those related to inheritance issues and tries to encourage local authorities to allocate plots of land to be allocated to  rural women with full ownership . With the aim to ensure that there is a working legal framework to promote gender equal access to land WiLDAF-AO undertakes legal education to support the ratification and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights relating to women’s rights in Africa in countries

For example in Benin a paralegal trained by WILDAF was able to support a woman who was beaten by her husband after a dispute with her co-wife. She underwent three weeks hospitalisation and was forced by relatives to return back to the maize farm that she cultivated with her husband and co-wife. The paralegal helped the woman to report to the police even though she fear being punished further. The paralegal worked with both the husband and wife in order to convince the husband to sign an agreement in front of the police to not beat his wife again.

Another example of WiLDAF-AO’s work is in Yotocopé in Togo. A paralegal helped a widow to recover farmland confiscated by her in-laws. The widow had been sent off the land she had worked with her husband. With assistance of the paralegal she appealed to the village chief who intervened on her behalf and she was given back her rights to work the land after three years of deprivation.

It is complex and painstaking work, that requires not only knowing the law but also how to ensure conditions change so that a woman gains her rights and maintains her respect in the community. Often these changes are not so much economic but social. These examples show how important it is to work with women over time to assert their rights to land fully aware of the difficulties a rural woman has to overcome if she is to claim her full rights to land that provides her livelihoods, safety and sustainable future.

OWFI women demonstrate in Baghdad raising slogans of change, right to work, and equality.

Whereas the world in 2011 has heard of the Arab Spring and the thousands who gathered in Cairo, very few have heard of the Feb. 25, 2011 Day of Anger in the other Tahrir Square – in Baghdad.

Nor do people follow this weekly Friday gathering of Iraqi women and men who demand their basic rights to work, water and electricity – along with the establishment of true democracy and an end to corruption and the occupation.

The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) has been among those demonstrating at high risk to their own security. On Jun. 10 of this year, 100 days after the government promised to meet pro-democracy demands, activists who gathered in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square were brutally attacked by plainclothes forces. Women meeting under the OWFI banner were sexually assaulted.

Fighting for women’s rights in Iraq means putting one’s own safety on the line. The tragedy of the Iraq war, with its one million people casualties and 750,000 widows, continues in the violence and corruption that leaves women and girls vulnerable and oppressed.

Under an occupied and heavily militarised Iraq, OWFI was formed in 2004 to put a stop to violence against women (VAW) – first by trying to understand its prevalence and second by providing shelter for women and girls seeking to escape so-called “honour killings” and sexual slavery.

In a country devastated by war, deepening poverty and social dysfunction under occupation, women are resorting to sex work and families are selling girls as young as 12 years old into the sex industry, OWFI says. Their anti-trafficking programme helps educate the public about the large numbers of women forced into sex work as a result of Iraq’s instability and puts pressure on the Iraqi government to strengthen laws against the traffickers of women and children.

OWFI also advocates for an end to tribal violence and for women’s human rights inside prisons and detention centers through their Women’s Prison Watch programme. In 2009, the group helped free 12 women detained for crimes committed by their male family members.

The MDG3 Fund has provided OWFI with support and solidarity to continue their work – from building more shelters and safe houses to help women leave trafficking and ‘pleasure marriages’ to setting up Al Mousawat (equality) Radio, which broadcasts feminism, democracy and freedom to seven million listeners.

Al Mousawat is heralded by OWFI as a new kind of media for the county – one that does not compromise freedom, equality or secularism. The station offers a safe space for young secular feminists and women-friendly youth from cities throughout Iraq – Sadre City, Baghdad, Basra and Mosul – to express their shared vision of a future against the prevailing fundamentalism and militarism. Deejays are female university graduates – fully covered in their own neighbourhoods, but voices unveiled on Al Mousawat.

OWFI sees itself as feminist and revolutionary organisation in solidarity with political and economic struggles of all marginalised peoples in the larger struggle against oppressive economic, military and social forces.

Recently, their Director and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Mousawat - the soft-spoken but passionate Yanar Mohammed – wrote an open letter and message of solidarity to Occupy Wall Street movement:

While the 99% of Iraqis seethe with anger waiting for the right conditions to claim what is theirs, they eagerly follow your progress in occupying Wall Street, as our enemy is one whether they are American or Iraqi. That enemy is the 1% of ruthless exploiters … It is time for a political system of equal wealth for all, in other words, a socialist system, where free market rules cannot starve billions while filling the pockets of a few. Connecting such a movement globally was beyond even the wildest dreams of most visionaries, but has proven to be within reach in 2011. And your #Occupy movement has played a leading role in igniting it. …We stand behind you and carry on our continuous resistance to the rule of the 1% in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and the entire world.

The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq

Del 14 al 24 de noviembre se celebra en Granada las jornadas ´Mujeres en las primaveras árabes: presente y futuro’, jornadas que responden a la necesidad de conocer de primera mano, los procesos de refundación que se están dando en muchos de los países del marco árabe desde el punto de vista de las mujeres.  ¿Cuál ha sido el papel de las mujeres en estas dinámicas de reivindicación de justicia y dignidad colectiva? ¿Cuáles son sus expectativas? ¿Cómo se ha representado, cómo se ha ‘nombrado’ este protagonismo por parte de instituciones nacionales e internacionales y los medios de comunicación, propios y ajenos?

You can find more information here.

If you’re on Twitter, be sure to follow this list of organisations that are planning events around the world for this year’s campaign and use #16days2011 to share what your group is doing!

(Click to access list)

Are we missing anyone from the list? Let us know in the comments below, on Twitter at @thegenderwire, on our Facebook page or shoot us an e-mail at mdg3 [at] ips.org.

The head of SADCs gender unit,
Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela, says climate change affects women in Southern Africa and their plight must be discussed at COP 17 in Durban later this month. Zukiswa Zimela interviews Mathiba-Madibela in Gaborone and asked her what is needed to protect women against climate change.

JASS Mesoamerica Regional Allies

Latin America is a region where the global community is increasingly looking for leadership in the search for alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. The term buen vivir, or ‘good living’, is at the heart of efforts in the region to forge a more democratic and just development that rejects the violence of modern economic and militarised development. The region has suffered a violent, racist and sexist past in the name of modernity.

Rejecting this, countries like Ecuador and Bolivia are trying to balance indigenous ways of living with community and nature and local and global notions of  economic progress. Throughout the region, governments are learning – painfully at times – that it is crucial to work not just with powerful international forces but also with their own civil society, listening to the voices of the poor men and women.

In this struggle for democracy and justice, it is vital that women find their voice and place to defend their political space, territory and also their bodies. Just Associates (JASS) works globally to strengthen women’s voice, visibility and collective organising power throughout the world. They support women taking leadership to fight for their rights – whether it is women forging economic democracy or women putting an end to gender-based violence (GBV) and political repression. Their work acknowledges that it is vital to build cross-country alliances, document and make known the gendered nature of violations faced by women’s rights defenders and engage human rights institutions in responding and increasing their protection. They  ensure that women’s voices are heard so that human rights and development institutions and governments are able to respond more appropriately to the demands of women on the margins.

The MDG3 Fund supports the work of JASS to strengthen the participation of marginalised women in three regions and 24 countries. In Mesoamerica (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama), JASS has worked with the support of the MDG3 Fund and other strategic alliances to create safe spaces for women to deepen collective analysis, build solidarity, help end violence and fight for their collective rights.

JASS has adopted a mix of face-to-face support in capacity-building programmes and networking; solidarity outreach through immediate responses to emergency situations and longer-term support; and consciousness raising through radio and on-line social media.  JASS has worked with old and new feminists in the region to build innovative strategic approaches to strengthen feminist strategising.

The Observatorio/Women Crossing the Line is a unique feminist political programme working with Feminist International Radio Endeavor (FIRE) to spotlight and reinforce women’s transformative roles and local actions in struggles across Mesoamerica.  This is enhanced by the newsletter and radio programme La Petatera, which documents what is happening in the region – tapping into the powerful tool of radio as well as social networking to ensure women’s voices are heard and to link women across countries.

The face-to-face work of JASS in the Region is carried out by the Sea Change Feminist Leadership schools grounded in feminist theory and artistic expression. The schools build the capacity of young and experienced community women leaders and organisations to respond to the risks and dangers faced in the region. In continuing the work of building networks that ensure collective action, the Feminist Transformation Watch (FTW) mobilises women from Mesoamerica and beyond to become eye‐witness observers and on‐line champions of their efforts, lending their voices and credibility in defense of women. FTW strengthens and publicises women’s social change efforts.

A critical focus in all of these activities is the fight to end femicide and violence against women (VAW) at all levels. As the JASS website documents, women human rights defenders in Mesoamerica are facing many dangers and threats, whether they are promoting their work or civil, political, indigenous, sexual or reproductive rights.  Ending VAW is a vital human rights and political strategy in the region, as threats against women’s bodies are occurring with increasing and disturbing frequency. In building a just and more democratic society, bodily integrity and autonomy for women cannot be separated from other political and rights demands.  Through its different strategic actions, JASS promotes connections among grassroots and local-to-global organisations that respond to women’s immediate demands to be free from violence.

In Mexico, for example, 12 land rights activists were unjustly imprisoned for protesting government efforts to force them from their homes in order to build a new airport in 2006. Support from JASS and The Nobel Women’s Initiative supported an advocacy campaign to free them after more than four years in prison. The ‘Atenco 12’ were liberated in July 2010 by the Mexican Supreme Court. The success of this effort affirms JASS’ approach: commitment to stand with partners for the long-term, using a strategic combination of organising on the ground and international solidarity and advocacy.

In 2010 JASS held workshops to support women human rights defenders in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico to build a cross-movement coalition fighting for the rights of women defenders to defeat armed factions, the state as well as intimate-partner, family and community violence. The workshops and activities gave young women leaders -poor urban and rural community women – the confidence, information and skills to navigate the risky contexts in which they are living and fight for justice and gender equality grounded in true democratic change.

Here’s a great resource for online activism specifically for women’s organisations from the Association for Progressive Communication Women’s Networking Support Programme and Violence is not our Culture.

Their guide, below, offers tips for online campaigning, harnessing social networks and minimising security risks.

What is your group planning – online or off? Tell us in the comments below, on Twitter at @thegenderwire or on our new Facebook page.

Click to download.

The publication presents thirteen key insights into how women’s rights organizations and movements can strengthen capacity to track and assess the contribution of their organizations and interventions.

These thirteen insights stem from AWID’s intensive research into the challenges faced by women’s organizations in effectively monitoring and evaluating women’s rights work, and the ways to enhance the collective capacity to assess the influence and impact of such work.

Recognizing that many organizations fighting for women’s rights are working within significant resource, staffing and capacity constraints, AWID offers these insights as ideas, possibilities and approaches from which organizations can choose, adapting those that seem most relevant, useful, and above all, feasible, given their particular contexts.

This is the second publication in a series of briefs on monitoring and evaluation (M&E).

The first of these briefs Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation for Women’s Rights: Twelve Insights for Donors is available in English on Awid‘s website.

Download the PDF

Women protesting in Syria. Credit Karama

The world continues to watch the Arab Spring as we head for 2011/12 winter, with some trepidation. Although one woman Tawakkul Karman of Yemen from the Region has been honoured with a Noble Peace Prize, all those women who took to the streets, blogged, tweeted, risked lives and made the revolution happen may well find themselves struggling against a backlash. During the revolution activists such as Esraa Abdel Fatah (known as “Facebook Girl” after organizing a nation-wide strike through her page in 2008) commented on how women were not violated during the protests. But now there are stories of women harassed and attacked once more post revolution the fight to end violence against women has to be an ever-vigilant demand.

Arab women are well placed to continue the struggle to be heard and counted politically and to end violence against women. Karama is one regional network responding to those needs through alliances building and strategic advocacy with grassroots and professional women. Launched in 2005, Karama, which means dignity in Arabic, has formed a network for collaboration and advocacy against violence against women in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Palestine. In each country and across the region, Karama has undertaken advocacy campaigns to urge policymakers to change discriminatory laws and build the capacity and leadership of women activists. From promoting local campaigns demanding legal reform to using international conventions and multilateral bodies to monitor and pressure national governments, Karama and its partners are working to create a new legal framework that will carry forward the promise of the Arab Spring as they promote equal human rights for all in the Arab Region.

The MDG3 Fund in a timely fashion has supported Karama’s efforts to reduce violence against women and to increase the participation of women in the public sphere through a regional Arab women’s movement in eleven countries across the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Taking a holistic approach to ending violence against women Karama looks at how to change all aspects daily life that lead to violations of women’s rights: economics, politics, law, health, media, education, and art/culture. Using the international instruments such as the international convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women CEDAW the Beijing Platform for Action, and the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, Karama has helped the fight for women’s rights in the Arab region with important successes for example compliance with CEDAW in Lebanon and parliamentary support to end domestic violence in Jordan.

In the wake of the Arab revolutions, Karama is being called upon to play a key role in raising the profile and expand the influence of Arab women as leaders in regional and international contexts. Though the Arab Spring seemed to hold the key to bringing women’s freedoms to the forefront of a new political agenda it is proving a difficult autumn/winter for the women in the Arab region who fought the revolution. Women were ready for the Arab Spring, but as events in Egypt and Tunisia indicate the transition to gender equality is not proving so easy.

For example, when the Tunisian moderate Islamist party al-Nahda claimed victory in October 2011, many observers wondered what will this victory mean for Tunisia’s historical legacy of women’s rights? Is this an opportunity to redefine the roles of both women and men? Will the citizens of Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Region, have women’s rights and feminism on their agenda? Before the election there were some positive signs when with the help of groups such as Karama’s advocacy and lobbying in September, Tunisia became the first country in the region to withdraw all its specific reservations to CEDAW opening the door for a more liberal family code. But, as UNRISD’s analyst Kristine Goulding suggests, the challenge will be to confirm a collective belief in women’s capacity to help rebuild the country’s social fabric and economy. *

Karama is working to ensure women’s advocates take up the opportunities offered by the Arab Spring. In September 2011 the network hosted with the Swedish Institute of Alexandria  a workshop on ‘Electoral Processes to Incomplete Revolutions: Women and the Arab Revolts, Eight Months On’.

In Egypt, Tunis, and Jordan the focus is on how to rebuild the political landscape, hold elections, and reform existing constitutions. In other areas
of the region, including Libya, Syria, and Yemen, the violent clash between state and anti-government protesters continues. As next steps are taken to reform old regimes, the future of the region requires groups like Karama to ensure that civil society engages in recommending strategies to end economic injustice, poverty, unemployment, political stagnation and human rights abuses. Most of all it is crucial that women’s rights are not left off the agenda. This requires ensuring women’s political participation, guarantees to protect women and ensure their safety in areas of conflict, while reforming laws the enshrine women’s equal status with men in all areas of life.

* See Arab Spring, Islamist Summer … Feminist Fall?

Zambian farmers say a lack of rain is putting a strain on their crops and they are starting to point their fingers at climate change. Brian Moonga reports from Lusaka.