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https://devpolicy.org/pngs-awakening-an-interview-with-serena-sumanop-20140311/

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Women activists told Amnesty International that they had been accused of being “bad mothers” and “bad wives”, and that the authorities had threatened to take their children away from them. They have also faced ill-treatment in detention, and prison sentences resulting from unfounded criminal prosecutions.

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Women who have played prominent roles in the protests sweeping Belarus are subject to reprisals and threats, Amnesty International said today. In a new publication, the organization highlights the important role women activists have played in the protests after widely contested presidential elections and reveals state reprisals against them.

Women activists told Amnesty International that they had been accused of being "bad mothers" and "bad wives", and that the authorities had threatened to take their children away from them. They have also faced ill-treatment in detention, and prison sentences resulting from unfounded criminal prosecutions.

"Svyatlana Tshikhanouskaya, a presidential contender forced into exile, Maryia Kalesnikava, her chief of staff thrown into prison, Marfa Rabkova, a jailed human rights defender, and journalists Katsyaryna Bakhvalava and Darya Chultsova, both imprisoned for two years for livestreaming of a protest action - these are some of the many women whose names have become synonymous with the struggle for freedom and human rights in Belarus," said Aisha Jung, Amnesty International's Senior Campaigner on Belarus.

"In a deeply patriarchal society with endemic domestic violence, women in Belarus have risked everything to stand up for their beliefs. The Belarusian authorities have retaliated with measures intended to target women activists, and their organizations and families."

In a deeply patriarchal society with endemic domestic violence, women in Belarus have risked everything to stand up for their beliefs. The Belarusian authorities have retaliated with measures intended to target women activists, and their organizations and families

Aisha Jung, Amnesty International's Senior Campaigner on Belarus

Yuliya Mitskevich, a feminist activist who runs a gender-awareness organization called Aktyunym Byts Faina (It's Great to be Active), and who is a member of a sub-group of the opposition Coordination Council, Femgruppa, was arrested on Friday 20 October 2020 outside the offices of her organization.

Yuliya was officially charged with " participation in an illegal gathering," but she told Amnesty she believed she is being persecuted for her work on gender equality. The police officers who arrested Yuliya, and criminal investigators who interrogated her, asked her to sign a statement saying that she had taken part in illegal actions in her organizational role.

" They offered me incentives and threatened me too. The first time they asked about Femgruppa, and about the women's marches and finances, but the second time they were interested in my organization," Yuliya told Amnesty International.

"We call for solidarity with the brave women of Belarus in their fight for freedom and human rights. In their struggle, the y are challenging patriarchal attitudes and a repressive government intent on suppressing human rights and stifling the change and progress that Belarusians are calling for," said Aisha Jung.

Amnesty International's  global solidarity campaign was launched on 27 January 2021, with the publication of a   revealing how the Belarusian authorities have weaponized the justice system to punish survivors of torture rather than perpetrators. The organization produces regular publications that highlight how different sectors of Belarusian society are being targeted. Belarus is currently experiencing the most egregious clampdown on human rights in its post-independence history. Amnesty International activists around the world will participate in various actions to demonstrate their solidarity with peaceful protesters in Belarus.

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Belarus: Women at the forefront of human rights struggle

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Women who have played prominent roles in the protests sweeping Belarus are subject to reprisals and threats, Amnesty International said today. In a new publication, the organization highlights the important role women activists have played in the protests after widely contested presidential elections and reveals state reprisals against them.

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viola desmond

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More than 300 girls who were abducted last week from their boarding school in Nigeria by a group of armed men have been released, a local official said on Tuesday, the second time in less than a week that gunmen have returned kidnapped schoolchildren in the country.

The girls were taken on Friday from Government Girls Secondary School in the northern state of Zamfara. Nigerian officials later told Reuters that the government was negotiating for their release.

"It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students of GGSS Jangebe from captivity," the governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle, wrote on Twitter early Tuesday, referring to their school's name. He also posted photographs showing girls in face masks being transported in white vans. Other local news outlets showed video footage of a group of girls they said were the abductees.

The week before the girls were kidnapped, more than 40 children and adults were abducted from a boarding school in Niger state, becoming the latest victims of the West African country's slide into insecurity. They were freed on Saturday.

The girls who were freed this week had been kidnapped from the school in Jangebe town. Mr. Matawalle referred to them on Twitter as the #JangebeGirls.

"I enjoin all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe," he wrote.

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Hundreds of Girls Abducted From Nigerian School Are Freed, Official Says

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More than 300 girls who were abducted last week from their boarding school in Nigeria by a group of armed men have been released, a local official said on Tuesday, the second time in less than a week that gunmen have returned kidnapped schoolchildren in the country.

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Paris protests against sexual violence

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French women's rights activists gathered in Paris on Sunday to protest against sexism and sexual violence ahead of International Women's Day on March 8.

Women's groups have also called for a "feminist strike" on Monday to advocate for more equality and women's rights in all parts of life.

Similar street protests are being organized across the country.

On the Republic Plaza, activists held a large banner reading "stop femicide", to denounce the killing of women.

In France, 90 women were killed by their spouse last year according to the Justice Ministry, down from 146 in 1919.

French groups fighting violence against women said the decrease is likely to be linked to coronavirus restriction measures in the country.

Reports of domestic violence increased by 40% during the first lockdown in March-April and by 60% during the second in November-December, according to French authorities.

"We must continue to fight violence against women but also fight for more rights. It is important for our rights never to let go, even in France or in other countries like in Europe or South America because the rights of women are never acquired," said one protester.

Elsewhere, Syrian Kurds marked International Women Day at a rally in Qamichli, in northeastern Syria controlled by semi-autonomous authorities.

"This gathering is to restore the self-confidence of women, and also for their education and development in order to face authoritarianism, the culture of death, exile and murder that exists in society, and to protect the gains of the revolution," said Berevan, who celebrated the event in Qamichli.

In Russia, International Women's Day is a public holiday, and in the city of Yekaterinburg, military officers celebrated with a street performance by a brass band and presented over 1,000 flowers to women.

Ahead of International Women's Day, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have released a new report trying to address gender inequality, specifically for the hundreds of millions of women in the world's developing countries.

"What we are calling for is for the government to implement temporary basic income for women. If you think about the rise of domestic violence, you will see how only women who have access to some basic income can escape from this situation," Raquel Laguna the Director of Gender at the UNDP told Euronews.

The large-scale temporary basic income (TBI) scheme proposed by UNDP shows that a monthly investment of 0.07 per cent of developing countries' GDP could provide financial security to 613 million working-aged women living in poverty, say the report authors.

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Protests and celebrations take place for International Women's Day

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French women's rights activists gathered in Paris on Sunday to protest against sexism and sexual violence ahead of International Women's Day on March 8. Women's groups have also called for a "feminist strike" on Monday to advocate for more equality and women's rights in all parts of life.

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https://time.com/collection-post/4684884/wai-wai-nu-next-generation-leaders/

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Malala Yousafzai

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Malala Yousafzai, (born July 12, 1997, Mingora, Swat valley, Pakistan), Pakistani activist who, while a teenager, spoke out publicly against the prohibition on the education of girls that was imposed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP; sometimes called Pakistani Taliban). She gained global attention when she survived an assassination attempt at age 15. In 2014 Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of their efforts on behalf of children's rights.

Childhood and early activism

The daughter of an outspoken social activist and educator, Yousafzai was an excellent student. Her father-who established and administered the school she attended, Khushal Girls High School and College in the city of Mingora-encouraged her to follow in his path. In 2007 the Swat valley, once a vacation destination, was invaded by the TTP. Led by Maulana Fazlullah, the TTP began imposing strict Islamic law, destroying or shutting down girls' schools, banning women from any active role in society, and carrying out suicide bombings. Yousafzai and her family fled the region for their safety, but they returned when tensions and violence eased.

On September 1, 2008, when Yousafzai was 11 years old, her father took her to a local press club in Peshawar to protest the school closings, and she gave her first speech-"How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education?" Her speech was publicized throughout Pakistan. Toward the end of 2008, the TTP announced that all girls' schools in Swat would be shut down on January 15, 2009. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) approached Yousafzai's father in search of someone who might blog for them about what it was like to live under TTP rule. Under the name Gul Makai, Yousafzai began writing regular entries for BBC Urdu about her daily life. She wrote from January through the beginning of March of that year 35 entries that were also translated into English. Meanwhile, the TTP shut down all girls' schools in Swat and blew up more than 100 of them.

In February 2009 Yousafzai made her first television appearance, when she was interviewed by Pakistani journalist and talk show host Hamid Mir on the Pakistan current events show Capital Talk. In late February the TTP, responding to an increasing backlash throughout Pakistan, agreed to a cease-fire, lifted the restriction against girls, and allowed them to attend school on the condition that they wear burkas. However, violence resurged only a few months later, in May, and the Yousafzai family was forced to seek refuge outside of Swat until the Pakistani army was able to push the TTP out. In early 2009 The New York Times reporter Adam Ellick worked with Yousafzai to make a documentary, Class Dismissed, a 13-minute piece about the school shutdown. Ellick made a second film with her, titled A Schoolgirl's Odyssey. The New York Times posted both films on their Web site in 2009. That summer she met with the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, and asked him to help with her effort to protect the education of girls in Pakistan.

With Yousafzai's continuing television appearances and coverage in the local and international media, it had become apparent by December 2009 that she was the BBC's young blogger. Once her identity was known, she began to receive widespread recognition for her activism. In October 2011 she was nominated by human rights activist Desmond Tutu for the International Children's Peace Prize. In December of that year she was awarded Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize (later renamed the National Malala Peace Prize).

Shooting and Nobel Peace Prize

On October 9, 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head by a TTP gunman while she was en route home from school. Fazlullah and the TTP took responsibility for the attempt on her life. She survived the attack and was flown from Peshawar to Birmingham, England, for surgery. The incident elicited protests, and her cause was taken up around the world, including by the UN special envoy for global education, Gordon Brown, who introduced a petition that called for all children around the world to be back in school by 2015. That petition led to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education bill. In December 2012 Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari announced the launch of a $10 million education fund in Yousafzai's honour. About the same time, the Malala Fund was established by the Vital Voices Global Partnership to support education for all girls around the world.

Yousafzai recovered, staying with her family in Birmingham, where she returned to her studies and to activism. For the first time since being shot, she made a public appearance on July 12, 2013, her 16th birthday, and addressed an audience of 500 at the United Nations in New York City. Among her many awards, in 2013 Yousafzai won the United Nations Human Rights Prize, awarded every five years. She was named one of magazine's most influential people in 2013 and appeared on one of the seven covers that were printed for that issue. With Christina Lamb (foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times), Yousafzai coauthored a memoir, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (2013). She also wrote the picture book Malala's Magic Pencil (2017), which was based on her childhood. In 2014 she became the youngest person to win the Liberty Medal, awarded by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to public figures striving for people's freedom throughout the world. Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 but passed over that year, Yousafzai in 2014 won the prize, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate.

After winning the Nobel Prize, Yousafzai continued to attend school in England-she graduated from the University of Oxford in 2020-while using her enhanced public profile to bring attention to human rights issues around the world. In July 2015, with support from the Malala Fund, she opened a girls' school in Lebanon for refugees from the Syrian Civil War. She discussed her work with refugees as well as her own displacement in We Are Displaced (2019).

Her life, before and after the attack she endured, was examined in the documentary He Named Me Malala (2015). The title referenced the fact that Yousafzai had been named for the Afghan heroine Malalai, or Malala, who purportedly led her people to victory against the British in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand.
Naomi Blumberg The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Malala Yousafzai | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts

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Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist who, while a teenager, spoke out against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's ban on the education of girls. She gained global attention when she survived an assassination attempt at age 15. In 2014 Yousafzai won a share of the Nobel Prize for Peace, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate.

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Many women protesting GBV: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/international-womens-day-latin-america/

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Eugenia Duodu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenia_Duodu

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Ellen Ochoa: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/10-inspiring-latinas-who%E2%80%99ve-made-history/NQLCw0ak0_NsKg

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One of the world's most comprehensive and progressive women's human rights instruments, the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa ('the Maputo Protocol') was adopted by Heads of State and Government in Maputo, Mozambique on 11 July 2003.

The Maputo Protocol Advances African Women's Rights

The Protocol guarantees extensive rights to African women and girls and includes progressive provisions on:

Harmful traditional practices, eg child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM)

Reproductive health and rights

Roles in political processes

Economic empowerment

Ending violence against women

"The potential of the African continent is intrinsically linked with the potential of its women and we must work together to ensure that this potential is realized."

-DR. JOYCE BANDA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF MALAWI

Progress: Solidarity for African Women's Rights

Equality Now is proud to be the Secretariat of the Solidarity for African Women's Rights Coalition (SOAWR), a network of over 50 national, regional and international civil society organizations in 27 countries promoting the rights of African women and girls through the Protocol.
Since the Maputo Protocol came into force in 2005, 49 of the 55 African Union Member States have signed on, and 42 have ratified it. The Protocol has one of the highest number of ratifications for an instrument in the African Union.
With significant contributions from Equality Now to strengthen and promote the Protocol, the SOAWR Coalition has made huge strides for equality:

2004: SOAWR Coalition is founded

The Solidarity for African Women's Rights (SOAWR) Coalition is founded with the mission to ensure that the rights of girls and women articulated in the recently-adopted Maputo Protocol are prioritized by policy makers on the African continent. SOAWR starts a campaign to push governments to sign and ratify the Protocol.
Visit SOAWR's website
2005: The Maputo Protocol comes into force

On 25 November, 18 months after the Protocol was adopted, it officially takes effect. It breaks records as the fastest African human rights instrument to come into force. Countries that have signed and ratified the Protocol are now obligated to abide by, and are held to, the standards it sets for women's rights.

2008-13: Using the Protocol for legal advocacy

The Maputo Protocol is used as a tool for cases where women's and girls' rights have been violated, including cases taken on by Equality Now. In Zambia, which ratified the Protocol in 2006, it was cited in the court's decision against a teacher who defiled (raped) his student. In Liberia, it is being used to push for a ban on female genital mutilation.

2011: Helping activists use the Protocol to get justice

To help rights activists and human rights groups bring abuses before courts, Equality Now and SOAWR publish a Guide to Using the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa for Legal Action. The manual provides step-by-step guidance for using the Protocol at local, national and regional levels, and provides useful strategies for activists.
Read: Guide to Using the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa for Legal Action
2012-15: Using the Protocol to strengthen women's rights

SOAWR makes recommendations to address sexual and reproductive health to the African human rights system, using The Protocol as a guide. For example, this helps protect the rights of women living with HIV/AIDS and women accessing safe abortion services. The Protocol is the first treaty to recognize abortion, under certain conditions, as a human right for women.

2012-17: Training lawyers to use the Protocol in litigation

SOAWR strengthened the ability of more than 300 legal practitioners from 38 African states to use the Protocol to litigate cases nationally and regionally and to establish precedents for women's rights across Africa.

2013: Celebrating 10 years of the Maputo Protocol

To mark the 10th anniversary of the Protocol, President Joyce Banda of Malawi presents the SOAWR Coalition with the African Union Commission Award, which Equality Now's Africa Office Director Faiza Mohamed accepts on behalf of SOAWR. The African women's group Make Every Woman Count also names SOAWR Outstanding Organization of the Year 2013 for its exceptional work.

2013-16: Training government officials to implement the Protocol

SOAWR works with governments to make the values in The Protocol a reality for women and girls. Collaborating with the African Union Commission's Women Gender and Development Directorate and UN Women, SOAWR trained more than 150 government officials from 23 countries on how to implement The Protocol and protect and uphold women's rights in their countries.

2015: Malawi shows its commitment to the Protocol

Malawi submits the first state report completely in compliance with the Protocol and guidelines of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. This demonstrates the country's commitment to the values outlined in the Protocol, and underscores the importance of SOAWR's trainings.

2016: The Year of the African Woman

Since 2005, 49 African Union (AU) member states have signed and 37 have ratified the Protocol, largely through SOAWR's work. Recognizing that gender equality is key to Africa's progress, the AU named 2016 the African Year of Human Rights with a Special Focus on Women. SOAWR supports efforts to educate people on the Protocol and to push their governments to ratify.

2016-2019: Training Judicial Officers To Advance Positive Jurisprudence On The Maputo Protocol

Since 2016, Equality Now has trained over 100 judicial officers from Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda on how to apply the Maputo Protocol to enforce the rights of women and girls and to develop gender-responsive decisions that contribute to the development of positive jurisprudence on gender equality and women's rights.
Learn more about the Maputo Protocol

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One of the world's most comprehensive and progressive women's human rights instruments, the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa ('the Maputo Protocol') was adopted by Heads of State and Government in Maputo, Mozambique on 11 July 2003.

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“We have to make sure that the pandemic does not lead us to fall back into old gender patterns we thought we had overcome"

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The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic could endanger progress made on gender equality, as women take on the lion's share of childcare in lockdown and are more likely to work in at-risk jobs.

"We have to make sure that the pandemic does not lead us to fall back into old gender patterns we thought we had overcome," Merkel said in a video message ahead of International Women's Day on Monday.

Women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, she said, while being underrepresented in decision-making positions.

"Once again, it's more often women who have to master the balancing act between homeschooling, childcare and their own jobs," Merkel said.

Women also outnumber men in care professions at a time when those jobs are particularly challenging, she added.

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"More than 75% of those working in the health sector are women, from doctor's offices and hospitals, to labs and pharmacies," Merkel said - yet women account for barely 30% of management positions in those areas.

"It cannot be that women are to a large extent carrying our society, yet at the same time are not equally involved in important political, economic and societal decisions," she said.

Recent legislation requires listed German companies to include more women on their executive boards. But Merkel said more should be done to support women, including through expanding childcare facilities and equal pay.

"Women must finally earn the same as men," she said.

Germany has one of the EU's largest gender pay gaps, with women earning on average 19% less than men in 2019 - partly because many German women work part-time.

The gap narrows to 6% when comparing men and women in the same jobs.

Merkel's warnings were echoed in the EU's annual report on gender equality, released earlier this week.

The study found that the pandemic "has exacerbated existing inequalities between women and men in almost all areas of life".

On top of increased childcare burdens from school and nursery closures, it said women were also more likely to work in low-paid jobs in the service sectors worst affected by the shutdowns, leaving them at higher risk of unemployment.

It could "take years, or even decades" to overcome the gender setbacks caused by the pandemic, the report said.

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Covid could endanger progress on gender equality, says Merkel

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The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic could endanger progress made on gender equality, as women take on the lion's share of childcare in lockdown and are more likely to work in at-risk jobs.

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HELSINKI (AP) - Finland became the country with the world's youngest sitting head of government Tuesday when the Nordic country's parliament chose a 34-year-old woman who is a prolific user of social media and a keen advocate for environmental issues as prime minister.

Lawmakers in the 200-seat Eduskunta voted 99-70 to make Sanna Marin, a Social Democrat who served as transport and communications minister in the outgoing administration, the leader of a five-party, center-left coalition government.

The four other parties in the coalition are led by women - three of whom also are in their early 30s. Marin, the No. 2 official in the Social Democratic Party, succeeds Antti Rinne as prime minister.

Rinne, 57, stepped down a week ago after a key coalition partner, the Center Party, withdrew its support, citing lack of trust.

Marin is the third woman picked to become Finland's prime minister. The first, Anneli Jaatteenmaki, served for part of 2003. The second, Mari Kiviniemi, governed for a yearlong period between 2010 and 2011.

Seen as a liberal advocate for climate and environment issues, Marin was raised in a "rainbow family" headed by two women.

She has told Finnish media about growing up in what she described as modest circumstances, past struggles to identify her way in life, and the fulfillment she found in politics.

Setting her clearly apart from the older cadre of Finnish politicians, Marin is a prolific user of social media, particularly Instagram.

She has posted candid photos of her private life and family that includes a live-in partner, Markus Raikkonen, and their nearly two-year-old daughter. Among others, she has shared pictures of her pregnancy and of breast-feeding her daughter.

When questioned by The Associated Press during her first press conference, Marin gave a reply in English on her personal social media policies and vowed not to change her ways.

"As I've said, I represent the younger generation," Marin told reporters in Helsinki. "I think that I'm an individual and a real person also even though I'm the prime minister. So I won't change the way I behave. But off course I will be careful of what I say" in social media postings.

After the vote in favor of her appointment, Marin reacted with a faint smile. President Sauli Niinisto later greeted her and her Cabinet, which has women holding 12 of the 19 ministry positions.

The timing means she will be able to represent Finland at the European Union summit in Brussels later this week. Finland currently holds the bloc's rotating presidency until the end of the year.

Marin became the youngest leader of a government in the world, beating out Ukraine's 35-year-old prime minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk.

But she might not hold the title for long. Sebastian Kurz, 33, the former Austrian chancellor who rose to that position at age 31, is in talks to form a new coalition that would put him back in the job.

Marin's rise to the top level of Finnish politics was rapid. When she was 27, she took over as city council leader in her hometown of Tampere, an industrial and university town in southern Finland.

She became a national lawmaker in 2015.

Beside Marin, the coalition's other party leaders are 32-year-old Katri Kulmuni of the Center Party; the Left Alliance's Li Andersson, 32; Maria Ohisalo, the 34-year-old leader of the Greens; and the head of the Swedish People's Party, Anna-Maja Henriksson, who at 55 is the oldest.

"Much more important than what is our age and what gender we represent is naturally what kind of politics we're doing together," education minister Andersson told reporters at Tuesday's press conference when asked about the relevance of young females at the helm of Finnish politics.

-

Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark contributed to this story.

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Finland gets world's youngest prime minister, a woman age 34

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HELSINKI (AP) - Finland became the country with the world's youngest sitting head of government Tuesday when the Nordic country's parliament chose a 34-year-old woman who is a prolific user of social media and a keen advocate for environmental issues as prime minister.

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International Women's Day should celebrate the fruits of decades of activism. But, on a continent where those who stand accused of sexual abuse often get rewarded rather than punished, what is there to be proud of?

The UN's theme for the 2021 international celebrations is "Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 world" - yet I'm having a hard time fully embracing that idea, given the pain and destruction that COVID-19 has caused, especially to women.

Sure, there was a woman instrumental, for example, in developing the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, and that should indeed be emphasized and even celebrated.

But what about all the women who have lost agency over their own lives not just in these past 12 months but in all the years since we've been celebrating this day?

Violent legacies vs. 'leadership'

International Women's Day is unfortunately increasingly becoming a rolling stone that seems to gather no moss.

As I cast my mind back to the euphoria that typically greeted the celebrations on this day in my homeland, Cameroon, I cannot help but recall that this is a country that has 43.2% of its women population facing domestic violence daily, while 39.8% and 14.5% face emotional and sexual violence, respectively.

And, with 56.4% of women suffering at least one form of violence in my country, I struggle to find a reason for celebration with or without COVID.

What am I to celebrate?

As I don't wish to be overly pessimistic, I have been searching for a reason why women in Africa - especially those suffering from sexual violence - should still be celebrating on March 8. What concrete event can we, as women, feel truly proud of?

Unfortunately, skimming through recent history in my mind, I could only come up with one noteworthy event, namely the recent resignation of Zimbabwean Vice President Kembo Mohadi over allegations of moral impropriety.

The fact that an African politician would resign over an issue such as sexual misconduct has certainly set a new record for Africa. And one doesn't have to journey back in time too long to understand that this truly is a rarity in Africa.

And they say that chivalry is dead...

For who could forget the story of Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, who accused South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma of rape, sparking a national debate about rape culture in a country, where according to the "Rape Crisis" advocacy group, 40% of women experience rape at least once in their lifetime?

When the case was brought before court in 2005, Zuma was only the president of the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC). But despite the mounting evidence against Zuma, it was only his account that eventually held up in court, namely that the sex acts had been consensual.

One year later, Zuma was 'rewarded' with the South African presidency, which he held for almost a decade. During this period, he repeatedly reminded his people of such progressive ideas like taking a shower after sex to dodge HIV/AIDS, that it was not 'natural' for females to stay unmarried, that having children was imperative to a woman, and that same-sex marriage was 'a disgrace to God.'

Putting the 'culture' in 'rape culture'

But let's set Zuma's politics aside and get back to Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo for a second: This woman was abused, hounded and castigated. Her family home was burnt down. Ten years later, aged just 41, Kuzwayo died without ever receiving justice. And yet I am supposed to brush this aside and celebrate women?

Fine. Let's assume - just for argument's sake - that Zuma didn't simply abuse his power but that the courts were right, and that the former president was somehow innocent, and move on.

Let's talk child marriage instead, another great "accomplishment" for women across Africa. Let's look at the case of Nigerian senator Ahmad Sani Yerima, who married a 13-year-old girl from Egypt in 2010 when he was 49 years of age, defending his actions based on his religion.

Yerima told the BBC at the time that the Muslim faith permitted this union, and that he would "not respect any law that contradicts it, and whoever wants to sanction me for that is free to do that."

Sanction on part of innocent bystanders

Letting the powerful get away with rape and child abuse requires more than just "sanction." It calls for collective action across the globe. Instead, however, there is silence, making it clear how hundreds of girls can be kidnapped every couple of years in Nigeria, with the political elite doing nothing to stop this carnage.

Little is known about what exactly happens to these girls in captivity, but perhaps you need only ask yourself why the targets of these terrorist gangs are usually girls. And I am not even going to begin to write about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Africa here, as this ugly subject deserves a whole library of articles and books in its own right.

Queens used as pawns: Women in a machismo world

Abuse of power can take on many shapes. In some cases, the abusers of women are becoming more powerful simply by showing off how they subjugate women; however, in other instances, women are simply being used as pawns in political chess games.

Take the case of Senegal's opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, as an example: The many accusations of sexual assault against him have been denied on the grounds that they are allegedly ploys created by the president to discredit him. This goes to show that regardless of the truth, it is obvious that women can unapologetically be used as tools at the hands of power-hungry politicians.

How are any of these women on the path to becoming "Women in leadership," let alone "Achieving an equal future?"

Nearly a half century of ignorance

Please don't get me wrong: I am indeed an advocate of women's empowerment, but I just have to be honest and admit that for the first time, International Women's Day feels rather like a whitewash on the tombs of the many women suffering and dying daily. This day has simply become a faceless event that moves on each year, without any actual focus on the liberation of the ordinary woman or girl child.

Indeed, in the 45 years since it was first officially celebrated by the UN, this day feels like it marks regress rather than progress when it comes to the African context. We should use March 8 as an international day for activism against the injustices women continue to suffer - rather than a day of celebration.

We will celebrate when we have something to celebrate. But at this rate, I doubt we will witness the true liberation of African women any day soon. And until that day arrives, what exactly is it that you want me to celebrate?

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Opinion: International Women's Day is a day of mourning for Africa | DW | 08.03.2021

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International Women's Day should celebrate the fruits of decades of activism. But, on a continent where those who stand accused of sexual abuse often get rewarded rather than punished, what is there to be proud of?

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a women that fights for civil rights is Yuri Kochiyama