By Crispina Cummings
Female members of parliament, MPs,yesterday met with partners to strategize for the ratification of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the Maputo Protocol.
Referred to as the caucus of female MPs, the women met partners like the Solidarity for African Women’s Right,SOAWR, New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Women’s Forum and three other like-minded groups.
SOAWR rep, Jane Seriwanga, from Kenya said the organization’s goals were to achieve universal ratification and popularization of the AU protocol on the rights of women and to ensure that the protocol was domesticated and implemented thereby creating space for rural and marginalized women’s voices to be heard as they strove to benefit from the protocol.
She said their visit was in line with the ratification campaign in collaboration with local partners and to meet with key players in the venture.
She said SOAWR and other women’s organizations had come to share their experiences gained from different countries about how the protocol was passed in their own countries, strategize how they would go about ensuring that it was ratified and adhered to, adding that the constitutional review was one big opportunity.
Minority leader in parliament, Bernadette Lahai, said she did not see any reason why the protocol had not been ratified up till now, adding that the country had ratified other bills that were similar to the likesof the Child Right Act and the Convention on the Eliminations of all forms of Discriminations Against Women, CEDAW.
“I am disappointed that protocol has not been ratified. Many bills have been ratified for youths and children in the country but to ratify a bill on women’s rights has been a big delay and women are the people that give birth to the other half of the country’s population,” she said, adding that the contents of the protocol should not be used as an excuse to ratify it.
President of the female caucus in parliament, Patricia Brown, MP, said they would need all the support from local partner organizations that had already done a good job.
(C) Politico 10/04/14
