Its been a while since I wrote on
my blog, so I welcome myself back to the blogosphere. Well, many
events have
passed without my commentary. But it should not be surprising to you the event
that has brought me out of my hibernation.
An issue dear to my heart and to the development of our continent. The
issue of our progress to meeting the Beijing goals.
Where were you when you first heard
of the Beijing Declaration? Do you know its been 25 years since then?
Yes, next year 2020 will be
twenty five years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BfA) was
passed. Even as a fifteen year old in 1995, I recognised the importance of the
event. And it would take another 10 or so years before I sat in Prof. Dzodzi
Tsikata’s Gender and Development Class (popularly called from WID to GAD) at
ISSER, but even then, I believe this event is what made me a feminist. For us
young girls growing up in the post Beijing era, we were identified by how vocal
we were in which case, we were labelled as feminists and thus ‘hard aka talkative’
girls.
I am happy to note that the
values and commitments made at the Beijing platform continue to be held in high
regard and continue to shape the feminist discourse on the African context. I am
happy also to note that there exists a group of hard working and committed
feminists and activists across the continent who continue to work tirelessly
for the implementation and recognition of all the critical areas under the Beijing
Declaration. This does not surprise me
at all as African women have a strong history of mobilising themselves across
the continent. See my earlier post on the Pan African Womens Organisation
(PAWO), which is older than the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
The African Union Agenda 2063 makes
a strong case for the role of women, young women and children in shaping the
destiny of Africa as actors and not as passive recipients of aid, training and
charity. So to see a pan African wide effort at consolidating our gains towards
the 2020 event was indeed heart warming.
In the workshop which took place in Accra in August, I identified myself
as the ‘slim middle’ a generation between the ‘elders’ or those who were
actually at the help of planning and attended the 1995 event itself and the
‘digital generation’, the current force for change who use technology to
achieve their aims.
As we work towards planning the
Beijing+25 event in 2020, these are my top 3 recommendations to ensuring that
the Declaration continues to exist and makes a lasting change.
Number 1- the
intergenerational torch hand over.
We need to create and maintain an
intergenerational link between the generation of women activists who were
actually in Beijing and the new digital feminists. We need to identify the
common threads connecting our generational narratives – that patriarchy is still
very much intact- and use that as a rallying point for sustaining the changes
gained and creating new standards for women’s rights. Without this focus, we
run the risk of Beijing becoming a theoretical paper based document that does
not resonate with the rest of the continents women. One way to do this is the
realisation that there are different representations of feminism but one
overall goal- to break the hold of patriarchy.
Number 2- the hard facts and
the figures.
We need to consciously
build a robust and strong global data collection and analysis system that
monitors and tracks and analyses the progress towards the achievements of the
BPfA. This system should be globally agreed and form the basis for sharing of
anecdotal stories, qualitative and quantitative changes, key success stories
and challenges. An example of such a global data system is the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) under which each goal has specific indicators, targets and
milestones for achievements. We are aware of the successes achieved in the past
25 years- first woman this and first woman that. My personal favourite being
Madam Zuma and her time at the African Union Commission. But are they enough?
There continue to be more women in slave bondage now than any other period in
history, technology has made it easier to traffic women and girls across the
globe; climate change and rapid urbanisation has changed the situation for
pastoralists and traditional communities; wars and famine affect women and girls
the most, with deplorable living conditions in refugee camps. Rape continues to
be a weapon of war. We need an audacious agenda for societal transformation-
now and soon. And require the skills to be able to tell the world what has changed
positively, what is still yet to be transformed and this transformation will
look like. Enough of the rhetoric.
Number 3- linkages, networks
and connections.
We must focus on the intra connectedness of the 12 critical
areas and not see them as stand-alone
deliverables. I will be the first person to confess to an unfinished
understanding of the full picture in relation to the 12 critical areas
identified in Beijing. But my layman’s reading shows a leaning towards ‘siloism’
or the temple analogy where the critical areas stand as columns with no
interlinkages. But as I said, I stand to be corrected. The interconnectedness
of the critical areas must also be linked up strategically to other more recent
conventions such as the SDGS and in the case of Africa, the almighty Agenda
2063. How do we carve out the areas of convergence in a manner to supports the overall
objective? This is important to takeing forward the discussions.
In conclusion
The asks in Beijing do not need to be
overhauled, they do not need to be revamped or changed. All those ideas
continue to be relevant to the feminist struggles today as they were 25 years
ago. We just need to keep our eyes on the ball and ensure the next generation
have the tools and the interest to keep the fire burning. Kudos to our elders
who took the bold steps. As they say somewhere ‘Aluta Continua’.
About the author:
Teiko Sabah is the 2013 Mo Ibrahim African
Leaders Fellow with the UNECA. She is interested in Africa and pan Africanism.
She writes a monthly blog on pan Africanism on https://teikosabah.blogspot.com
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