A call has been made for a revolutionary approach to women’s empowerment and gender equality.
The Friends of the Earth (FoE), a non-governmental advocacy group, and its partners issued the plea over the weekend during a virtual news conference to commemorate 2024 International Women’s Day (IWD).
At the virtual conference, participants advocated for concerted efforts to promote environmental justice and gender equality and enhance women’s status in Africa and other parts of the world.
During the landmark conference, Rita Uwaka, the coordinator of the FoE Forest and Biodiversity Programme, said there is an urgent need to chart a transformative course towards women’s empowerment and gender equality.
She said it has become incumbent on leaders, especially in Africa, to articulate a compelling vision of inclusive governance and gender parity driven by structures that will give women more opportunities to occupy critical decision-making and policy-making positions.
Uwaka, a notable advocate of women’s empowerment, lamented that women play significant roles in agro-commodity production. Yet they are denied access to land based on obnoxious traditional and cultural practices that hinder them and reduce their potential.
She called on the government and the media to help strengthen the means to democratize development and make women’s voices heard within international solidarity agencies that promote and support women’s rights and permit women more access to land ownership, stressing that “environmental justice cannot happen without gender justice”.
In her remarks, Edna Tabajuika from Tanzania said that “women are the backbone of societies because they are the primary producers in East Africa yet get fewer benefits because of cultural practices that deny them ownership of land.
She decried the situation where companies in the extractive industries are notorious for grabbing land from women in Tanzania, warning that this is leading to food insecurity.
Tabajuika said: “Food security suffers when women lose access to land because it leads to economic disempowerment.”Azeeza Rangunwala from Groundwork based in South Africa, in her remarks, highlighted the increasing level of violence against women in South Africa even as she called for a “feminist transition” that will dismantle the patriarchal system that has worked against women’s emancipation.
She called for reforms in all arms of government to give women more space with an action that will work towards ending the obnoxious ideas and cultural practices that exacerbate the crisis the women are grappling with.
In her submission, Norman Bee from Liberia called on women to intensify their pivotal role in shaping the human trajectory. She advocated for a new generation of empowered women equipped with the knowledge and skills to effect positive change in their communities and beyond through training and capacity building.
In her remarks, Aminata Massaquoi from Sierra Leone said that policies in plantation areas are rarely discussed. She pointed out that the advocacy groups in Sierra Leone are pushing hard, significantly, to strengthen the laws that will protect women.
She, however, noted that in most parts of the world, especially in Africa, enhancing women’s status has faced massive impediments due to historical patterns of poor priorities and policies, as well as cultural practices that have hindered women and limited their potential.
All participants agreed that in Africa, women play a massive role in agro-commodity productivity as their efforts help to feed the continent’s growing population. However, women have limited access to land in most communities and many others; they experience gender violence and unequal pay for jobs and suffer severe exclusion in decision-making and policy-making bodies.
They lamented that women are victims of wars and conflicts like the war in Gaza, where many women have reportedly been killed., and that women also face enormous sexual exploitation during such disputes, which most times plunge them into poverty and deprivation.
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