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Women in Power &
Decision Making |
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The PFA concern addressed
by this programme is involvement of women in the peace
process. Armed and other types of conflict continue in
various parts of the world with Africa contributing a
large percentage of such conflicts. The conflicts are
accompanied by violations of human rights, especially
those of vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly,
women and minorities. They also expand the horizons of
responsibilities for women who are traditionally shackled
with family care and maintenance. They are displaced,
forced into refuge, lose homes and property, lose spouses
and relatives, suffer from family disintegration and worst
of all are sexually violated. In the Eastern Africa sub-region,
internal and external conflict is particularly evident
in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda and Somalia,
with all their attendant effects on women and girls. Since
EASSI is not an implementer per se but a facilitator,
it will work closely with ISIS WICCE and CECORE to assist
it members in Rwanda, Burundi, and Somalia to understand
conflict and its impact on women with a view to developing
advocacy strategies that will involve participation of
more women in the peace processes.
Core Problem
Armed and other types of conflict continue in various
parts of the world with Africa contributing a large percentage
of such conflicts. The conflicts are accompanied by violations
of human rights, especially those of vulnerable groups
such as children, the elderly, women and minorities. They
also expand the horizons of responsibilities for women
who are traditionally shackled with family care and maintenance.
In the Eastern Africa sub-region, internal and external
conflicts are particularly evident in Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda and Somalia, with all their attendant
effects on women and girls. While entire communities suffer
consequences of armed conflict and terrorism, women and
girls are particularly affected because of their status
in society. The impact of violence against women and violation
of the human rights of women in such situations is experienced
by women of all ages, who suffer displacement, poverty,
and other new and emerging forms of violence. In addressing
armed or other conflicts, an active and visible policy
of mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies
and programmes should be promoted so that before decisions
are taken an analysis is made of the effects on women
and men respectively. One of EASSI’s partners ISIS-WICCE
has been working on the area of documenting conflict.
EASSI will use materials from this partner to be able
to understand the gender dimensions of conflict in the
region before embarking on advocacy programmes. Materials
from IGAD will also be sources and used as basic resource.
Secondly the Great Lakes initiative on Conflict has recently
been launched in Kigali. EASSI’s partners and Focal
Points for Rwanda and Burundi (CAFOB and Profemme) are
involved in this initiative at country level and this
will make the Entry Point for EASSI much easier. In this
activity EASSI will focus on Rwanda, Burundi and Somalia.
The Internship
programme is one of the major activities under this
programme. |
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