This paper deals specifically with the gender issues that arise in the role of faith-based organisations (FBOs) in service delivery. The author analysed secondary sources on FBOs affiliated to organised religion and other faith movements. The FBO services reviewed were in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States. The author presents no generic conclusions about this diverse group of actors but raises questions about the implications of FBOs as service providers for the advancement of gender equality. She raises questions on the nature of an FBO’s gender agenda, especially because a single organisation often takes different standpoints on various gender issues. Secondly, she questions the way the spiritual and social activities often provided relate to the way FBOs often delineate how women are expected to exercise their agency. She observes that while many FBOs work successfully at grassroots level, this does not necessarily mean that they all emerge from within the community or that they are necessarily ‘indigenous’. She notes the dilemma women face when the extension of services and assistance is conditional on their conforming to the FBOs’ interpretation of religiously appropriate gender roles and behaviour. Referring to ethnographic studies, she suggests that services may sometimes be used overtly or more subtly to inculcate religious values and ideologies. The complexity and variation in FBOs means that one needs to be cautious about drawing policy conclusions that re applicable to all faith-based actors engaged in service delivery. She rather argues for measures to engage with faith leaders on their gender agendas and the manner in which services take into account embedded partriarchal and other power relations.
Values, Policies and Rights
Although a substantial literature suggests that orphans suffer disadvantage relative to non orphaned peers, the nature of this disadvantage and the mechanisms driving it are poorly understood. Some evidence suggests that orphans experience elevated fertility, perhaps because structural disadvantage leads them to engage in sexual risk-taking. An alternative explanation is that orphans intentionally become pregnant to achieve a sense of normality, acceptance and love. Data from the 2006 wave of the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health on 1,033 young adults aged 15–25 were used to examine the relationship of maternal and paternal orphanhood with sexual risk indicators and desired and actual fertility. Regression analyses were used to adjust for covariates, including social and demographic characteristics and elapsed time since parental death. Twenty-six percent of respondents had lost their father and 15% their mother. Orphanhood was not associated with sexual risk-taking. However, respondents whose mother had died in the past five years desired more children than did those whose mother was still alive (risk differences, 0.52 among women and 0.97 among men). Actual fertility was elevated among women whose father had died more than five years earlier (0.31) and among men whose mother had died in the past five years (1.06) or more than five years earlier (0.47). The elevations in desired and actual fertility among orphans are consistent with the hypothesis that orphans intentionally become pregnant. Strategies that address personal desires for parenthood may need to be part of prevention programs aimed at orphaned youth.
Attention to women’s and children’s health is increasing in AU policy making, according to this report. The AU has provided a platform for leaders to debate issues of women’s and children’s health and to make commitments to their improvement. In an environment where different priorities compete for funding, women and children's health could be given greater profile by providing evidence of their contribution to overall development. Improving the health of women and children requires a cross sectoral approach and evidence on collective impact.
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is outlawed in Kenya. In this interview, Kenyan activist John Wafula holds the view that: “FGM is not a culturally enriching choice but rather a tool to isolate women and girls for disempowerment, domination and stagnation. If FGM negates girls’ right to education and healthy bodies then it ceases to be tenable as a cultural identity”. Prior to interventions to address FGM, he reports undertaking a baseline study to establish the prevalence of FGM in refugee camps, survivors, practitioners. The reasons why FGM was practiced, mostly among refugees of Somali descent, included perceptions that uncircumcised women would otherwise be unfaithful and ineligible for marriage. Their efforts to prevent FGM entailed creating awareness about its health, social and psychological consequences at the community level. They also invited religious scholars to engage the community on religion-based myths that were peddled to justify FGM. They sensitized school children on human rights, which also encompassed protection against any form of violence, FGM included. They targeted refugee community leaders for sensitization because of their visible position as community gatekeepers. The 2014 Kenya Demographic Health Survey indicated a nation-wide prevalence of 23%, down from 27% in 2008-09 and 32% in 2003. After enactment of the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act in 2011, an Anti-FGM Board was established that is reviewing a FGM policy with vigorous media campaigns to sensitize the public on the Act, supported by insights from research.
The authors of this paper draw on the experiences of a Learning Network for Health and Human Rights (LN) involving collaboration between academic institutions and civil society organisations in the Western Cape, South Africa. The LN’s work in materials development, participatory research, training and capacity-building for action, and advocacy for intervention illustrates important lessons for human rights practice, they argue. These include: actively translating knowledge and awareness into action to make rights real; civil society’s role in holding services accountable in terms of the right to health; the need for civil society to promote rights in general; and the critical importance of networking and solidarity for building civil society capacity to act for health rights. Civil society can play a key role in bridging a gap between formal state commitment to creating a human rights culture and realising services and policies that enable the most vulnerable members of society to advance their health. Rights violations can be redressed through access to information and the creation of safe, participatory spaces. Civil society agency is critical to such action.
The authors of this study draw on the experience of a Learning Network for Health and Human Rights (LN) involving collaboration between academic institutions and civil society organisations in the Western Cape, South Africa. The network aimed at identifying and disseminating best practice related to the right to health. The LN's work in materials development, participatory research, training and capacity-building for action, and advocacy for intervention illustrates lessons for human rights practice. Evidence from evaluation of the LN is presented to support the argument that civil society can play a key role in bridging a gap between formal state commitment to creating a human rights culture and realising services and policies that enable the most vulnerable members of society to advance their health. Through access to information, the creation of space for participation and a safe environment for learning to be turned into practice, the agency of those most affected by rights violations can be redressed, supported by civil society.
How can an integrated and inclusive approach of human rights and sustainable development be applied to financial regulation? CIVICUS argues that it will have to begin by giving the financial sector a role that is subservient to the ‘real’ economy, a real economy that in turn should support ecological sustainability and human rights and not a ‘paper’ economy based on futures trading. It points out that the recent financial crisis shows that market self-regulation does not work, calling for government intervention and regulation. CIVICUS makes three major proposals. First, given that markets in natural resources offer a field to expand paper profits while worsening equity in access to resources and conservation, CIVICUS call for new economic benchmarks and note that the Gross Domestic Product-based (GDP) is not an accurate benchmark of progress. Second, financing should be provided for sustainable modes of production, often small scale endeavours. Third, financial regulation should incentivise investment in production activities vs the paper economy.
World Population Day in July 2016 was held with the theme “Investing in teenage girls”. “The teenage years are for some girls a time of exploration‚ learning and increasing autonomy. But for many others‚ it is a time of increasing vulnerability and exclusion from rights and opportunities‚ or just plain discrimination‚'” said Babatunde Osotimehin‚ UN under-secretary-general and executive director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). “When a teenage girl has the power‚ the means and the information to make her own decisions in life‚ she is more likely to overcome obstacles that stand between her and a healthy‚ productive future. This will benefit her‚ her family and her community.” According to the UN‚ 20 000 girls under the age of 18 give birth every day in developing countries. Siyabulela Mamkeli‚ Cape Town mayoral committee member for health‚ said good health and access to services were “crucial to help young women on the road to success”. In conjunction with other organisations‚ the city has been involved in pilot projects to provide girls who have started with their menstrual cycle with reusable sanitary towels. Meanwhile‚ the UNFPA's initiative - to end child marriages‚ curb adolescent pregnancy and encourage girls to make informed decisions about their futures - helped more than 11-million girls between the ages of 10 and 19 gain access to sexual and reproductive health services and information in 2015.
In this blog Thandika Mkandawire writes about the role Nelson Mandela played in inspiring his generation of political activists.He writes that if the life imprisonment of Mandela seemed like a major reversal for African nationalism and a victory for the remaining racist and fascist regimes, Mandela's statement at the dock of the court on 20 April 1964 was one the most inspiring statements for his generation: “This is the struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But, if needs be, my Lord, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Mkandawire writes that four things strike him as to why the man is the most admired among Africans. One was Mandela's deep commitment to the liberation of the African people. A second was Mandela’s deep sense of duty and a warm sense of respect for the people he led and the movement to which he had been of selfless service. The third feature was Mandela’s eminently sane relationship to power and his contribution by example in his own exercise of power. The fourth was his commitment to democracy and rule of law.
This piece provides information on the civil society solidarity with three HIV-positive women in Namibia who are claiming compensation for alleged sterilisation without informed consent. The women are each suing the Ministry of Health and Social Services for alleged violation of their right to dignity, to non-discrimination and to found a family. A petition on the issue, signed by more than 1,000 people from Namibia and around the world, was handed to the Ministry of Health and Social Services. The petition demands that, amongst other things, the Ministry of Health and Social Services issue a circular to both the public and private health facilities explicitly prohibiting the practice of sterilisation without informed consent.