KIRUKU: Rekindling the flames of hope: what does 2016 portend for women?

KIRUKU: Rekindling the flames of hope: what does 2016 portend for women?

By Anne Kiruku, East African News Agency

The Chinese Zodiac forecast has predicted 2016 as the year of the smart, naughty, wily and vigilant animal – the monkey. The predictions further advise that we will deal with more financial events in the year of the monkey; if you want good returns for your money, this will be a good year to invest heavily – only ensure you outsmart the monkey.

But the desires, hopes and aspirations of East African women are not the subject of mere predictions: They are driven by the desire to see a just society where women and men are treated as equals and where gender discrimination and violence, food insecurity, and reproductive health diseases are dealt with urgently.

One of the key areas where women have been short-changed is in the sharing of available resources and vacancies. Only recently, Tanzania made history by appointing a Cabinet in which more than 40 per cent were women. Thank God for Rwanda, too; this country is a global leader in according women equal opportunities with men. Kenya, however, has continuously disregarded the constitutionally enshrined one-third gender rule in appointments to key decision making positions.

Empty talk on gender equality and issues to do with sealing the ever-widening gender gap in public offices, while in reality nothing is done, is an insult to women. Our leaders must show goodwill in addressing the glaring gender disparities in public appointments. Our leaders must know that they are not doing women a favour by appointing them to key offices; this is only fair, just and constitutional.

As financial allocations to the health sector diminish by the day, women continue to die of otherwise preventable and curable diseases. Cancer has now become a major killer among women. Efforts to ensure early detection, treatment and management of cervical, breast and ovarian cancers – some of the major cancer killers for women – have been hampered by inadequate funding. It is now upon our leaders to decide if they want to save women from killer diseases or become spectators as the ruthless disease wipes away the human race.

To ensure women are economically empowered, our leaders must ensure increased funding to women kitties. Availability and accessibility of cheap soft loans for women-owned businesses will go a long way in ensuring that they can compete effectively with their male counterparts.

This is because women have lagged behind in economic empowerment due to lack of access to credit facilities and funding.

Tackling retrogressive cultural practices

Indeed, the major source of capital for women-owned businesses is family and friends, since most financial institutions ask for collateral – yet most women don’t own land. As a result, their businesses collapse within the first year of opening.

In addition, our leaders must show goodwill in tackling retrogressive cultural practices that continue to subject our girls to female genital mutilation and early marriages. This has hindered efforts to attain gender parity in education as girls drop out of school as a result of early pregnancies. The result is entrenchment of the vicious circle of poverty, poor health and low literacy levels among women.

Although the government has made tremendous efforts to boost agriculture in the region, a lot still needs to be done. Women and girls form the backbone of smallholder agriculture; they serve as producers, labourers, processors and traders within the largely domestic market. Women dominate household-level food production and preparation, and are indeed responsible for 60-80 per cent of food production in East Africa.

The majority of women farmers do not have land title deeds, hampering agricultural productivity due to lack of ownership of the sole means of production.

Furthermore, governments must deal with the perennial challenges of rising fuel prices, decreasing land sizes due to subdivisions, environmental degradation, unpredictable weather patterns, rapid population growth, and rampant land grabbing. All these have conspired to make agriculture unattractive, crippling the sector in the region.

Debilitating poverty diminishes human dignity in our society. Corruption, moreover, threatens to cripple our economies and must be viciously clamped down.

As women tread the murky waters of politics, our leaders must offer a helping hand by removing obstacles that hinder them from winning elective positions. East Africans are watching keenly to see how Ugandans will treat women political aspirants given the shameful displays of 2015, and how the winning party will distribute top decision making positions thereafter.

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