tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/women-and-girls-38471/articlesWomen and girls – The Conversation2024-03-28T15:09:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2266322024-03-28T15:09:02Z2024-03-28T15:09:02ZThe Gambia may allow female genital mutilation again – another sign of a global trend eroding women’s rights<p>The Gambia’s ban on <a href="https://africlaw.com/2016/01/19/banning-female-circumcision-in-the-gambia-through-legislative-change-the-next-steps/">female genital mutilation (FGM)</a> since 2015 is <a href="https://africlaw.com/2024/03/22/threats-to-endfgm-law-in-the-gambia/#more/-3155">under threat</a>. Proposed changes before parliament could permit <a href="https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijgo.12792">medicalised</a> female genital cutting and allow it for consenting adults. </p>
<p>This potential reversal has thrust the country into the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/18/move-to-overturn-fgm-ban-in-the-gambia-postponed">global spotlight</a> as the latest example of the backlash against gender equality.</p>
<p>The Gambia’s criminalisation of FGM was not the first in west Africa but it came as a surprise. The president at the time, Yahya Jammeh, declared the <a href="https://gambia.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/national_policy_for_the_elimination_of_fgm.pdf">rampant cultural tradition</a> a non-religious practice that caused harm. There was some dissent within the country but human rights groups <a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-9fb847c01f8e448c97f5d09b8a844cba">welcomed</a> the ban. </p>
<p>Jammeh, who was president from 1994 to 2016, also oversaw the passage of other progressive gender-related laws. The <a href="https://www.lawhubgambia.com/domestic-violence-act-2013">Domestic Violence Act 2013</a> provided a framework for combating domestic violence in all its forms (physical, sexual, emotional, economic) and protection in particular for women and children. The <a href="https://www.lawhubgambia.com/sexual-offences-act-2013">Sexual Offences Act 2013</a> expanded the definition of rape, broadened the circumstances in which individuals could be charged, and reduced the burden of proof in prosecutions.</p>
<p>Jammeh also <a href="https://security-legislation.gm/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Childrens-Amendment-Act-2016.pdf">outlawed</a> child marriages in 2016. This was significant in country where <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR369/FR369.pdf">one in five young people aged 15-19 (19%)</a> are married. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/development-policy/news/eu-cuts-aid-to-gambia-over-human-rights-concerns/">one of the world’s most aid-dependent countries</a>, these reforms were all central to international donor interests. And they helped to improve the country’s democratic reputation. But at the same time, they made it easy for the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48609039">autocratic</a> leader to get away with other excesses. He also mobilised religion to manipulate beliefs and sentiments, particularly affecting girls and women. For example, Jammeh <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/05/gambia-female-government-workers-headscarves-islamic-republic">mandated</a> that female government workers wear veils or headscarves when he declared his <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353945890_2020_Religious_Tolerance_in_the_Gambia">Muslim majority</a> country an Islamic state in 2016. </p>
<p>President Adama Barrow, Jammeh’s successor, has emphasised religious tolerance and has refrained from employing religious symbolism. Unlike the state-sponsored homophobia under the Jammeh regime, Barrow has downplayed homosexuality as a <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/edocman/edited_collections/queer_lawfare_in_africa/Chapter%2011.pdf">“non-issue”</a>.</p>
<p>I am a legal scholar and human rights practitioner with published research on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=Q0j-E18AAAAJ&citation_for_view=Q0j-E18AAAAJ:u5HHmVD_uO8C">female genital mutilation</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=Q0j-E18AAAAJ&citation_for_view=Q0j-E18AAAAJ:zYLM7Y9cAGgC">gender equality and women’s rights</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=Q0j-E18AAAAJ&citation_for_view=Q0j-E18AAAAJ:_kc_bZDykSQC">governance</a> in The Gambia. It’s my view that Jammeh’s ostensible compliance with gender equality norms was selective and intended for the international gallery rather than a genuine commitment to women’s rights and democracy.</p>
<p>His tactical stance highlighted a broader trend. Autocratic African leaders often accommodate global gender norms to maintain domestic power dynamics. The result, for example, is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00104140221074277">increased women’s political participation through quotas</a> along with a conservative approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights.</p>
<p>The Gambia experience also shows that western donors and multilateral institutions need to go beyond just pushing for reforms. Once they have got the reforms they advocated for, they should have a strategy for sustaining them. Forces that were opposed to the reform often regroup to campaign for its removal. </p>
<p>At its core, female genital mutilation <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/edocman/pulp_commentaries/protocol_to_ACHPR/Article_5.pdf">constitutes</a> a <a href="https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijgo.12792">violation</a> of the human rights of girls and women. These include the right to non-discrimination, to protection from physical and mental violence, and to health and life. </p>
<p>From a feminist perspective, the prevalence of FGM in numerous African nations revolves around upholding gender-specific norms and exerting control over women’s sexuality.</p>
<h2>Female genital mutilation in The Gambia</h2>
<p>Female genital cutting is a <a href="https://gambia.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/national_policy_for_the_elimination_of_fgm.pdf">deeply ingrained practice</a>. It is driven by cultural beliefs and often performed by traditional healers. According to the most recent <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-FR369-DHS-Final-Reports.cfm">national survey</a>, a large majority of Gambian women aged 15-49 years (73%) have undergone female genital cutting. More alarming is an <a href="https://www.unicef.org/gambia/media/776/file/The%20Gambia%20Multiple%20Indicator%20Cluster%20Survey%202018.pdf">8% increase in the prevalence</a> of FGM among girls under the age of 14 – from 42.4% in 2010 to 50.6% in 2018. </p>
<p>Numerous health risks associated with all types of the practice have been documented by the <a href="https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation">World Health Organization</a> and <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/2/4/bmjgh-2017-000467#ref-5">systematic reviews</a>. These include severe pain, bleeding, infections and complications during childbirth and elevated rates of anxiety and other mental health disorders. This has led to <a href="https://eyala.blog/my-musings/repealing-the-endfgm-law-will-be-a-betrayal-of-women-and-girls-in-the-gambia-jama-jack">calls</a> for the practice to be banned in order to protect girls’ health and well-being.</p>
<p>The Gambia’s current struggle with the FGM ban reflects a complex interplay between cultural norms, religious beliefs, and the fight for gender equality. The potential repeal of the ban poses a threat to human rights of women and girls in The Gambia.</p>
<h2>Reversal of hard-won gains</h2>
<p>Though The Gambia is constitutionally secular, religion influences nearly every facet of society. Islamic fundamentalists in the country are known for attacks on religious minorities, including <a href="https://malagen.org/media-monitoring/hate-speech-alert-imam-fatty-attacks-ahmadis/">hate speech</a> against the Ahmadiyya Muslim community and the <a href="https://www.voicegambia.com/2023/05/11/rising-religious-tension-in-the-country/">Christian community</a>. </p>
<p>The main fundamentalist religious actors draw inspiration from and still support the exiled former dictator Jammeh. They are at the forefront of the <a href="https://africlaw.com/2024/03/22/threats-to-endfgm-law-in-the-gambia/#more-3155.">recent pushback</a> against the anti-FGM law. They argue that the ban violates their religious and cultural freedoms as guaranteed in the <a href="https://www.lawhubgambia.com/1997-constitution">1997 constitution</a>. </p>
<p>On 4 March 2024 a <a href="https://standard.gm/nam-to-seek-power-of-attorney-from-jammeh-to-sue-govt/">strong supporter of Jammeh</a> proposed a private member’s <a href="https://satangnabaneh.com/contesting-the-prohibition-of-female-genital-mutilation-in-the-gambia/">bill</a> in the National Assembly that seeks to overturn the ban.</p>
<p>The push to reassert traditional gender roles isn’t isolated to The Gambia. There is a global trend of rolling back progress on gender equality. This trend is characterised by attempts to limit <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/emerging-voices-series/choice-and-conscience-lessons-from-south-africa-for-a-global-debate">women’s bodily choices</a>, an <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Women/WG/Gender-equality-and-gender-backlash.pdf">increase in violence</a> against them, as well as <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/edited-collections/queer-lawfare-in-africa-legal-strategies-in-contexts-of-lgbtiq-criminalisation-and-politicisation">attacks</a> on LGBTQI+ communities. It reflects a broader political climate of backlash against women’s rights and gender equality as a weapon in the reversal of democratic achievements.</p>
<p>Attempts have been seen to reverse legal protections against women and girls in <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/kenyas-court-ruling-against-fgm-demonstrates-commitment-member-states-shun-practices">Kenya</a>. In Sudan, state-sanctioned violence and societal pressure is aimed at <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2019/07/against-laws-regime-sudan-women-protesters-want/">restricting</a> women’s public participation. Similarly, Tanzania previously enacted a policy barring teenage mothers from <a href="https://www.moe.go.tz/sw/nyaraka/waraka-wa-elimu-na-2-wa-mwaka-2021-kuhusu-kuingia-tena-shule-kwa-wanafunzi-wa-shule-za">attending</a> public schools, though this policy has been reversed. </p>
<p>This global context highlights how anti-rights movements, undemocratic norms and gendered politics are working together to erode women’s rights and exacerbate inequalities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Satang Nabaneh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The potential repeal of the ban on female genital mutilation poses a threat to the well-being of girls in The Gambia.Satang Nabaneh, Director of Programs, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2249822024-03-21T14:40:43Z2024-03-21T14:40:43ZGhana’s free high school policy is getting more girls to complete secondary education – study<p>Education drives economic growth and individual well-being. Secondary education, in particular, plays a crucial role. In recent decades, this recognition has encouraged several <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-secondary-education-in-african-countries-is-on-the-rise-but-is-it-the-best-policy-what-the-evidence-says-204924">African countries to make secondary education free</a>. One example is Ghana’s Free Public Senior High School (<a href="https://moe.gov.gh/index.php/free-shs-policy/">FreeSHS</a>) policy, initiated in 2017. </p>
<p>The policy aimed to remove cost barriers to secondary education, including fees, textbooks, boarding and meals. </p>
<p>As scholars of public policy, we conducted <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059324000439#bib4">research</a> into the impact of the policy, particularly its effect on the number of girls completing secondary school. We emphasised the educational outcomes of girls because they are at a disadvantage when accessing higher education in Ghana. The enrolment and retention of girls in school <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603124.2019.1613565">decrease with each educational level</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01443581211274647/full/html">Socio-culturally,</a> if a family has limited resources, they tend to spend more on boys’ education than on girls’ education and this is reinforced by the belief that girls’ labour around the house is more valuable.</p>
<p>The results highlighted that the state’s absorption of education costs had served as a critical incentive for students to complete secondary education – and more so for girls.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059324000439#bib4">Our paper</a> is the first to quantitatively evaluate the policy’s impact on education outcomes. Also, by focusing on the policy’s impact on schoolgirls, our findings show how removing cost barriers to education significantly enhances the chances of girls in completing secondary education. This is important because aside from female education having individual benefits, “to educate girls is to reduce poverty”, as former UN secretary-general <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2003/sgsm8662.doc.htm">Kofi Annan</a> said.</p>
<p>Our findings contribute to the call for greater schooling access for girls.</p>
<h2>Weighing up the pros and cons</h2>
<p>Ghana’s Free Public Senior High School policy arose from an <a href="https://www.codeoghana.org/assets/downloadables/2012%20NPP%20Manifesto.pdf">election campaign promise</a> made by President <a href="https://citifmonline.com/2017/09/from-2008-to-2017-the-free-shs-journey/">Nana Akufo-Addo during campaign trails in 2008, 2012 and 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Between 2017 and 2021 the government spent <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/gh-5-12bn-spent-on-free-shs-minister.html">GH¢5.12 billion</a> (US$392 million) on implementing the policy. </p>
<p>There has been controversy. Critics have questioned the policy’s financial sustainability and raised concerns about <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18146627.2023.2225754?casa_token=ghjM4EjR7LQAAAAA:Fh511M9k6kARILla_omwarRwRI8r_PA130k9DRvHDmJYvyCIIYDZb4u0FwqbmXuO3hD_3VL51CF6eA">deteriorating education quality</a>, given the rising enrolment rates since the policy’s inception.</p>
<p>Still, public opinion remains largely favourable. According to the <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/migrated/files/publications/Summary%20of%20results/summary_of_results-ghana_r8-19feb20-updated.pdf">Afrobarometer survey in 2020</a>, 23.5% agreed and 63.1% strongly agreed that it had created opportunities for those who otherwise would not have been able to afford secondary education. </p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>Our study set out to estimate the impact of the policy on education attainment. We emphasised how it had affected, in particular, the completion rate of girls. We did this by estimating the change in secondary school completion rates without the policy (2013 to 2016) and with it (2017 to 2020). </p>
<p>These rates will have been influenced by a number of factors, not just free education. But they were the starting point of our nuanced analysis.</p>
<p>Because all students benefited from the policy from 2017 we couldn’t simply estimate its impact by looking at the completion rate of those who benefited and those who had not. </p>
<p>So we compared districts where more students took advantage of the policy. That is, where more students had previously been unable to afford schooling to districts where fewer did so. This helped us see if the change in completion rates between these groups was bigger after the policy started. Basically, it’s like comparing two gardens. Both get extra water (free schooling) and experience an increase in growth. However, one garden grew more than the other.</p>
<p>That difference in “gardens” (school districts) allowed us to estimate the impact of the “water” (the policy) on education completion. </p>
<p>We found that the policy positively affected the educational attainment of both girls and boys. For girls and boys together, the policy increased the completion of senior high school by 14.9 percentage points. </p>
<p>There was a 14 percentage point increase in the rate of girls completing senior high school after the new policy. We did not estimate the increase for boys but the combined rate shows it will be higher than 14 percentage points.</p>
<p>We also found that after the policy was in place, girls enrolled in secondary high school at rates equal to or exceeding those of boys across all regions. However, this has not yet translated into full gender parity in completion rates. </p>
<p>The short-term impact suggests that the policy alone does not erase all gendered constraints to education (for example, social and cultural), but it has contributed to reducing them. </p>
<p>We did not find evidence that the policy improved the quality of education. However, we found that quality was statistically insignificant in driving completion rates.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10780-022-09459-3">Reports</a> of inadequate infrastructure and overcrowding hint at an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18146627.2023.2225754">unchanged and even declining quality of schooling</a>. </p>
<h2>Policy implications</h2>
<p>Our findings have four policy implications. To maximise the benefits of increased enrolment and completion rates, Ghana must:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Address education quality concerns</strong>: An increase in secondary high school completion rates should not be mistaken for quality. Quality must be enhanced to improve labour market competitiveness and long-term gains.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Implement complementary policies</strong>: Increasing enrolment and completion rates will lead to a larger pool of educated youth. Labour market and tertiary education opportunities must be boosted to match the new demand.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Develop interventions to address specific needs of deprived districts</strong>: Some regions, for instance, the northern and western regions, had among the lowest uptake rates for the free senior high school policy. There are underlying barriers to education in these regions other than fees. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059321000237">Lessons from Uganda</a> have shown that, despite universal fee-free secondary education, the probability of enrolling in secondary education was reduced by greater distance to the nearest school, especially in rural compared to urban areas. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Make FreeSHS a targeted intervention rather than universal</strong>: The government must do more to systematically identify those who cannot pay and make secondary education free for them. The policy can also be used to provide incentives for the uptake of technical and vocational education and training. This can yield savings, generate resources for quality education investments and increase employment opportunities. </p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>This article and the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059324000439#bib4">research</a> it is based upon was led by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicia-stenzel/?originalSubdomain=de">Alicia Stenzel</a> (Education Policy Advisor at GIZ).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Free secondary educational policy in Ghana is worthwhile but struggles to keep up with quality.Victor Osei Kwadwo, Lecturer, Maastricht University (UNU-MERIT), United Nations UniversityRose Vincent, Assistant Professor, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2253022024-03-13T14:22:57Z2024-03-13T14:22:57ZFinancial abuse from an intimate partner? Three ways you can protect yourself<p><a href="https://www.divorcelaws.co.za/what-is-financial-abuse.html">Financial abuse</a> occurs when one person takes control over another person’s ability to acquire, use and maintain financial resources. An example is being denied access to your own funds or being forced to deposit your salary into a joint bank account but not having access to the account. It could also take place when large withdrawals are made from joint bank accounts without any explanation. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.isdj.org.za/">Institute for Social Development and Justice</a>, a South African non-profit company, financial abuse can vary and change shape or form but happens when access to economic opportunities is controlled or limited by an intimate partner. </p>
<p>This can happen when your partner withholds financial information or hides money from you. Another example is when your partner refuses to allow you to work, thereby controlling your ability to earn an income. Or being coerced into paying for most of the household expenses when you earn less than your partner. Alternatively, it can happen when the abuser racks up debt on a credit card, knowing the card is not in their name. </p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2021-014.pdf">Domestic Violence Act</a> identifies financial abuse as a criminal act. Several other African countries, such as Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe also recognise it to be a criminal offence. But it remains largely unprosecuted.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, financial abuse is not a new problem. Over the years, my <a href="https://researchprofiles.canberra.edu.au/en/persons/bomikazi-zeka">research</a> has found that the proper use of financial services can help those in disadvantaged situations to turn income into wealth. But when money is entangled with relationships, it can become a tricky situation to navigate. </p>
<p>Financial abuse can happen to anyone, irrespective of age, gender, marital status, employment status or income levels. When financial abuse occurs, it is women who are more likely to see their financial security threatened should the dynamics in a relationship take a turn for the worse. Women are more likely to experience financial abuse since it can happen in tandem with <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10896-023-00639-y">other forms of abuse</a>. </p>
<p>When you know the signs, you can put the following three measures in place to increase your financial safety: prevent, prepare and protect. </p>
<h2>Prevent</h2>
<p>Knowing your partner’s financial history is an important starting point in preventing financial abuse. Ask about how they have managed their debt in the past (and how they got into it in the first place) or whether they are actively saving money. </p>
<p>Broaching the money-talk conversation is difficult but this information should give you insight into their past financial behaviours which could influence and explain future financial behaviours. </p>
<p>Another strategy in prevention is asking about their attitudes towards money in relationships. For instance, do they believe that gender roles influence who manages money? Engaging in this topic early can also help you set boundaries about how money is managed within the relationship. </p>
<h2>Prepare</h2>
<p>Learning the signs of financial abuse can help you be prepared. If you suspect that financial abuse is beginning to emerge then keep close tabs on it by documenting all the evidence. This is important because an abuser may gaslight you into thinking you’re exaggerating, especially when the signs are subtle. Document as much evidence as you can and ensure you have copies of all important legal documents as this will help you, should you require legal assistance. </p>
<p>If you don’t already have one, speak to a financial advisor about how you can protect your finances and assets. </p>
<h2>Protect</h2>
<p>As far as possible, keep an independent source of income as this reduces any likelihood of dependency on a partner. Financial dependency can lead to feelings of isolation and hopelessness, which makes it more difficult to leave an abuser because they control the finances. </p>
<p>Another way you can protect your financial position is by making sure you don’t sign any documents you don’t understand. Often abusers will acquire financial assets in their partner’s name and leave them with the financial burden of the repayments, thereby entrapping them through debt. </p>
<h2>Getting help</h2>
<p>While the measures outlined here are not exhaustive, they are a good starting point to think about when your finances are merged with someone else’s. </p>
<p>If you are concerned about your financial safety, there are ways to get help. FIDA-Kenya, a women’s rights organisation in Kenya, offers <a href="https://www.fida-kenya.org/">free legal aid</a>. In Nigeria, the Women at Risk International Foundation operates a 24-hour confidential toll-free <a href="https://warifng.org/contact-us/">helpline</a>. </p>
<p>You can access free counselling from a social worker via the South African Department of Social Development’s <a href="https://gbv.org.za/about-us/">website</a>, which provides a call centre facility 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The call centre operates an emergency line number on 0800 428 428. You can visit the <a href="https://thewarriorproject.org.za/helplines/">website</a> of the Warrior Project, a non-profit organisation, for more information on helplines and resources.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bomikazi Zeka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When money is entangled with relationships, it can often become a tricky situation.Bomikazi Zeka, Assistant Professor in Finance and Financial Planning, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2232342024-03-07T08:44:06Z2024-03-07T08:44:06ZSouth Africa: women play a key role in early childhood learning and care – but they need help accessing university<p>In South Africa, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201610/national-integrated-ecd-policy-web-version-final-01-08-2016a.pdf">early childhood development sector</a> is <a href="https://womensreport.africa/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WomensReport_2021.pdf">dominated by women</a> who build creches from the ground up. These women offer services to communities that go far beyond childcare. They teach, feed and nurture children and keep them safe. They also build sustainable businesses and provide employment opportunities to members of their communities.</p>
<p>Previously managed under the Department of Social Development and currently under the Department of Basic Education, the early childhood development sector runs on an entrepreneurship model. Some individuals in the sector opt to set up and run childcare businesses; there are also many not-for-profit early childhood development centres. It’s a model that lends itself to informal sector economic practices.</p>
<p>Like most women in the informal sector in developing countries, these early childhood development practitioners work long hours for very little money. This reality echoes the findings of <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/115591468211805723/pdf/825200WP0Women00Box379865B00PUBLIC0.pdf">a World Bank report</a> which showed that women who trade in any part of the informal sector in African countries are prone to economic exploitation.</p>
<p>Most of the women who run these facilities have certificates and diplomas from vocational colleges. But they are unable to get accepted at universities so they cannot pursue degrees. This limits their earning ability and their ability to formalise their businesses.</p>
<p>Having taught in vocational colleges, I set out to better understand the obstacles faced by women early childhood development practitioners who wanted to further their studies by going to university. I <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.14426/jovacet.v6i1.317">conducted research</a> for my doctoral studies on practitioners and their learning journeys, as well as a focus on what’s known as recognition of prior learning. </p>
<p>This concept assumes that people learn through experience; it then provides access to qualifications based on that experience. In some cases, people can also gain university credits through recognition of prior learning. This can then be used towards the completion of a higher education qualification.</p>
<p>I interviewed 11 women, aged between 33 and 46, based in Cape Town. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.14426/jovacet.v6i1.317">My findings</a> suggest two potential changes to the existing system. One, there should be a standard policy across all South African universities related to recognition of prior learning as a criterion for entrance. And two, universities should accept women early childhood development practitioners who have successfully completed early childhood development qualifications at vocational colleges. </p>
<p>The benefits would be twofold. It would benefit the women, who could build better lives for themselves and their families. And it would benefit <a href="https://theelders.org/news/empowered-women-create-empowered-societies">society</a>. <a href="https://www.unicef.org/early-childhood-development">Research has shown</a> that early childhood development is critical to children’s lives.</p>
<h2>Women’s own stories</h2>
<p>All the women in my study held early childhood development qualifications from technical and vocational education and training colleges. These qualifications train women to work in centres with babies and children between the ages of 0 and 9. They completed their qualifications while working as teachers, principals and owners of early childhood development centres. </p>
<p>The women wanted to further their education by going to university and continue training as teachers and find better employment. They applied at different universities but were rejected, primarily because their matric results – the final secondary school exam – had not qualified them for university entrance and partly because of their ages.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-adjustments-needed-if-universities-are-to-make-it-easier-for-people-to-study-while-working-45531">Radical adjustments needed if universities are to make it easier for people to study while working</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In some cases they were unsuccessful because universities didn’t recognise their existing vocational college early childhood development qualifications. </p>
<p>The only route of access was therefore through recognition of prior learning. However, this programme is not offered at all higher education institutions for access into the faculty of education. </p>
<p>Jenna (not her real name) found out from a friend about one university’s recognition of prior learning programme. The application process was arduous and costly – Jenna paid R2,750 (about US$145) overall. She submitted her work history, certificates, a motivational letter, and letters of support from the principal of the early childhood development centre where she worked and from a mentor. She also submitted lesson plans and a portfolio reflecting her teaching philosophy. </p>
<p>Her application was successful. However, at the close of my study, because of ineffective administration from the university’s side, Jenna had not yet entered into the first year of her degree programme.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.saqa.org.za/">South African Qualifications Authority</a> allows only 10% of entrants into any undergraduate and postgraduate university programme via recognition of prior learning. Some of my participants also applied at a different university, located in the Western Cape, where Cape Town is, for this alternative route. They were advised that, even if they successfully completed the recognition of prior learning process, there was no guarantee they’d be accepted into their desired programme, because of the 10% rule. </p>
<p>In my study, different institutions managed recognition of prior learning very differently, which caused a lot of confusion for my participants – and, by extension, the many people hoping to access it. Some institutions do not consider recognition of prior learning at all. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/economies-grow-when-early-childhood-development-is-a-priority-69660">Economies grow when early childhood development is a priority</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Answers</h2>
<p>I argue for a number of steps to be taken.</p>
<p>Firstly, universities should provide access to early childhood development teachers who have successfully completed vocational qualifications. They can do this by recognising these qualifications.</p>
<p>Secondly, universities should recognise prior learning and standardise recognition of prior learning processes in their access criteria. </p>
<p>Thirdly, they should make the process more affordable and easier to navigate. </p>
<p>This would help early childhood development teachers to keep learning, no matter their age. And that would be good for South Africa more broadly: when women learn, children and communities learn and grow as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223234/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kaylianne Aploon-Zokufa receives funding from The European Union (EU) Department of Higher Education and Training’s Teaching and Learning Development Capacity Improvement Programme (TLDCIP).</span></em></p>There should be a standard policy across all South African universities related to recognition of prior learning as a criterion for entrance.Kaylianne Aploon-Zokufa, Lecturer, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230482024-02-27T14:07:04Z2024-02-27T14:07:04ZBenefits of using cleaner cooking fuels are blunted in urban areas where outdoor air is polluted: findings from Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya<p>Household air pollution from cooking, heating and lighting with fuels like wood, charcoal and kerosene poses a substantial global health problem. </p>
<p>Globally, <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/20-01-2022-who-publishes-new-global-data-on-the-use-of-clean-and-polluting-fuels-for-cooking-by-fuel-type">2 billion</a> people cook with polluting fuels and are exposed to high levels of household air pollution. The highest proportion live in sub-Saharan Africa, where <a href="https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/new-research-could-help-boost-growth-of-clean-cooking-in-sub-saharan-africa/29340#:%7E:text=Approximately%20900%20million%20people%20cook,health%2Ddamaging%20and%20climate%20pollutants">about 900 million</a> people cook with polluting fuels.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30197-2/fulltext">Studies</a> have shown that use of cleaner cooking fuels, like electricity, ethanol and liquefied petroleum gas, reduces exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a damaging pollutant. But <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-021-00756-5">other studies</a> have also shown that the use of cleaner cooking fuels doesn’t necessarily reduce PM2.5 levels in people’s homes.</p>
<p>To understand why, our research looked at three rapidly urbanising communities in Cameroon (Mbalmayo), Ghana (Obuasi) and Kenya (Eldoret). We looked at differences in air pollutant levels across cooking fuel types as well as other environmental factors. We measured levels of PM2.5 as well as carbon monoxide (CO), another damaging air pollutant. </p>
<p>Half of the households that were part of our study were mostly cooking with LPG, which is considered a cleaner cooking fuel. The other half were cooking only with polluting fuels, including wood and charcoal.</p>
<p>Our findings showed that the type of cooking fuel households used did indeed affect levels of pollution inside people’s homes. But we found wide disparities between the three communities. For example, there was hardly any difference in average PM2.5 exposures between LPG and charcoal users in the Ghanaian setting. However, in the Kenyan and Cameroonian communities, women’s average PM2.5 levels were much higher among those cooking with wood, compared with those cooking with LPG. In Eldoret, Kenya, women cooking with charcoal were also exposed to substantially higher levels than those cooking with LPG. </p>
<p>We concluded from our results that this could be explained by the fact that environmental factors were also at play – air pollution levels outside people’s homes. In the Ghanaian area, outdoor air pollution levels were around double the levels in the other two communities. This difference is likely due in part to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231099002964?via%3Dihub">increased levels</a> of Saharan dust in Ghana during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/harmattan">harmattan</a> season. </p>
<p>In addition, most women in the Ghanaian setting usually cooked outdoors on a veranda. This increased their exposure to outdoor air pollution. In contrast, women in Kenya and Cameroon typically cooked indoors.</p>
<p>We also found that women, regardless of the cooking fuel they used, had higher exposure to PM2.5 if they lived closer to a busy road (less than a five minute walk away) and travelled outdoors during the day. This suggested that traffic emissions probably made up a substantial proportion of the air pollution that women were breathing in these urban areas. And emissions generated from cooking might have contributed less to overall PM2.5 exposures. </p>
<p>This may explain why there were minimal differences between PM2.5 exposures among women using LPG and charcoal stoves in the Ghanaian community, despite LPG stoves generally emitting lower levels of PM2.5. It follows that, in some areas with rapid urbanisation, outdoor air pollution is probably lowering the ability of clean cooking fuels to reduce PM2.5 exposures. </p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>As cities continue to urbanise and the African population increasingly migrates to cities, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01311-2">evidence</a> points to the fact that localised levels of air pollution from industrial sources, traffic, and trash burning are likely to increase. This means that people will become increasingly exposed to air pollutants outdoors and that reductions in PM2.5 exposure that happens when people switch from polluting fuels to LPG may be lower. </p>
<p>Our findings show that clean cooking fuels can reduce indoor air pollution. However, a focus on reducing indoor pollution by switching cooking fuels may only have a limited effect on people’s exposure to damaging air pollutants. Our findings point to the need for developing strategies for reducing both indoor and outdoor air pollution levels. Lower outdoor PM2.5 concentrations can be achieved through stricter regulations on traffic emissions and limiting or eliminating trash burning in favour of less polluting methods for solid waste disposal.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, efforts to encourage a transition towards clean cooking fuels should remain an important policy priority, particularly in communities that are exposed to lower levels of outdoor PM2.5. The transition to clean cooking fuels can potentially have a greater health benefit in these settings. </p>
<p>A more targeted approach and prioritising certain areas in the drive for access to cleaner cooking fuels makes sense. As the <a href="https://cleancooking.org/">Clean Cooking Alliance</a> has pointed out, there are limited resources and funding to tackle the move towards cleaner cooking fuels. Targeting specific areas for clean cooking transitions may therefore be a useful strategy. </p>
<p>In the meantime, the global health community must devote more resources to providing universal access to clean cooking by 2030 <a href="https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/sustainable-development-goals/why-do-sustainable-development-goals-matter/goal-7">(United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7)</a>].</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Shupler is also a researcher in the Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems at the University of Liverpool. This research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) (ref: 17/63/155) using UK aid from
the UK Government to support global health research. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Esong Miranda Baame and Theresa Tawiah do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dust and traffic pollution add to the health hazard posed by some cooking fuels.Matthew Shupler, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environmental Public Health, Harvard UniversityEsong Miranda Baame, PhD Candidate, Université de DschangTheresa Tawiah, Health Economist ,Department of Environmental Health, Kintampo Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2224032024-02-19T13:36:02Z2024-02-19T13:36:02ZNervous Conditions: on translating one of Zimbabwe’s most famous novels into Shona<p>The publishing journey of Zimbabwean writer and film-maker <a href="https://theconversation.com/tsitsi-dangarembga-and-writing-about-pain-and-loss-in-zimbabwe-144313">Tsitsi Dangarembga</a>’s <a href="https://www.google.co.za/books/edition/Nervous_Conditions/UyZjAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Nervous%20Conditions">Nervous Conditions</a> wasn’t easy. Yet the novel is today considered by many as one of <a href="https://library.columbia.edu/libraries/global/virtual-libraries/african_studies/books.html">Africa’s 100 best books</a> of the 20th century and is studied at <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2020/08/african-literature-is-a-country">universities</a> around the world. </p>
<p>When she submitted the manuscript to publishing houses in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, they all turned it down. Dangarembga felt <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1345839">at the time</a> that it was “very difficult for men to accept the things that women write and want to write about: and the men (were) the publishers”. It was eventually published to critical acclaim in 1988 by <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803124519397">The Women’s Press</a> in London. This made Dangarembga the first black Zimbabwean woman to publish a novel in English. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1745039029970595991"}"></div></p>
<p>Now a new translation of the book into Zimbabwe’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shona">Shona</a> language has been released, marking another milestone for Nervous Conditions, because African classics are seldom translated into African languages. Translation of African literature happens often, but mostly in European countries. Nervous Conditions itself has <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/formats-editions/1230558464">already been translated</a> into a dozen or more languages including Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish. </p>
<p>The new Shona translation, titled Kusagadzikana and released by Zimbabwean publishers <a href="https://houseofbookszim.com/">House of Books</a>, was done by <a href="https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poets/poet/102-7808_Mabasa">Ignatius Mabasa</a>, an acclaimed novelist who also wrote the first <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/facultyofhumanities/latestnews/africanlanguagesstudentwritesfirst-everchishonaphdthesisatrhodesuniver-1.html">PhD thesis in Shona</a>.</p>
<p>Even more remarkably, Dangarembga’s follow-up novel, <a href="https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/book-not">The Book of Not</a>, has also recently been translated into Shona as Hakuna Zvakadaro by writer and academic <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Tanaka+Chidora&btnG=">Tanaka Chidora</a>. This leaves just the last book in the trilogy, <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/authors/tsitsi-dangarembga">the Booker shortlisted</a> <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/this-mournable-body/">This Mournable Body</a>, untranslated. </p>
<p>For a reader and <a href="https://www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk/cpt_people/mushakavanhu-dr-tinashe/">scholar</a> of Zimbabwean literature, encountering Nervous Condition’s story of a rural girl called Tambudzai in Shona is like waking up in a dream. I spoke with Mabasa about his translation journey and why it matters.</p>
<h2>Can you describe the process of translating the book?</h2>
<p>I started translating Nervous Conditions around 1999 when I was a visiting Fulbright scholar in the US, where I was teaching Zimbabwean literature. Nervous Conditions was one of the books I was teaching. Coincidentally, 1999 is the year that my first novel <a href="https://www.google.co.za/books/edition/Mapenzi/qLMaAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Mapenzi&dq=Mapenzi&printsec=frontcover">Mapenzi</a> was published and I used to talk to my students about the sad situation that there was more Zimbabwean literature in English than in indigenous languages. </p>
<p>I pointed out that the majority of the ordinary women whose story Nervous Conditions was telling would not be able to buy, read and understand Nervous Conditions in English, because of their literacy levels. I thought perhaps I could try to translate the book into Shona as a way of repatriating and decolonising the story. I then dived in and started translating the first chapter, tackling one paragraph at a time. </p>
<p>I was intrigued by how beautiful and sincere the story sounded in Shona. Tambudzai sounded more heartfelt in Shona than in English – I guess because Shona was her real voice. As someone who grew up in a village myself, I strongly identified with Tambudzai and, in translating, I faithfully became her in order to capture the pain and injustice in her family and the national politics in the story. I translated the book up to chapter three and had to stop because Dangarembga was involved in a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/ayebia-clarke-publishing-help-tsitsi-dangarembga-regain-the-rights-to-her-novel-nervous-conditions">legal battle</a> for its rights. I only resumed in 2022, but because I had lost the mood and feeling that I had when I initially started, I had to rework the translation from the beginning.</p>
<h2>Were there difficult parts and how did you deal with them?</h2>
<p>The title was one of the most difficult things to translate. Nervousness is something deeper, it’s beyond nerves. It’s a reflection of the physical, the psychological and the spiritual. The level of disturbance in Nervous Conditions is traumatic, immediate and long-term. I had to think really hard about the words that would capture all that. I’m pleased with Kusagadzikana as the final title because when I read Tanaka Chidora’s Shona translation of The Book of Not, I noticed that he uses the term <em>kusagadzikana</em> the same way I did.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/animal-farm-has-been-translated-into-shona-why-a-group-of-zimbabwean-writers-undertook-the-task-206966">Animal Farm has been translated into Shona – why a group of Zimbabwean writers undertook the task</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Another difficulty I faced was to do with the differences in the storytelling style of the two languages, English and Shona. Dangarembga does go into the human psyche in a complex and deep manner that is not usually found in Shona writing, and that needed to be handled delicately – there were times when it was like deboning a fish. An example is Tambudzai’s trauma caused by Babamukuru’s facilitated wedding of her parents. Also Nyasha’s emotional rollercoasters are key to the story – I had to slow down and make sure that I didn’t miss the metaphorically loaded twists and turns. Then there are some very English descriptions including elaborate colours, ways of dancing, fashion designs, foods that I had to deal with cleverly but without aborting the meaning.</p>
<h2>Why was it important for you to translate this book?</h2>
<p>Nervous Conditions is our story as indigenous people. The story had to be decolonised by making it come back to speak to the people who are victims of colonial injustices in a language that would enable them to tell “when the rain started to beat them” (as the saying goes) in order for them to start drying themselves. </p>
<p>The novel is an important documentation of our history and the translation makes it accessible and able to be discussed under a tree by ordinary folk, and not just by academics in air-conditioned conference venues. It is a form of liberation struggle – the liberation of many things that remain colonised, including our minds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It reads powerfully in the Shona language, and is one of two of her books newly translated into it.Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Junior Research Fellow, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2147582024-02-13T15:05:19Z2024-02-13T15:05:19ZGirls and pornography in South Africa: going beyond just the negative effects<p><em>Academic research tends to focus on the negative aspects and sexual dangers of girls and young people viewing porn. But what do girls themselves say about growing up in a world where porn is so readily available from such a young age? It’s a question Deevia Bhana, a professor in gender and childhood sexuality, sets out to answer in her <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Girls-Negotiating-Porn-in-South-Africa-Power-Play-and-Sexuality/Bhana/p/book/9781032028897">book</a> Girls Negotiating Porn in South Africa: Power, Play and Sexuality. We asked her five questions.</em></p>
<h2>What’s the book’s central idea?</h2>
<p>When it comes to porn, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23268743.2015.1051914">research suggests</a> there are differences between boys and girls, where it is more acceptable for boys to view porn than it is for girls. These gendered differences are based on gender roles and identities where boys’ interest in and expression of sexuality is deemed to be more appropriate than that of girls, who are expected to be sexually innocent and subdued. </p>
<p>In South Africa, these divisions are made deeper by <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/publication/ad738-south-africans-see-gender-based-violence-as-most-important-womens-rights-issue-to-address/">sexual violence</a> and <a href="https://www.inclusivesociety.org.za/post/understanding-gender-inequality#:%7E:text=%5B1%5D%20Its%20inequality%20is%20profoundly,lower%20than%20that%20of%20men.">gender inequalities</a> where girls are seen as passive victims of sexuality. Putting girls and porn together as this book does is taboo. There are many reasons for this, including perceptions of respectability. </p>
<p>In contrast, the book provides evidence of girls’ widespread engagement with porn. Digital technologies, social media platforms and a wide array of online sites offer access to sexually explicit material. Sex is all over the internet and porn is everywhere. And girls do engage with it to expand their knowledge – whether teachers and parents like this or not. </p>
<p>The book elaborates on girls’ sexual curiosity, their ideas of sexuality and bodies and their objection to racial categorisations and sexual objectification. It opens up and broadens the conversation about how girls engage with porn in a far more nuanced way beyond danger narratives. The book advocates for a more open and nonjudgmental approach to understanding teenage girls’ experiences with porn, focusing on their voices, experiences and perspectives. </p>
<h2>What research was involved?</h2>
<p>The book is based on focus group discussions and individual interviews with 30 teenage girls between 14 and 18. It draws on <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/photo-elicitation">photo-elicitation</a> methods, drawings and poster making. The girls presented visual images and drawings to describe what porn meant to them. </p>
<h2>What did girls tell you about their experiences of viewing porn?</h2>
<p>The book opens with 17-year-old Nqobile (not her real name). She recalls she first encountered sexual scenes on TV when she was eight, but knew this was something that she couldn’t discuss with her parents. She found this exciting and wanted to know more about it. Like other girls in the study, she spoke about what online porn meant to her. </p>
<p>The girls in the study did not have to access porn online to see porn. They said porn was everywhere, in billboards, movies, music videos… Porn is a normalised aspect of everyday life and the online world. They openly mocked and discarded dominant understandings of porn and sex as inappropriate in their young lives. </p>
<p>They spoke about the excitement of forging sexual relationships, their concerns about first-time sex and their desire to learn about sexual intimacy. One participant said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Maybe, if you are very inexperienced with sex, you can watch something or look at something to give you an idea of what to expect, and just how to approach the situation, what to do in the situations so that you don’t feel inexperienced.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When girls engage with porn they don’t simply see sexual content. They also see women whose bodies don’t reflect reality. These images can shape girls’ perceptions of their own bodies and a desire to conform to certain beauty standards which are gendered and racialised. The book shows that girls may find themselves pursuing these elusive “ideals”, but may also challenge them. Many were aware of slim, straight haired, fair skinned and blonde ideals. </p>
<p>Rather than reinforce outdated beauty norms, the girls suggested alternative media and social media platforms that celebrate the real variety of bodies. They also used discussions about porn to talk about male power and female sexual subordination. That only men were seen as deriving pleasure from porn was viewed as one-sided. Women too, the girls argued, experienced pleasure. </p>
<h2>Where do power, play and sexuality fit in?</h2>
<p>Girls engage with porn through their online adventures as they play with the boundaries of respectability. Play also indicates the fun and pleasure they derive from talking about their online encounters with sexuality. So, they play with porn, make jokes about its content, learn about sexual relationships, while they also critically object to the domination of heterosexuality and racialised and gendered patterns of inequalities. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/help-ive-just-discovered-my-teen-has-watched-porn-what-should-i-do-215892">Help, I've just discovered my teen has watched porn! What should I do?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The lack of comprehensive sex education that addresses girls’ desires and porn can leave young people with limited resources for understanding healthy relationships, consent and sexual pleasure. Online porn becomes a primary source of information. </p>
<p>But relying solely on online porn for sexual knowledge can lead to perceptions of intimacy that are unrealistic, where understandings of boundaries and consent reinforce male power. Additionally, girls’ engagement with porn without proper context or guidance can contribute to feelings of shame, guilt and confusion about one’s own desires.</p>
<p>In South Africa, while comprehensive sexuality education is compulsory in schools, a focus on disease, poor health, violence and the need to abstain is prominent. Sexual desires, pleasures and discussion of first-time sex are often of marginal consideration. In fact <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-82602-4">across the globe</a> young people are denied sexuality education that actually takes heed of pleasure.</p>
<h2>What do you hope readers will take away?</h2>
<p>The research offers five key insights:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Girls are not passive recipients: The book challenges the prevailing notion that teenage girls are passive victims of sexuality. Instead, it highlights they actively engage with and navigate the complex world of online porn.</p></li>
<li><p>Girls’ experiences are complex: The research shows girls have a wide range of thoughts, feelings and reactions to porn, including curiosity, playfulness and critical thinking. This challenges the view that porn is universally harmful.</p></li>
<li><p>Context matters: The study highlights the importance of considering the specific social, economic and cultural contexts in which girls are growing up. It recognises that girls from privileged backgrounds may have different experiences and access to online resources that permit ways of learning about porn.</p></li>
<li><p>Better sexuality education is crucial: Instead of shunning discussions about sexuality and porn, the book shows that girls do want to have conversations about these topics. It is adults who refuse to do so. </p></li>
<li><p>We should listen to girls’ voices: The book underscores the importance of valuing girls’ voices and perspectives. It advocates for an approach that recognises that girls both desire and object to porn’s racialised and sexist messages.</p></li>
</ol><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deevia Bhana receives funding from the National Research Foundation. This work is based on the research supported wholly by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 98407).</span></em></p>Sex is all over the internet, and girls engage with it in many different ways. They shouldn’t be judged for it.Deevia Bhana, Professor Gender and Childhood Sexuality, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2227302024-02-04T16:23:16Z2024-02-04T16:23:16ZHage Geingob: Namibian president who played a modernising role<p>Hage Gottfried Geingob <a href="https://www.namibian-studies.com/index.php/JNS/article/view/113/113">served as the third president of Namibia</a> from 2015 until his death on February 4 2024. He was Namibia’s first prime minister from 1990 to 2002, and served as prime minister again from 2012 to 2015.</p>
<p>Geingob was born on <a href="https://www.parliament.na/dt_team/geingob-hage/">3 August 1941</a>. He joined the ranks of the national liberation movement South West African People’s Organisation (<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-west-africa-peoples-organisation-swapo">Swapo</a> during its formation in 1960.</p>
<p>As the official statement <a href="https://twitter.com/NamPresidency/status/1753963884828823682">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Namibian nation has lost a distinguished servant of the people, a
liberation struggle icon, the chief architect of our constitution and the pillar of the Namibian house.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Swapo’s candidate he was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hage-Geingob">elected</a> as Namibia’s president for 2015 to 2020 in November 2014. In 2017 he replaced Hifikepunye Pohamba as party president. As head of state with <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-badly-needs-refurbishment-after-32-years-under-the-ruling-party-179205">far reaching executive powers</a>, he remained in control over party and government since then. </p>
<p>Geingob’s political career differed from that of his predecessors Sam Nujoma and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hifikepunye-Pohamba">Hifikepunye Pohamba</a>. <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/200904240652.html">Nujoma</a>, the founding president of Swapo, served as president for three terms (1990-2005). Pohamba (2005-2015) was his designated successor. </p>
<p>Geingob personified a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44508019">“changing of the guard”</a>. His advanced formal education left an imprint on the way of governance during his terms in office. A younger generation moved gradually into higher party and state ranks. He successfully modified the heroic struggle narrative and turned it into a more inclusive, patriotic history. </p>
<h2>Geingob’s career</h2>
<p>Geingob had his cultural roots in the Damara community. This made him different from the mainstream Swapo leadership, which is mainly from the Oshiwambo-speaking population. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-badly-needs-refurbishment-after-32-years-under-the-ruling-party-179205">Namibia badly needs refurbishment after 32 years under the ruling party</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Geingob’s different background counted in his favour among many Namibians when campaigning for presidency. People welcomed a leader with origins in an ethnically defined minority group as a sign of multi-cultural plurality.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.parliament.na/dt_team/geingob-hage/">Studying</a> at the US American Temple University in Philadelphia, the Fordham University (BA) and The New School (MA), both in New York, Geingob was representing Swapo since the mid-1960s at the United Nations. In 1975 he became the head of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/160803">United Nations Institute for Namibia</a> in Lusaka. </p>
<p>He returned to Namibia in mid-1989, leading the Swapo election campaign in the transition to independence under <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40175168">supervision of the United Nations</a>. He played a <a href="https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=a5fa370c-004f-c92d-0ba3-7b3ca48aab38&groupId=252038">decisive role as chairman of the elected Constituent Assembly</a>. </p>
<p>He was appointed Prime Minister in 1990. </p>
<p>In 2002 he fell into disgrace for not supporting <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/legacies-of-power">Sam Nujoma’s presidency-for-life ambitions</a>. Instead of accepting his demotion to Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing, he became executive secretary of the <a href="https://gcacma.org/AboutGCA.htm">Washington-based Global Coalition for Africa</a>. </p>
<p>In 2004 he obtained a PhD at the University of Leeds for a <a href="https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/21090/">thesis</a> on state formation in Namibia.</p>
<p>He returned the same year to Namibia. Thanks to Pohamba’s reconciliatory approach, he made a remarkable comeback. Minister of Trade and industry from 2008 to 2012, he again became Prime Minister (2012-2015). </p>
<p>His clever politically strategic mind paved the way to be elected as president of the party and state. </p>
<h1>Geingob’s presidency</h1>
<p>In the Presidential and National Assembly elections of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-12-02-namibias-swapo-win-elections-geingob-voted-as-president/">November 2014</a> Geingob and Swapo scored the best results in the country’s history. While Nujoma was termed the president for stability and Pohamba the president for continuity, Geingob campaigned as <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/EJC-5ae9d1ff3">president for prosperity</a>. </p>
<p>But this made him the president of unfulfilled promises. </p>
<p>Geingob’s rhetoric disclosed a stronger contrast between what was said and what was done than that of his predecessors. He used more <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2018.1500360">populist</a> rhetoric as his style of governance and leadership, coining the metaphor of the “Namibian House. </p>
<p>As he <a href="https://www.namibiaembassyusa.org/sites/default/files/statements/Inaugural%20Speech%20by%20HE%20Hage%20%20Geingob%201.pdf">declared in his inaugural address</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All of us must play our part in the success of this beautiful house we call Namibia. We need to renew it from time to time by undergoing renovations and extensions. … Let us stand together in building this new Namibian house in which no Namibian will feel left out.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But over the years many felt left out. The November 2019 parliamentary and presidential election <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00358533.2020.1717090">results</a> were the worst for Swapo since independence. A 2020 Afrobarometer survey confirmed <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/articles/trust-political-institutions-decline-namibia-afrobarometer-survey-shows/">a decline of trust</a>.</p>
<p>In all fairness, Geingob entered office at a difficult time. The country faced fiscal constraints and a period of serious droughts, followed by the traumatic impact of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00358533.2020.1790776">Covid</a>. Consequently, the socio-economic track record under him was at best mixed. On balance, his governance was characterised by a considerable gap between <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/namibia-2024-promises-or-delivery/">promises and delivery </a>. </p>
<p>Under Geingob a decline of ethics became visible, manifested spectacularly in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FJ1TB0nwHs">corruption scandal</a> in the <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/timely-and-engaging-fishrot/">fishing industry</a>. It became the synonym of state capture. Fighting <a href="https://africa.cgtn.com/namibias-president-geingob-pledges-stronger-fight-against-corruption/">corruption</a> became Geingob’s mantra. But it had little credibility in the eyes of the wider public. </p>
<h1>The moderniser</h1>
<p>Geingob was first married (1967-1992) to a strong-minded African-American woman. Fondly called "Auntie Patty”, Priscilla Geingos was <a href="https://www.namibiansun.com/news/auntie-patty-laid-to-rest-in-windhoek">laid to rest in Windhoek in 2014</a>. </p>
<p>Before entering office, Geingob (divorced for a second time from Loini Kandume in 2008) married the businesswoman Monica Kalondo in 2015. Strong, loyal, and independent-minded, Monica Geingos became an <a href="https://www.unaids.org/en/aboutunaids/unaidsambassadors/MonicaGeingos">active and internationally recognised First Lady</a>.</p>
<p>Among Geingob’s most laudable achievements <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/06/experts-committee-elimination-discrimination-against-women-congratulate-namibia">is a gender-aware policy</a>. It elevated Namibia into the league of countries with the highest proportion of women in leading political offices.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://namibia.unfpa.org/en/topics/gender-based-violence-3">took a stand against</a> gender-based violence and the country progressed in closing the gender inequality gap.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-pulls-down-german-colonial-statue-after-protests-who-was-curt-von-francois-195334">Namibia pulls down German colonial statue after protests – who was Curt von François?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He was also reluctant to give in to <a href="https://www.washingtonblade.com/2023/06/14/landmark-namibia-supreme-court-ruling-sparks-anti-gay-backlash/">homophobia</a> prevalent among parliamentarians. In May 2023 the Supreme Court ruled in favour of <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/on-same-sex-relationships/">equal treatment</a> of two foreign same sex spouses married to Namibian citizens. While the vast majority of members of the National Assembly pushed through a law amendment seeking <a href="https://www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/2023/07/20/namibias-proposed-amendment-of-the-marriage-act-an-attack-on-the-rule-of-law-and-the-judiciary/">to invalidate the verdict</a>, Geingob did not sign the bill into law. </p>
<h1>Geingob’s legacy</h1>
<p>One of the last official statements by Geingob, on 13 January 2024, testified to his strong views. Upset over Germany’s taking side with Israel at the International Court of Justice, he <a href="https://twitter.com/NamPresidency/status/1746259880871149956">fumed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The German Government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil. Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Geingob was ambitious to enter Namibian history as the president who did more to promote the welfare and advancement of citizens. But he struggled to turn that vision into reality in office. Namibia remains among the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/namibia/overview#:%7E:text=Namibia%20ranks%20as%20one%20of,services%20are%20large%20and%20widening">most unequal countries</a> in the world. </p>
<p>As he reiterated in his <a href="https://twitter.com/NamPresidency/status/1741615241614508304">New Year Address 2024</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In order to seize the opportunities that are in line with our ambitions and expectations, we should redouble our efforts to make Namibia a better country. I call on each one of you to work harder for our collective welfare. I call on all of you to hold hands and to ensure that no one feels left out of the Namibian House.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His legacy as a moderniser will live on despite all the contradictions and unfulfilled promises. </p>
<p>Hamba kahle (Rest in peace).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of Swapo since 1974. </span></em></p>Hage Geingob’s legacy as a moderniser will live on despite contradictions and unfulfilled promises.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207392024-02-01T14:24:22Z2024-02-01T14:24:22ZSlaves of God: Nigeria’s traditional Osu slavery practice was stopped, but the suffering continues<p><em>There are global efforts to fight modern slavery, but a few traditional systems still hold strong in west Africa. These include Osu, Ohu and Trokosi.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation Africa’s Godfred Akoto Boafo spoke to Michael Odijie who has <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-854">researched</a> one of the systems – Osu – and what can be done to finally put a stop to it.</em></p>
<h2>What is Osu?</h2>
<p><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2459907">Osu</a> is a traditional practice in the <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/%7Elegneref/igbo/igbo2.htm#:%7E:text=Most%20Igbo%20speakers%20are%20based,%2C%20Ebonyi%2C%20and%20Enugu%20States.">Igbo region</a>, in south-eastern Nigeria. In the past, Osu involved dedicating individuals to local deities, “transforming” them into slaves of the gods. Though such dedications no longer take place, the descendants of past Osu suffer from discrimination and social exclusion.</p>
<p>Historically, there were <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-854">several ways</a> a person could become an Osu. Some were purchased as slaves and then dedicated to local gods, either to atone for a crime committed by the purchaser or to seek assistance from the deity. An individual might attain the status of an Osu through birth if one of their parents was an Osu or through voluntarily seeking asylum, thus assuming the Osu status. For example, during the transatlantic slave trade, many chose this path: they would run to a shrine and dedicate themselves, to avoid being sold. Once dedicated as an Osu, they were generally ostracised from Igbo communities, yet simultaneously regarded with fear, seen as the slave of a deity.</p>
<p>Another common way to become an Osu was through marriage to an Osu, leading to persistent marriage discrimination even today.</p>
<p>The spread of Christianity, which occurred rapidly among the Igbos in the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/colonialism-and-christianity-in-west-africa-the-igbo-case-190019151/A803DBB4AAF24CCEEA20597B37B5E649">20th century</a>, discouraged the practice of worshipping local deities. The historical practice of Osu has ended.</p>
<p>However, a new form of discrimination has taken its place, targeting the descendants of those historically identified as Osu. </p>
<p>One of the most significant forms of modern discrimination occurs in the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-journal-of-postcolonial-literary-inquiry/article/abs/abolition-law-and-the-osu-marriage-novel/DDA6F8DDBB3D12D822EE42CC17FE165D">realm of marriage</a>. Freeborn individuals, who have no Osu lineage, are customarily prohibited from marrying someone of Osu lineage. Should they do so, both they and their offspring permanently become Osu, facing the same discrimination. This discrimination has a profound impact on the social and emotional lives of many Igbos of Osu lineage, particularly those of marriageable age. It can be challenging for them to find a spouse.</p>
<p>Another form of discrimination nowadays is social exclusion. In Igbo villages, Osu live in segregated quarters and are barred from social interactions with freeborn community members. They face barriers to accessing certain public amenities, attending community events and participating in communal decision-making processes. </p>
<p>Their descendants are also restricted from holding specific influential positions in the Igbo village power structure, such as the Okpara (the oldest man in the village) and the Onyishi.</p>
<h2>How prevalent is Osu and where is it practised?</h2>
<p>G. Ugo Nwokeji is an Igbo cultural historian who studied slavery in the Igbo region. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-descendants-of-slaves-in-nigeria-fight-for-equality">He estimated</a> that the Osu represented 5%-10% of the Igbo population. With an ethnic population of about 30 million <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199846733/obo-9780199846733-0143.xml">Igbos</a> in Nigeria, this suggests that between 1.5 and 3 million Igbos suffer from this discrimination. </p>
<p>The vast majority of Osu are found in Imo State, which has about 5.2 million people. But they are in every other Igbo-dominated state as well: Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi and Abia.</p>
<h2>Why has it been a challenge for governments to end the Osu practice?</h2>
<p>In 1956, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001/acref-9780195382075-e-0239">Nnamdi Azikiwe</a>, then the premier of Eastern Nigeria and later the first president of Nigeria, spearheaded the passage of a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/218649">law</a> aimed at abolishing Osu and its social disadvantages. </p>
<p>But the practice continued. No arrests were recorded. Osu is deeply rooted in tradition, making a purely legal approach insufficient.</p>
<p>One reason why eliminating discrimination has been difficult is that identifying an Osu is relatively straightforward for Igbos. They often reside in their own distinct quarters. Therefore, simply mentioning one’s village or family name can reveal one’s Osu status. This situation is a result of a combination of Igbo culture and colonial policy from the 1920s. During this period, individuals of slave origin began to assert themselves, and the British colonial response was to segregate them.</p>
<h2>What other approaches should be tried?</h2>
<p>A new abolition movement is gaining momentum in the Igbo region of Nigeria, fuelled by social media. This has enabled widespread awareness and advocacy, creating a more robust and inclusive dialogue about the Osu system.</p>
<p>One of the leading groups in this new movement is the <a href="https://ifetacsios.org.ng/">Initiative For the Eradication of Traditional and Cultural Stigmatisation in Our Society</a>, a network of campaigners led by Ogechukwu Stella Maduagwu. </p>
<p>Recognising that the Osu system is often viewed as having spiritual significance, the initiative places greater emphasis on the advice of cultural custodians, including traditional rulers. Consequently, it has developed a “model of abolition” that involves consultation with cultural figures, such as chief priests representing the deities, in Igbo villages. Using this model, the organisation successfully conducted an abolition ceremony in the <a href="https://dailypost.ng/2021/04/06/joy-celebration-as-nsukka-abolishes-osu-caste-system/">Nsukka region</a> of Enugu State.</p>
<p>Another leading campaigner is <a href="https://www.globalpeacechain.org/team_members/dr-nwaocha-ogechukwu/">Nwaocha Ogechukwu</a>, a scholar and researcher specialising in religious and cultural discrimination. He has established a platform named Marriage Without Borders to assist young people who face marriage discrimination due to being labelled as Osu. In collaboration with religious leaders, he provides counselling and support to those suffering from the adverse effects of this system.</p>
<p>A challenge for the emerging movement is its localised approach. Without a strategy that encompasses the entire Igbo region, campaigners are unable to collaborate effectively or engage in a unified, sustainable effort. This issue arises from the diverse genealogies of the Osu and the lack of a single traditional Igbo authority. </p>
<p>As a result, the movement has found it difficult to gain widespread traction. It continues to have a village-level focus.</p>
<p>We recommend that the movement align itself with broader human rights campaigns within Nigeria, across Africa and internationally. The Osu system bears resemblances to Ghana’s <a href="https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1190&context=history-in-the-making">Trokosi system</a>. The campaign to abolish <a href="https://theconversation.com/girls-in-west-africa-offered-into-sexual-slavery-as-wives-of-gods-105400">Trokosi</a> achieved notable success because its message resonated on a national level, garnering support from international activists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael E Odijie receives funding from UCL Knowledge Exchange </span></em></p>Ending discrimination against the Osu has been difficult because identifying an Osu is relatively straightforward for Igbos.Michael E Odijie, Research associate, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176952024-01-31T15:25:55Z2024-01-31T15:25:55ZSouth African marriage ruling is a win for divorcees and surviving spouses: it guides the sharing of their assets<p>South Africa’s Constitutional Court has fundamentally changed the country’s marriage law, making it fairer to people who are married “out of community of property” when their marriages end. In these marriages, the estates of spouses are kept separate. They do not combine what they own into a joint estate. </p>
<p>The change applies to people who got married after 1 November 1984 when their marriages end in divorce; or who got married before or after 1 November 1984 and whose marriages end in death. </p>
<p>The apex court’s judgment of 10 October 2023, in the case of <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2023/32.html">EB v ER</a>, will benefit spouses, mainly wives, who find themselves in financially vulnerable positions when their marriages out of community of property without accrual end in divorce or death. This includes stay-at-home mothers, who take care of the family home or raise the children full time. Their non-financial contributions to the marriage, including unpaid labour in the home, are now valued as much as any financial contributions to the marriage.</p>
<p>Before 1 November 1984, there were only two legally recognised matrimonial property regimes applicable to marriages in South Africa. They were marriages in community of property and out of community of property. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1984-088.pdf">Marriages in community of property</a> are those in which the estates of both spouses are combined. When the marriage ends through divorce or death, the parties each have a 50% claim against the joint estate.</p>
<p>In the case of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1984-088.pdf">out of community of property regime</a>, the estates of the spouses are at all times kept separate. Neither spouse has a claim against the other spouse’s estate even if they contribute to the maintenance or growth of the other’s estate.</p>
<h2>The change</h2>
<p>On 1 November 1984, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1984-088.pdf">Matrimonial Property Act 88 of 1984</a> entered into force. It introduced a third matrimonial property regime: the accrual system. </p>
<p>The accrual system allows spouses who are married out of community of property to share in the growth of each other’s estates while still maintaining their separate estates.</p>
<p>Both spouses retain separate estates when they enter the marriage and during the marriage. At the end of the marriage through divorce or death, the spouse with the smaller accrual or no accrual has a claim against the spouse with the bigger accrual. The claim is for an amount equal to half of the difference between the accrual of the respective estates of the spouses. </p>
<p>For example, a wife and husband each enter the marriage with R1,000. At the time that they are married, both spouses are working. During the marriage, they decide that the wife should stay at home and take care of the house and children while the husband will continue working and be the breadwinner of the family. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-new-marriage-bill-raises-many-thorny-issues-a-balancing-act-is-needed-210343">South Africa's new Marriage Bill raises many thorny issues - a balancing act is needed</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Suppose that at the end of the marriage, the wife’s estate is valued as R3,000 and the husband’s estate is valued as R10,000. The accrual in the wife’s estate is R2,000. The accrual in the husband’s estate is R9,000. Half the difference between the accrual of the spouses’ estates is R3,500 (R9,000 minus R2,000 equals R7,000, divided by two equals R3,500.) Since the wife’s accrual is smaller than her husband’s accrual, she has a claim of R3,500 against her husband’s estate.</p>
<p>The above crude example illustrates that even though it may not have been intended, the out of community of property with accrual regime recognises that even though parties retain separate estates during the marriage, they may contribute indirectly to the maintenance or growth of each other’s estates, like the wife did through her unpaid labour in the home.</p>
<h2>The judgment</h2>
<p>When the accrual regime was created, section 7(3) of the 1979 <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1979-070.pdf">Divorce Act</a> was amended to allow spouses who were married out of community of property before 1 November 1984 (who therefore did not have the option of accrual), and who were undergoing a divorce, to apply to a divorce court for a redistribution order. </p>
<p>Through a redistribution order, a court can transfer the assets of one spouse to the other spouse if it is just and equitable to do so. This applies in instances where one spouse contributes directly or indirectly to the maintenance or growth of the other spouse’s estate including through the rendering of services. </p>
<p>In its judgment of 10 October 2023, the Constitutional Court found section 7(3) of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1979-070.pdf">Divorce Act</a>, among others, to be unconstitutional and invalid to the extent that it did not include a) spouses who were married out of community of property without accrual after 1 November 1984 if the marriages were dissolved through divorce, and b) spouses who were married out of community of property without accrual before or after 1 November 1984 whose marriages ended through death. </p>
<p>These parties could not claim a redistribution order if they contributed to the maintenance or growth of their spouse’s estate.</p>
<h2>Significance of the judgment</h2>
<p>The court’s judgment will provide much needed financial relief to spouses whose marriages out of community of property without accrual end regardless of when the parties were married or how the marriage ended. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-courts-and-lawmakers-have-failed-the-ideal-of-cultural-diversity-91508">South Africa's courts and lawmakers have failed the ideal of cultural diversity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The judgment will also benefit spouses in Muslim marriages. These were legally recognised when the Constitutional Court, in a <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2022/23.html">2022 case</a>, Women’s Legal Centre Trust v President of the Republic of South Africa, declared that the common law definition of marriage and section 7(3) of the Divorce Act, among others, were unconstitutional to the extent that they did not include Muslim marriages. Now, spouses in Muslim marriages that are out of community of property without accrual, which dissolve through divorce or death, may apply to court for a redistribution order to transfer the assets from one spouse’s estate to the other.</p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>The advisory committee of the South African Law Reform Commission Project 100E on the Review of Aspects of <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/dpapers/dp160-prj100E-ReviewMatrimonialPropertyLaw.pdf">Matrimonial Property Law</a> is reviewing existing laws that deal with matrimonial property regimes.</p>
<p>In light of the Constitutional Court judgments in the Muslim marriages’ and accrual cases, the advisory committee could most likely recommend amendments to, among others, section 7(3) of the Divorce Act to enable all spouses married out of community of property without accrual to apply to court for a redistribution order when their marriages end in divorce or death. </p>
<p>In its <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/dpapers/dp160-prj100E-ReviewMatrimonialPropertyLaw.pdf">discussion paper 160</a>, the commission recommends that a court should retain discretion to ensure a just and equitable result when granting a redistribution order.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Waheeda Amien is a Professor of Law at the University of Cape Town. She specialises in Legal Pluralism, Religious Family Laws, Freedom of Religion, and Gender Equality. Prof. Amien is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the South African Law Reform Commission Project 100E on the Review of Aspects of Matrimonial Property Law. She writes in her personal capacity. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the University of Cape Town or the South African Law Reform Commission.</span></em></p>The judgment will also benefit spouses in Muslim marriages, which were legally recognised in a 2022 Constitutional Court judgment.Waheeda Amien, Professor of Legal Pluralism, Religious Family Laws, and Human Rights, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2177022024-01-30T10:09:59Z2024-01-30T10:09:59ZBurundi’s quota for women in politics has had mixed results, but that’s no reason to scrap it<p>Since 2005, Burundi has <a href="https://adsdatabase.ohchr.org/IssueLibrary/BURUNDI_Constitution.pdf#page=23">set quotas</a> to ensure that the country’s three ethnic groups (Hutu, Tutsi and Twa), as well as women, are represented in its parliament, central government and municipal administrations. Its constitution states that women should make up at least <a href="https://adsdatabase.ohchr.org/IssueLibrary/BURUNDI_Constitution.pdf#page=23">30% of these institutions</a>. </p>
<p>The senate, Burundi’s highest chamber of parliament, recently started a <a href="https://constitutionnet.org/news/review-constitutionalized-ethnic-quotas-burundi-turning-point">process of evaluating</a> ethnic quotas in political institutions. This <a href="https://www.voaafrica.com/a/burundi--ethnic-quota-system-under-senate-evaluation/7210281.html">process</a> is expected to lead to recommendations on whether quotas should continue to be used. Regrettably, the evaluation lacks methodological rigour and transparency.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=fr&user=hAOjiu8AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">researchers</a> with a focus on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=fr&user=9Gwdmm8AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">gender representation</a> in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/search?q=Stef%20Vandeginste">politics</a>, we believe this is a missed opportunity. Gender and ethnic quotas have been adopted in Burundi as a forward-looking solution to sustainable peace. A decision about removing them should be based on whether they have met (or can meet) their goals. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/00020397231203021">recent paper</a>, we examined whether gender quotas foster Burundian women’s political representation. </p>
<p>We drew on data covering the period between October 2001 and June 2020 to determine three things:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>whether Burundian political actors abide by the gender quotas</p></li>
<li><p>the relative importance of ministerial portfolios allocated to women </p></li>
<li><p>whether these gender quotas have had an effect on government positions where they aren’t mandated. </p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/political-representation-ethnicity-trumps-gender-in-burundi-and-rwanda-104146">Political representation: ethnicity trumps gender in Burundi and Rwanda</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We found that gender quotas have gradually resulted in women being assigned to prominent ministerial portfolios. The impact of this, however, has been mixed. </p>
<p>Women have remained confined to typically “feminine”, care-giving ministerial portfolios, such as health and education, over nearly two decades. They have been excluded from portfolios such as defence, security and foreign affairs. Their representation as senior advisers to the president or as CEOs of parastatals has remained marginal. </p>
<p>Our research illustrates that embedding gender quotas in the constitution can fast-track representation. But it doesn’t necessarily spiral beyond the targeted positions and institutions. This implies that any policy targeting an increase in women’s representation needs to take into account the broader political setting. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13537113.2022.2047248">formal mechanisms</a> to enforce gender quotas in government and parliament in Burundi are in place, they are absent in other important and sought-after positions, such as parastatal CEO or provincial governor.</p>
<h2>Meeting the gender quota</h2>
<p>Gender quotas have been consistently respected in Burundi since 2005. </p>
<p>The country has one of the highest shares of women in parliament. It ranks <a href="https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2023.pdf#page=18">41st</a> out of 145 countries in the 2023 global political empowerment metric. </p>
<p>This is mostly because gender quotas are compatible with clientelistic politics. Most women positions are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00020397231203021#page=4">allocated</a> to people related to key regime figures. This has led to the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00020397231203021">increasing assignment</a> of women to key portfolios like justice, health and education. </p>
<p>In theory, one might <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/CBA8C55CF243B6364C5DCE5D0D0AAAC6/S1743923X15000434a.pdf/div-class-title-rules-of-ministerial-recruitment-div.pdf">expect</a> that gender quotas would affect both the supply and demand side of women political elites, triggering an upsurge in women’s representation. </p>
<p>Burundi’s cabinet ministers, of whom 30% are women, nominate individuals to head departments under their jurisdiction. The pool of qualified candidates for such positions has increased as more women take on political responsibilities. Ideally, this should facilitate the nomination of women, even when there are no quotas.</p>
<p>But the gender quotas in Burundi have <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/burundi/burundian-women-want-greater-say-running-country">fallen short</a> of spilling over into quota-free positions. Women are still under-represented as senior advisers to the president, permanent secretaries in ministries or CEOs of parastatals.</p>
<p>Our interviews with political elites and women civil society activists revealed two ways women are sidelined.</p>
<p>First, women are not fully embedded in the formal and informal structures that decide who to appoint where and when. </p>
<p>For instance, women are not in the ruling party’s main decision-making body, <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004355910/B9789004355910_031.xml">Conseil des Sage</a> (council of the wise). They are also not part of the ruling party’s Cercle des Généraux (circle of generals). This is a group of former army and police generals who enjoy a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13698249.2017.1381819">de facto veto right</a> to any important decisions. Equally important, women aren’t appointed as provincial and municipal party executive secretaries. These are the career brokers and connectors between grassroots ruling party structures, the party’s leadership and the president.</p>
<p>Second, the ruling party has increasingly <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13698249.2016.1205561">relied on coercion</a> to maintain its dominance in politics since 2005. It relies heavily on hardliners, most of whom are former combatants in Imbonerakure, the party’s youth league, or Abahumure, party veterans. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13698249.2016.1205561">paramilitary power configuration</a> that has prevailed in Burundi since the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-Nkurunziza">ruling party’s accession to power</a>, the ability to wage violence has become a valued “skill set”. This is a comparative disadvantage for women, leading to their under-representation in appointed positions where gender quotas don’t apply.</p>
<h2>Opportunistic use of quotas</h2>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00020397231203021#page=11">Our research found</a> that women made important gains in high-value ministerial positions, in cabinet positions and in provincial governor positions in the 2015-2020 legislature. Their representation in high-visibility ministries increased, growing their political role. </p>
<p>On the surface of it, it may appear to be due to the gender quota policy. However, this would have taken a longer time to produce the desired effects. In our view, the 2015-2020 legislature resulted from a <a href="https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=hrbregionalcoverage-spring2016#page=2">chaotic and contested electoral process</a> in 2015 that was marred by massive human rights violations. </p>
<p>This election prompted key donors, such as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/mar/15/eu-suspends-aid-to-burundi-government">European Union</a>, to withdraw support to the government. We see what resulted as an <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/2CB1F142F6235323B08B506601376DE9/S0017257X2200032Xa.pdf/div-class-title-the-appointment-of-women-to-authoritarian-cabinets-in-africa-div.pdf">opportunistic use</a> of gender quotas as a window dressing strategy. It was an effort to sanitise a regime that had become an international pariah. </p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>Gender quotas have the potential to increase women’s representation in decision-making positions. However, to lead to sustainable change, governments need to take into account informal political practices. These include the role played by multiple layers of clientelistic networks in accessing key political positions. Women’s integration in political parties’ formal and informal structures would better level the playing field.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Any state policy looking to increase women’s representation must take into account formal and informal political practices.Reginas Ndayiragije, Associate researcher, University of AntwerpPetra Meier, Professor of Politics, University of AntwerpStef Vandeginste, Associate Professor, University of AntwerpLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2183872024-01-29T13:07:49Z2024-01-29T13:07:49ZKenya’s healthcare workers abuse a third of teen mums from informal settlements – study<p>Adolescent pregnancy is a global public health concern: in <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/adolescent-health/">2022</a>, about 13% of girls and young women gave birth before the age of 18. </p>
<p>Compared with women in their early 20s, adolescents are more <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(13)70179-7/fulltext?__scoop_post=9ef44560-18a4-11e5-90a9-001018304b75&__scoop_topic=1749219">susceptible</a> to maternal deaths. Pregnancy-related complications are among the leading causes of <a href="https://esaro.unfpa.org/en/topics/adolescent-pregnancy#:%7E:text=Early%20childbearing%2C%20high%20fertility%20rates,women%2020%20years%20and%20above.">death</a> among Africa’s adolescent girls. </p>
<p>Babies born to adolescent mothers in low- to middle-income countries also face an increased risk of <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0195731">neonatal deaths</a>, and pre-term and underweight birth. </p>
<p>These risks make it vital that pregnant girls feel comfortable seeking healthcare.</p>
<p>Adolescent pregnancy is an issue in Kenya, too, where <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/adolescent-health/">15%</a> of adolescent girls become mothers before the age of 18. Girls from the <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12905-022-01986-6.pdf">poorest households</a> are more likely to become mothers than girls from the richest households. </p>
<p>As specialists in medical sociology and public health, we conducted a <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/8/11/e013268.full.pdf">survey</a> in 2022 of adolescent mothers in an informal settlement in Kenya. About a third reported that they had been abused by health providers during childbirth. The study found that abusive treatment <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/8/11/e013268.full.pdf">discouraged</a> these girls from seeking future maternity care at healthcare facilities. </p>
<p>This matters for several reasons. One is that <a href="https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/1471-2393-13-18.pdf">facility-based childbirths</a> have a lower neonatal mortality rate than home childbirths. Maternal deaths are also lower when births occur in health facilities than at home. </p>
<h2>Young mothers in Kenya</h2>
<p>Our study site, Korogocho, is an informal settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi. About 200,000 people live there. It is overcrowded, with poor infrastructure and limited access to water and sanitation. Crime rates are high and residents are often exposed to violence and social unrest.</p>
<p>The study focused on 491 adolescent girls ranging in age from 14 to 19 years, who had a biological child at the time of the interviews.</p>
<p>Data were analysed to estimate the scale of abuse of girls during childbirth in health facilities. In total 32.2% of adolescent mothers suffered abuse from health providers during childbirth. </p>
<p>1.) Physical abuse was reported by 7.5% of participants. </p>
<p>To assess physical abuse, we asked girls if health workers punched, kicked, slapped, gagged, or hit them with an instrument, physically tied them to a bed, forcefully held them down to the bed, or had forceful downward pressure placed on their abdomen before the baby came out.</p>
<p>2.) Among those interviewed, 26.7% reported verbal abuse. </p>
<p>We assessed verbal abuse by asking girls if they were shouted at or screamed at, insulted, scolded, mocked, or had negative comments made about their physical appearance (such as cleanliness, private parts or weight), the baby’s physical appearance, and their sexual activity. </p>
<p>3.) Of the participants 15.1% claimed they had been the victims of stigma and discrimination.</p>
<p>Experience of stigma and discrimination was assessed by asking participants if health workers made negative comments to them regarding their ethnicity, race, tribe or culture, religion, age, marital status, education and literacy level, economic circumstances, and HIV status. </p>
<p>4.) One in 10 girls reported neglect and abandonment during childbirth. Neglect and abandonment were assessed by asking girls if staff members were present or not during admission and when the baby came out. </p>
<p>5.) Detainment was assessed by asking girls if they or their babies were held at the facility against their will because of their inability to pay fees. About 17% of the girls reported detainment. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, and consistent with a previous <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/5/Suppl_2/e003688.full.pdf">study</a> conducted among females within the reproductive age (15-49 years), we found that girls who were abused were less likely to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>report being satisfied with the care received</p></li>
<li><p>intend to use the facility for future births</p></li>
<li><p>be willing to recommend the facility to others.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Ways forward</h2>
<p>Pregnant girls endure societal stigma and discrimination. These attitudes filter into the healthcare system and healthcare workers need to be trained properly to counter the shame that pregnant girls endure. </p>
<p>These adolescents also need to be informed about their rights to respectful care. </p>
<p>There are small scale interventions in some parts of <a href="https://www.ghspjournal.org/content/early/2023/04/03/GHSP-D-22-00169">Nigeria</a> and <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0125267">Ghana</a> that show the potential to strengthen health systems to be more responsive to the needs of adolescents.</p>
<p>Until the mistreatment and abuse of adolescent girls is highlighted and addressed, professional care for pregnant girls will not be attained.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Kabiru receives funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) through a grant to the African Population and Health Research Center for the Challenging the Politics of Social Exclusion project (Sida Contribution No. 12103). She also receives funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for the Action to empower adolescent mothers in Burkina Faso and Malawi to improve their sexual and reproductive health project (Grant No. 109813-001). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IDRC or its Board of Governors or Sida.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Idowu Ajayi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Adolescent girls are more at risk during childbirth. Stigma and abuse by healthcare workers makes them less likely to seek medical care, putting their lives further in danger.Anthony Idowu Ajayi, Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterCaroline W. Kabiru, Senior Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2196142024-01-08T13:56:46Z2024-01-08T13:56:46ZFive years on the road in Africa: how Lerato Mogoatlhe became a travel writer<p><em>South African journalist <a href="https://africanofilter.org/people/lerato-mogoatlhe">Lerato Mogoatlhe</a> set off for three months in west Africa. She ended up drifting across the continent for five years. In 2019 she wrote a <a href="https://www.google.co.za/books/edition/Vagabond/J93yDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">book</a> about her travels, called Vagabond: Wandering Through Africa on Faith. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Janet+Remmington&btnG=">scholar</a> of, among other areas, African travel writing and mobility, I chatted to Mogoatlhe about travelling solo, queer and black.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> In reflecting on the book, you write that your first encounters with countries that would become the story of your life “started with literature and music”.</p>
<p><strong>Lerato Mogoatlhe:</strong> I have to say music videos were the most accessible way to experience the continent from my bedroom or lounge as a child in Pretoria, South Africa. They made me want to feel, hear, see, taste and smell what was out there for myself. How do you hear <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oumou-Sangare">Oumou Sangaré</a> sing about Bamako in Mali and not want to experience the city? Later influences in Johannesburg included university friends – and foods – from across Africa, bringing fresh perspectives and flavours. All of this opened my senses to the continent beyond the breaking news headlines or stereotypical perceptions.</p>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> Your book has a bold, enticing title: Vagabond. This word is usually defined in terms of one who wanders without a fixed abode. Throughout history vagabonds or wanderers have proved to be provocative. In colonial contexts like South Africa it was used, among other terms like “vagrant”, to disparage and control indigenous people on the move. <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315584393-18/vagrant-vagabond-curious-career-mobile-subject-tim-cresswell">Studies</a> have shown how “vagabond” is loaded with double meaning: a romantic figure of freedom and also a challenging figure of disruption. Why did you chose it for the book?</p>
<p><strong>Lerato Mogoatlhe:</strong> There’s no shying away from the vagabond. I am no stranger to the term’s double edge. I chose Vagabond precisely because travelling solo across the continent, especially back in 2008, seemed so random and outrageous to some people in my life. Why quit a job to travel? Couldn’t I find a better use for my money? Or: what exactly will you be doing, what’s there, why are you going?</p>
<p>I didn’t know anything about what was ahead, besides being ready to travel and seeing what would happen (in the absence of a travel budget). In this light, being a vagabond might be seen as aimless – almost like a failure to then launch into young adulthood.</p>
<p>However, to me, being a vagabond represents freedom and adventure, and the time of my life. The aimless wandering, the drifting without a place to stay … it remains a moment in time in my life. A glorious one. I knew my book would be called Vagabond even before I wrote a single word of it. I played around with the word, got used to it, and gave it a different meaning.</p>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> South Africa’s long history of colonialism and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a>, which served the white state and population, suppressed many black freedoms, including mobility and cultural expression. I was struck by how you position your extensive travel across Africa as giving you “the opportunity to experience being black and African without disguising or denying myself to fit in”. Can you expand on this – the role that travel plays for you? </p>
<p><strong>Lerato Mogoatlhe:</strong> This reflection was inspired by an experience I had in Dar es Salaam. I was at an ATM, withdrawing money when a man dressed in full <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maasai">Masaai</a> regalia joined the line. I was surprised by it. I asked if there was a special occasion, but he said it was just an ordinary day. It made me think about <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/events/commemorative-events/heritage-day">Heritage Day</a> in South Africa, where people dress in traditional attire. And how such an important expression of blackness/Africanness is embraced fully for just one day. I always think about the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ndebele-South-African-people">Ndebele</a> cultural activist who was <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/courts/gautrain-faces-r1-5m-lawsuit-over-ndebele-cultural-activists-humiliation/">kicked off</a> the train in Johannesburg because his traditional garb was deemed inappropriate.</p>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> You write very honestly in the book about the personal risks, as well as the rewards, of travel. You are lured by a conman in Senegal, for instance, and repel a rapist in Ethiopia. There are very real challenges, but you bring to life the many opportunities. How do you see Vagabond contributing to travel literature from and about Africa in this light, particularly writing as a black, queer woman?</p>
<p><strong>Lerato Mogoatlhe:</strong> As a queer woman, it’s my declaration that there isn’t only violence in being queer in Africa and travelling around the continent. We are here, we live here. I cannot fear it and I refuse to fear it.</p>
<p>The personal risks: the weird and wonderful thing about travelling is that it makes life feel like a fantasy. I used to dream about places I’ve been to, and I still do. I get a thrill from turning the fantasy into reality. However, outside my fantasies, travelling is real life. It has challenges and heartbreaks.</p>
<p>I know one thing about myself: I am going to live big and loud, including travelling. Patriarchy, racism and homophobia are not going to deny me. I see my contribution as daring, fun and funny.</p>
<p>Vagabond is the story of a certain period of my life unfolding around Africa. It is intimate. It also adds to travel literature that doesn’t reduce Africa and Africans to clichés. In my work Africans are not happy-go-lucky souls who, despite being poor, are so warm and generous.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/travelling-while-black-7-south-african-travelogues-you-should-read-197550">Travelling while black: 7 South African travelogues you should read</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> Vagabond is packed with adventure, transporting the reader to scenic and human wonders across Africa. However, the book does not avoid the continent’s harrowing zones. You write, for example, about your haunting visits to Rwanda’s <a href="https://genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/index.php/Category:Memorials">genocide memorials</a> which instilled a calling to “write Africa differently”. Can you speak about this deep sense of purpose and what it means?</p>
<p><strong>Lerato Mogoatlhe:</strong> My story and connection to the continent is not the kind that amounts to “been there, done that, got the T-shirt”. I hope it is deeper: a conversation with others and myself about what this continent is beyond typecasts, and what it should be and what it should never be. It should no longer be wholly defined by war and conflict; we should no longer write our history with blood. I’m writing Africa by celebrating life, creativity and innovation. That’s my purpose, because whatever else this continent is, it is firstly and most importantly home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Remmington has in the past received funding from the National Research Foundation and Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. </span></em></p>The solo journey of a queer, black woman across the continent makes fascinating reading.Janet Remmington, Research Associate, Humanities Research Centre (and African Literature Department, University of the Witwatersrand), University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2192272023-12-22T07:34:29Z2023-12-22T07:34:29ZHollywood’s first major Black female superhero: how Wakanda Forever broke the mould<p><em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a> rewrote Hollywood’s script for superhero movies. English professor Diana Adesola Mafe was involved in an academic <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17533171.2023.2256530">roundtable</a> that offers a critical conversation about it and another film set in an African kingdom, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8093700/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Woman King</a>. She <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17533171.2023.2256529?casa_token=Hxo2L9mLZYYAAAAA%3Al0YdqYcIXaZ2KaqNoW6m_IRfDzeozewbbNeKxZ-xUsHgM_JeVmJ8ez59GdUTlp1jz2SDvZgzM5OEFbk">argues</a> that Wakanda Forever is a breakthrough film. We asked her why.</em></p>
<h2>Why are these two films such talking points?</h2>
<p>As big budget productions with Black female heroes, The Woman King and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever invite discussion and debate about Hollywood representations of Africa and the kinds of roles that women and girls can and should play. They lend themselves to discussing topics ranging from the importance of historical accuracy to the power of imagining alternative histories and fantastical futures.</p>
<h2>Why is Wakanda Forever important to you?</h2>
<p>One of my primary <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Diana+Adesola+Mafe&oq=diana">research areas</a> is the representation of Black women in literature and popular culture. My 2018 <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315231/">book</a> Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV is precisely about Black women in science fiction and fantasy roles. I am always on the look-out for films that push boundaries, challenge stereotypes, and put Black women at the centre of the story.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z3QKkl1WyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Wakanda Forever does that by presenting a superhero action flick headlined by Black women. The film is set in the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda, where the people are mourning the death of their king and fighting to defend their land and resources, especially the powerful metal vibranium, from world powers.</p>
<p>It’s the first Hollywood film to showcase Black female superheroes on such an epic scale, backed by a US$250 million budget and the global reach of a juggernaut like Marvel Studios. The <a href="https://thedirect.com/article/disney-black-panther-wakanda-forever-posters-official">posters</a> alone tell viewers that this film is doing something different. </p>
<p>Of course the film is not perfect, and director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3363032/">Ryan Coogler</a> has been <a href="https://theplaylist.net/wakanda-forever-ryan-coogler-original-script-featured-father-son-dynamic-post-thanos-snap-20221223/">open</a> about the fact that he originally set out to make a completely different and male-centered film. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53955912">untimely death</a> of the original Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman called for an overhaul of the script and the reveal of Shuri, played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4004793/">Letitia Wright</a>, as the new Black Panther. But the film’s production history does not change its status as a pioneer for Black female representation, especially in the genre of superhero cinema.</p>
<h2>You discuss “the act of looking” in your paper. Tell us about that.</h2>
<p>One of the lasting presumptions of early Hollywood movies was that the audience was white. To put this another way, few film-makers were catering to Black viewers and fewer still imagined Black women as a primary audience. This has changed over time, but the notion of a default white male gaze both on and off screen often remains implicit in western cinema. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-continues-the-series-quest-to-recover-and-celebrate-lost-cultures-193508">'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' continues the series' quest to recover and celebrate lost cultures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A film like Wakanda Forever is intentional about inviting Black spectatorship and showcasing Black women as active players who drive the plot and whose gazes are bold, instead of averted or downplayed. The Black female characters in the film constantly look back at the viewer by way of the camera, as well as at one another, defying a western cinematic tradition of marginalising and objectifying Black women.</p>
<h2>Is Hollywood’s diversity problem getting better or not really?</h2>
<p>The short answer is yes and no. If you consider that the US film industry goes back over a century, then yes, we’re seeing more diversity in front of and behind the camera, not just in terms of race and gender but also ethnicity, sexuality, age, and so on. Wakanda Forever would have been an unlikely blockbuster or Oscar contender 20 or even 10 years ago. Thanks to the first <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/">Black Panther</a> film, Hollywood is now aware that an all-Black superhero movie can gross over a billion dollars and win Academy Awards. </p>
<p>But the success of a single film or even a handful of films does not mean a wider shift in the industry. For example, Marvel just released <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10676048/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Marvels</a>, its first film by a Black female director, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4804442/">Nia DaCosta</a>, but that does not change the fact that Black women are underrepresented in the industry. </p>
<p>Organisations such the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have <a href="https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-standards-oscarsr-eligibility">offered</a> new (and controversial) strategies and standards in terms of equity and access. Starting in 2024, films must meet diversity targets in areas like “on-screen representation, themes and narratives” and “audience development” to be eligible for a Best Picture Oscar. And hashtags like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-the-significance-of-the-oscarssowhite-hashtag#:%7E:text=Twitter%20user%20and%20activist%20April,being%20given%20to%20white%20actors.">#OscarsSoWhite</a>, as well as academic studies like the UCLA <a href="https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UCLA-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2022-Film-3-24-2022.pdf">Hollywood Diversity Report</a>, continue to track progress but also ongoing challenges where Hollywood’s diversity problem is concerned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diana Adesola Mafe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Few film-makers imagined Black women as a primary audience. This has changed over time.Diana Adesola Mafe, Professor of English, Denison UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197132023-12-14T13:37:25Z2023-12-14T13:37:25ZBlack Ghosts: Noo Saro-Wiwa’s new book is a powerful reflection on Africans in China<p><em><a href="https://www.noosarowiwa.com/bio">Noo Saro-Wiwa</a> is a celebrated Nigerian-born travel writer. Her latest book is <a href="https://canongate.co.uk/books/4040-black-ghosts-a-journey-into-the-lives-of-africans-in-china/">Black Ghosts</a>. It explores, with candour and compassion, the lives of several African economic migrants living in China, a group of people who are key to trade between the continents. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Janet+Remmington&btnG=">scholar</a> of African travel writing and mobility, among other fields, I read the book with keen interest and then asked Saro-Wiwa more about it.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> Let’s start with the title: Black Ghosts. And the subtitle which outlines your focus: “a journey into the lives of Africans in China”. In your opening chapter, you introduce the reader to the concept of the “black ghost”, which carries connotations of a negated, disdained or uneasy presence. This term even gets translated as “black devil” by users on WeChat, China’s version of the social media platform WhatsApp. It makes for a disturbing introduction to Africans in China. But, as we read on, the reality is far more complex than the implied disavowal and racism. What have you been motivated to investigate through this travel book?</p>
<p><strong>Noo Saro-Wiwa:</strong> I remember being amazed to hear that there was a sizeable African community in China. It’s not a country I associate culturally with Africa. I wanted to see how Africans fit into a society that is known for its unprogressive views on race. Black people in countries like Brazil, the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK have always held currency in the cultural sphere despite our economic marginalisation. But in China we don’t have such purchase, therefore I was curious to see how they navigate that society.</p>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> Your new book heads off in a very different direction to your 2013 award-winning debut <a href="https://granta.com/products/looking-for-transwonderland/">Looking for Transwonderland</a> in which you traverse Nigeria, the land of your birth, as we discussed in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13645145.2015.1074812">wide-ranging interview</a>. Before Black Ghosts, you had mainly visited places around the “Atlantic rim”, you <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13645145.2015.1074812">say</a>, where connections were “woven by history and colonialism”. For you, China offered no such familiar, if ambivalent, touchpoints. What did this mean for the writing of your new book?</p>
<p><strong>Noo Saro-Wiwa:</strong> Despite globalisation and mass travel, China holds a faint mystique – it’s not visited quite as often as other countries in the region. The language, written and oral, is difficult and in some ways impenetrable. It made me an outsider in the fullest sense, feeling my way around the very edges of that society. My observations were those of someone on the steepest learning curve with no historical or personal attachment to the place. However, my exploration wasn’t so much of China but of the Africans <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2022/06/africans-in-china-are-on-the-move">living in Guangzhou</a> and Hong Kong.</p>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> In Black Ghosts, you take your reader for an eye-opening ride through diverse parts of China. You seek out African migrants and find a lot of variety – more than you expected. Can you elaborate on your journey into the lives of Africans in China?</p>
<p><strong>Noo Saro-Wiwa:</strong> There was a different vibe. Far fewer of the insouciant idlers on the street that you get back on the home continent. People were busy, evasive initially. I met traders who were there on short regular visits, buying goods to export back to Africa. I chatted with visa overstayers – people who had come as traders but, through various misfortunes, were stuck in the country in limbo. </p>
<p>Then there were highly skilled people, such as the cardiac surgeon or the former mixed martial arts champion who was now a promoter of the sport. He was one of numerous Africans who have Chinese partners. China worked out for him and he led a comfortable life there, but others had more ambivalent attitudes towards the country.</p>
<p><strong>Janet Remmington:</strong> In exploring African experiences in China, you reflect on the influence of class, gender and sexuality in addition to race. How do you understand the interplay of these factors in relation to travelling and considerations of settling? </p>
<p><strong>Noo Saro-Wiwa:</strong> Migration is somewhat easier for men. Their slower biological clocks give them more time to try and make it in China, and they can make complex domestic arrangements to suit their needs. For example, in Hong Kong I met a man who had wives in both countries (something Chinese men in Africa also do). Intermarriage sometimes occurs between African men and Chinese women who originate from the countryside. As migrants to the city, they too are outsiders of sorts, sometimes with limited rights. Marrying African men sometimes gives them a foothold in the economy. </p>
<p>Class also played a role, for example when it comes to teaching English. Africans with fewer educational qualifications were paid less to teach English. One Kenyan woman I met had to pretend she was American in order to secure a teaching job with decent pay. But when it comes to sexuality, China offers certain freedoms – I saw gay African guys who clearly moved around there in a way that they would not back at home in Nigeria, where same-sex relations are criminalised.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/travelling-while-black-7-south-african-travelogues-you-should-read-197550">Travelling while black: 7 South African travelogues you should read</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If you told people in the 1300s that Africans would one day populate the Caribbean, and that Europeans would displace native Americans or that Indians would form half the population of Fiji, people would never have believed it. African neighbourhoods in China was not a concept I would’ve envisaged in my childhood. </p>
<p>Migration is unpredictable like that. You never know what the future might bring. Future changes in the economy, the environment, and in China’s demographic makeup could create all sorts of movements of people. With China becoming more exposed to foreigners in ways that challenge citizens’ beliefs and create affinities, could this influence future directions? It could have some bearing on cultural creativity or investment decisions one day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Remmington has in the past received funding from the National Research Foundation and Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. </span></em></p>She reveals a range of African experiences: from traders to martial arts champions, visa overstayers to heart surgeons.Janet Remmington, Research Associate, Humanities Research Centre (and African Literature Department, University of the Witwatersrand), University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2193422023-12-07T14:13:10Z2023-12-07T14:13:10ZApartheid in Namibia: why human rights and women are celebrated on the same day<p>10 December is worldwide commemorated as <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day">Human Rights Day</a>. It marks the anniversary of the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> adopted on that day in 1948. Many countries and organisations acknowledge this as a significant marker.</p>
<p>It created a lasting, normative framework defining fundamental human rights. UN Member States, while in constant violation, have all ratified the principles. They remain a moral and ethical compass demanding recognition and respect. </p>
<p>In Namibia, the day is marked as both International Human Rights Day <a href="https://namibia.unfpa.org/en/news/commemoration-international-human-rights-day-namibian-womens-day">as well as Namibian Women’s Day</a>. The reason for this is that it marks an event that stands out in Namibian history as a reminder of human rights abuses in the past, as well as the significant role played by women in the struggle for the restoration of these rights. </p>
<p>An indiscriminate shooting by police took place on this date in <a href="https://www.namibiadigitalrepository.com/files/original/f1626d4c5966b3ae6527015e129afa71.pdf">1959</a>. Thirteen unarmed demonstrators were killed, among them one woman. More than 40 were wounded as they resisted their forced removal from an area known as the Old Location. </p>
<p>The events became a reference point for the national liberation movement, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/SWAPO-Party-of-Namibia">South West African Peoples Organisation</a>, which was formed in 1960 in response to the event. The actions of the demonstrators acted as a midwife to the organised anti-colonial liberation struggle that went on to gain new momentum, culminating in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/namibian-struggle-independence-1966-1990-historical-background">independence in 1990</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-pulls-down-german-colonial-statue-after-protests-who-was-curt-von-francois-195334">Namibia pulls down German colonial statue after protests – who was Curt von François?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As diagnosed by the late South African historian <a href="https://www.baslerafrika.ch/projects/emmett-tony/">Tony Emmett</a> in his pioneering work on the formation of national resistance in Namibia:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The authorities’ attempts to move residents of the old location to a new township and the resistance they met represent a significant point in the political history of Namibia. … it transcended parochial issues and united a broad cross-section of groups and classes in a confrontation with the colonial state.</p>
</blockquote>
<h1>The Old Location</h1>
<p>My research has included life in the <a href="https://www.baslerafrika.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2016_3_Melber.pdf">Old Location</a>, its <a href="https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/jch/article/view/5037/4005">history</a> and the <a href="https://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/historia/article/view/3827/3915">forced removal</a>. </p>
<p>Since the early 20th century, the Location was the biggest Black urban settlement in Namibia. A former German colony since 1884, the territory then called South West Africa was in 1918 transferred as a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/mandate-League-of-Nations">League of Nation mandate</a> to South Africa. Administered like a fifth province, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid">apartheid policies</a> institutionalised as “separate development” since the late 1940s, was also transferred to the adjacent country.</p>
<p>The Location was in walking distance to Windhoek’s town centre. Only a riverbed separated it from the suburb set aside for white people. Residents in the Location paid a fee for the area they occupied even though the constructions built for accommodation were their private ownership.</p>
<p>In line with apartheid policy, a decision was taken to move the people from the Location. Residents there were from a variety of indigenous communities in the country. Despite different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, they lived in peaceful cohabitation. </p>
<p>To remove them from the direct vicinity to the “White” city, a new township <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Katutura-place-where-not-stay/dp/B0006W2U1Y">Katutura</a> was created. It was separated by a buffer zone several kilometres apart from the city. It also divided the residents through ethnically (“tribally”) classified, strictly policed separate living quarters. </p>
<p>The houses there remained property of the administration, for which higher rents had to be paid. People of mixed descent, classified as so-called <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/c0a95c41-a983-49fc-ac1f-7720d607340d/628130.pdf">“Coloureds”</a> were until then living in the Location. They were now forced to relocate to another separate suburb <a href="https://memim.com/khomasdal.html">Khomasdal</a>. </p>
<p>Hardly anyone living in the Main Location volunteered to move. Instead, as of late 1959, women initiated a boycott of services.</p>
<p>Following weeks of campaigns, a meeting with White officials took place in the Location on 10 December. Stones were thrown, and the police opened fire. The sheer brute force executed to break resistance marked the end of the Location.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-and-south-africas-ruling-parties-share-a-heroic-history-but-their-2024-electoral-prospects-look-weak-204818">Namibia and South Africa's ruling parties share a heroic history - but their 2024 electoral prospects look weak</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As from 1960, people were moved to Katutura and Khomasdal. Their homes in the Location were bulldozed to the ground. It was officially closed in 1968, with no traces of its existence left.</p>
<p>Extensions to Katutura since then turned it into the biggest settlement in Namibia. The area of the former Location has been turned into <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02589001.2022.2081671">middle class suburbia</a>.</p>
<h1>Remembering</h1>
<p>Anna “Kakurukaze” Mungunda became <a href="https://www.facebook.com/nbcContenthub/videos/in-this-short-history-video-you-will-learn-about-anna-mungunda-also-known-as-kak/2019517574914081/">the most widely acknowledged face of the resistance</a>. </p>
<p>Narratives differ as regards her role. She was not a prominent resident before and had no involvement in the organised resistance. But police killed her when she was supposedly setting the car of one of the White officials on fire.</p>
<p>As the only woman killed, Mungunda is paid recognition and respect by a <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/150256637/anna-mungunda">tombstone</a> erected at the Windhoek Heroes Acre, inaugurated in 2002.</p>
<p>There is also an ongoing fight in Germany to get a street in Berlin named after her. The idea is to rename some of the colonial street names in the <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2019/october/in-the-afrikanisches-viertel">“African Quarter” (Afrikanisches Viertel)</a>. In particular, efforts are under way to change the Petersallee into <a href="https://taz.de/Dekolonisierung-von-Strassennamen/!5899594/">Anna-Mungunda-Allee</a>. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/454592">Peters</a> was a notorious colonial perpetrator in imperial Germany.</p>
<p>Implementation is on hold due to a legal intervention by some of the residents.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-and-angolas-remote-ovahimba-mountains-reveal-a-haven-for-unique-plants-new-survey-213884">Namibia and Angola’s remote Ovahimba mountains reveal a haven for unique plants – new survey</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Windhoek, parts of the neglected and dilapidated Location cemetery have been <a href="https://pickingupthetabb.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/windhoek-remembering-the-old-location-massacre/">restored and upgraded</a> to a memorial site and turned into an Old Location Cemetery Museum. It is a venue for commemoration and on the <a href="https://www.windhoekcc.org.na/tour_attractions.php">list of local tourist attractions</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/he-dr-zedekia-j-ngavirue-dphil-politics-1967">Zedekia Ngavirue</a> was employed as social worker in the Location in 1959/60. Politically active in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/South-West-Africa-National-Union">South West Africa National Union</a> he founded and co-edited the first African newspaper “South West News”. Its nine issues have been reproduced <a href="https://www.baslerafrika.ch/a-glance-at-our-africa/">in a compilation</a> and are a treasure trove documenting discussion of the time.</p>
<p>In his introduction to the collection, “Dr Zed” (as he was later fondly called) might have captured the spirit of these days best:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was, indeed, when we owned little that we were prepared to make the greatest sacrifices.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of Swapo since 1974. </span></em></p>Anna “Kakurukaze” Mungunda became the most widely acknowledged face of the resistance to the apartheid policy of forced removal.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2167802023-11-09T14:09:01Z2023-11-09T14:09:01ZUbuntu offers lessons in how to treat people with disabilities – a study of Bomvana rituals<p>Research shows that people with disabilities have always been largely <a href="https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/library/finkelstein-attitudes.pdf">excluded</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352486275_Disability_in_Africa_A_CulturalReligious_Perspective">marginalised</a> in societies across the world.</p>
<p>Over time, the language used to describe disability has generally become more positive and inclusive. Many activists advocate for the use of “people/persons with disabilities” and not the “handicapped” or “disabled”. But this language remains negative for many Indigenous people around the world. To them the word “disability” is stigmatising because they <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---ifp_skills/documents/publication/wcms_396412.pdf">don’t have</a> such a term in their vocabulary. It’s also a misrepresentation of their traditional beliefs regarding impairments. </p>
<p>In traditional village life, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Xhosa">Xhosa</a> community of AmaBomvane in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa do not see disability in a person. Their rituals do not allow people to discriminate – their worldview is based on collectivism and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HED4h00xPPA">ubuntu</a>. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:SPED.0000024428.29295.03">Ubuntu</a> is an African philosophy that promotes the common good of society and includes humaneness; each person is an integral part of society. </p>
<p>In many other cultures persons with disabilities are seen to <a href="https://ieas-szeged.hu/downtherabbithole/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Lennard-J.-Davis-ed.-The-Disability-Studies-Reader-Routledge-2014.pdf">differ</a> from the “norm”. </p>
<p>For my <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/128429">PhD</a> in health sciences rehabilitation, I spent three years studying the experiences of people with disabilities when they underwent Xhosa rituals and traditions. I wanted to know how rituals contribute to health and wellbeing. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-philosophy-of-ubuntu-help-provide-a-way-to-face-health-crises-135997">Can the philosophy of ubuntu help provide a way to face health crises?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I found that good health and wellbeing relies on rituals, which are the essence of life among the Bomvana people. And that good health is for everybody, including people with disabilities. They cannot be denied health, because everyone is equal. This offers lessons in the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities. </p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>For my study, 50 people were selected for interviews and focus groups from three rural villages – Gusi, Hobeni and Xhora in the district of Elliotdale – with the assistance of chiefs and community members. They included people over the age of 18 with disabilities (who were able to answer questions), indigenous knowledge holders (elders), caregivers and parents of persons with disabilities, traditional birth attendants, traditional healers, a traditional circumcision surgeon and a social worker.</p>
<p>The Bomvana people are associated with the red ochre they use to decorate their faces and the beautiful beaded red blankets worn when attending traditional functions. AmaBomvane have a strong <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/4c2431c5-5387-4697-a626-8d8a781b4c3f">belief system</a> which strengthens cultural continuity, ensuring there will be no lack in leadership to perform rituals and traditions. Their participation in social organisation ensures that traditional knowledge, transmitted orally, is not lost as it moulds the character of the people. </p>
<p>My study focused on three rituals which mark important stages in a person’s life:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/f8f6b1ca-c078-4fc3-a398-df59af186a5b">Efukwini</a> (behind the door), which provides a sacred space for giving birth in which the mother and infant remain separate from the rest of the household for 10 days to protect the child from evil forces. When the nursing mother is in seclusion, AmaXhosa believe that the child is connected to the ancestors for its protection and recognition as a member of the family, including all people with disabilities.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/83637195.pdf">Intonjane</a> (female initiation rite), marking a girl’s rite of passage to womanhood, performed between her first menstruation and her wedding. The ritual is done for all young women, regardless of whether they are disabled.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://vital.seals.ac.za:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:3271?site_name=GlobalView">Ulwaluko</a> (traditional male circumcision), in which boys learn about acquiring their identity and social responsibility as men. A person with disability belongs to the community and must not be excluded from this ritual. All boys must be taught to become men, regardless of disabilities.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>The findings</h2>
<p>AmaBomvane treat people with disabilities with dignity and respect within the context of their rituals. If they didn’t, it’s believed, the rituals would be rejected by the ancestors and misfortune would arise. The Bomvana also believe illness can be prevented through performing rituals to the ancestors, who are seen as intermediaries between God and people. The rituals confer health, stability and resilience. </p>
<p>I found that rituals provide a safe space for people with disability by virtue of being inclusive. This encourages respect and compassion. </p>
<p>The Bomvana understanding of disability is also linked to spirituality and traditional knowledge systems. Disability is <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/128429">seen as</a> outside the body: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Disability is like a blanket any other spirit is wearing. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Bomvana do not see disability as the real person, <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/128429">saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The soul is not disabled.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are, however, also <a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/37695">negative attitudes</a> towards persons with disabilities in the broader Bomvana village society outside of the rituals. This, I believe, is a result of colonial influence and <a href="https://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/vee/v33n2/12.pdf">western thinking</a>. AmaBomvane told me, for example, that in the old days missionaries were against men going for circumcision. They did not understand the importance of the ritual to the Xhosa. If one is not circumcised, one remains a “boy” and is forbidden from participating in communal decisions and social events.</p>
<p>Talking about these negative attitudes, one traditional healer <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/128429">told me</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Their treatment is very bad in the community. At times they become projects of people they are living with. Their grant money is misused by their carers. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The grant is given by the state to provide for the basic needs of persons with disabilities who are unable to work.</p>
<p>One caregiver <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/128429'">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They are not supported as they should be. For example, there are these children we are looking after, and when they go home for holidays, we buy them clothes, but when they come back, the clothes … have been taken by siblings that are not disabled.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While in the villages the old values are still respected, I found indications that with changing times and fractured family units, the concept of ubuntu is under threat. </p>
<h2>What this means</h2>
<p>The AmaBomvane belief in ubuntu – social justice and fairness – could be a model for the inclusion of persons with disabilities and their rights. The Bomvana case could encourage others to embrace a spirituality that supports resilience and stability. It’s a humane way of viewing disability.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-archbishop-tutus-ubuntu-credo-teaches-the-world-about-justice-and-harmony-84730">What Archbishop Tutu's ubuntu credo teaches the world about justice and harmony</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This matters because ubuntu contains all the key aspects of South Africa’s constitutional <a href="https://dredf.org/legal-advocacy/international-disability-rights/international-laws/south-africa-constitution-bill-of-rights/">bill of rights</a> that teaches that “all are equal before the law”. In the view of the AmaBomvane and ubuntu, disability is not seen as a problem which needs to be fixed but rather a state of being that must be treated with humanity and equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nomvo Dwadwa-Henda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The philosophy of ubuntu means that good health is for everybody and disability is not regarded as a difference.Nomvo Dwadwa-Henda, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Africa Centre for HIV/Aids Management, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2133102023-10-24T13:12:46Z2023-10-24T13:12:46ZHIV-positive parents in Zimbabwe struggle to manage their children’s education – study shows how<p>Over the past three decades researchers have explored various aspects of the impact of the HIV pandemic. One focus area has been children who have lost their parents to AIDS. Less attention has been given to children who are raised by parents living with HIV. This group has become much bigger as more people have <a href="https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2021/september/20210906_global-roll-out-hiv-treatment">access to antiretroviral therapy</a> and are therefore expected to raise their children. </p>
<p>Our research in Zimbabwe looked at the effects the HIV status of parents had on their children’s education. </p>
<p>In Zimbabwe, the current HIV prevalence rate among adults is about <a href="https://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/hivaids">13%</a>. In 1997 it was at its peak at <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20406793/">29.3%</a>. Nevertheless, Zimbabwe still has the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/270209/countries-with-the-highest-global-hiv-prevalence/#:%7E:text=Among%20all%20countries%20worldwide%20those,rate%20of%20almost%2026%20percent.%20**link%20is%20behind%20a%20paywall**">sixth highest HIV rate</a> in the world. Eswatini has the highest rate (19.58%) and South Africa ranks fourth (14.75%).</p>
<p>Our research focused on mothers in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city, who had access to treatment. We were interested in the impact of HIV on their investment in their children’s education. We conducted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">interviews</a> at <a href="http://mashambanzou.co.zw/">Mashambanzou Care Trust</a>, a local non-profit organisation that provides care to about 5,000 HIV-positive low-income individuals in Harare. Thirteen HIV-positive mothers were interviewed to discuss the key reasons behind the disruption of their children’s schooling .</p>
<p>We found that the HIV status of low-income parents in Zimbabwe severely affected their children’s education, in four ways.</p>
<p>Firstly, HIV worsened the financial barriers parents faced when trying to get their children educated. Secondly, children missed school because they needed to take care of sick parents or siblings. Thirdly, sick parents were not involved with their children’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">academic achievement</a> because they were physically, mentally and emotionally incapable of helping. Lastly, children of HIV-positive mothers did not always have birth certificates, a major barrier to school and exam registration in Zimbabwe.</p>
<h2>Financial barriers</h2>
<p>The research showed that HIV in Zimbabwe is not only a health issue but also a socioeconomic problem that can force people into <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">poverty traps</a>. </p>
<p>HIV-positive women expressed the view that the Zimbabwean economy, their partner’s health and their own health affected how they supported their children’s educational needs. </p>
<p>We found children with parents who could not afford to pay school fees or buy school uniforms could be sent home until the payments were made. Other low income families experienced this too but parents with HIV could not work and so had more difficulty paying school fees.</p>
<p>HIV-affected families could also face the burden of raising other children from deceased or ill family members. Some of the mothers had siblings and close family members who had died of AIDS. In one case, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">single HIV-positive mother </a> had three biological children and three orphans from relatives.</p>
<h1>Missing school</h1>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">Girls</a> were particularly affected because they were expected to care for siblings, help sick parents with daily activities such as eating and toileting, and make sure they had a place to live and food to eat. </p>
<p>Mothers spoke about the heavy burden their daughters had to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">carry</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My eldest child was the one who took care of me and cooked for me. When I got sick, my daughter stopped going to school. She is the one who took the responsibility of taking care of me. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some children were forced to drop out of school to earn an income. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He dropped out of school after finishing his Form 3. He is currently selling bananas at Mbare and the money he is getting is not enough. Most of the time he brings home some food after selling bananas. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>No time to help</h2>
<p>Most HIV-positive mothers told us that they did not <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">spend time</a> with their children because they spent a lot of time on income-generating activities, attending to their own health, or their husband’s health. These tough conditions led to even more illness and stress.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All my seven children stay at home as none of them is in school right now. Each day of their lives is difficult as in some cases we fail to get some food to eat. After having failed to get food for the family, it then stresses me more as the mother. Given my condition that I am HIV-positive I end up getting continuous headaches and sometimes I get sick as a result of the stress. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Birth certificates</h2>
<p>Some HIV-positive parents were too sick to obtain birth certificates for their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2023.2214126">children</a>. Without birth certificates, children risk being sent home and cannot benefit from programmes that target poor children. One mother told of trying to get birth certificates for her children in Mutare, almost 300 kilometres away from Harare.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I once went to Mutare to secure birth certificates for my children. I was told to bring my national identification card which was in Harare during that time. I am yet to go back to Mutare and collect birth certificates for my children. I am only being stopped from travelling because I am currently sick and receiving treatment. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Looking to the future</h2>
<p>Our research highlights a vulnerable group of children who should also benefit from social assistance programmes that target HIV-affected orphans, given that their parents are too sick to care for them. </p>
<p>They should be included in the <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajsw/article/view/194113#:%7E:text=Zimbabwe%20adopted%20the%20National%20Orphan,social%20safety%20nets%20for%20OVC.">National Orphan Care Policy</a>, which seeks to provide basic care and protection to orphans and vulnerable children, and the <a href="https://www.unicef.org/esa/media/11846/file/Unicef_Zimbabwe_Education_Budget_Brief_2022.pdf">Basic Education Assistance Module</a>, which pays school fees for this group of children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tatenda Zinyemba does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some children of HIV-positive parents drop out of school to look after their mothers and fathers. Others skip class to earn cash for the family by selling goods.Tatenda Zinyemba, Researcher in Economics, Health and Governance, Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology, United Nations UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135992023-10-09T13:32:37Z2023-10-09T13:32:37ZSho Madjozi: the pop star using traditional culture to shape a fresh identity for young South Africans<p>South African rapper <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/sho-madjozi">Sho Madjozi</a> is a bold and colourful presence in pop culture, as famous for her catchy lyrics as for using traditional clothing and dance in a fresh way. </p>
<p>The musician, actress and poet is also one of very few young South African artists working in a minority language, Xitsonga. With 12 official languages in South Africa, Xitsonga is the first language of only about <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf#page=29">4.5%</a> of the population, mostly in the rural northern province of the country called Limpopo. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tsonga">Tsonga people</a> also live in neighbouring Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Eswatini.</p>
<p>Yet, in 2019, “<a href="https://twitter.com/shomadjozi/status/1367138022676963329?s=61&t=tS_HwqEZjVfiFydTA2hItQ">village girl</a>” Sho Madjozi burst onto the world stage with her hit song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9bGITkIHmM">John Cena</a>, winning a <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/tshisa-live/tshisa-live/2019-06-24-watch-halala-sho-madjozi-bags-a-bet/">BET award</a> in the US for Best International Newcomer. By 2021 she had established herself as <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2019-06-02-sho-madjozi-wins-big-at-sama25/">best female artist</a> at the South African Music Awards.</p>
<p>But Sho Madjozi is about more than music. She’s also about setting trends – through reinventing Tsonga costume, hairstyles and dance. She’s done this in a way that helps shape her region’s cultural identity. </p>
<p>Cultural identity is not something that’s fixed. Identities change, transcending time, place and history. Sho Madjozi shows how this happens when she mixes the authentic culture of the Tsonga people with popular global culture to produce a unique – or hybrid – identity and performance style.</p>
<p>We recently published a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2023.2227293?scroll=top">research paper</a> that analyses this. We place her as an artist whose work demonstrates a fascinating interface between the “authentic” (Tsonga culture) and the “hybrid” (an innovative new voice, with innovation and novelty being central to the global culture industries).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H9bGITkIHmM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>We conclude that by merging popular and traditional cultures, Sho Madjozi is the latest in a long line of young African artists who help shape youth culture identity. In the process she shines a light on a lesser-known ethnic group, keeping traditional knowledge alive so that others may learn from it and be inspired by it. </p>
<h2>Who is Sho Madjozi?</h2>
<p>Sho Madjozi was born Maya Christinah Xichavo Wegerif, from a biracial union between her Swedish father and Tsonga mother. This provides a further fascinating framework for the idea of authenticity and hybridity in her work. </p>
<p>In South Africa, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">colonialism</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> suppressed indigenous cultures. Apartheid, introduced by a white-minority government, was a policy based on separate development for different racially categorised people. The <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01884.htm">law</a> banned sexual relations between people categorised as black and white. Yet people fell in love across the colour lines. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi’s mixed parentage creates a hybrid form of identity because of historical processes of cultural contact, transformation and change among different peoples of the world. </p>
<p>As if to underscore the in-betweenness of her cultural heritage, a considerable part of her youth and childhood was spent in Senegal in west Africa. This also demonstrates the notion of circulation that characterises the contemporary <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/17/world/africa/who-are-afropolitans/index.html">Afropolitan</a> (a generation that is both African and cosmopolitan). </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi chose proudly to adopt a Tsonga signature style in her stage career. She <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/sho-madjozi-it-makes-sense-for-me-to-rap-in-xitsonga-10990362">says</a> that, for her, blackness means “not erasing everything that I am … and never accepting a form of beauty where it’s as far away from me as possible”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A_EeqZcZ6dI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>She makes it clear that a pure native identity is simply no longer available. In its place comes a moving map of cultural images and an ever-changing sense of self.</p>
<h2>Costume, hair and dance</h2>
<p>Characteristically, Sho Madjozi adapts and reinterprets the Tsonga tinguvu skirt, commonly called the <a href="https://makotis.com/xibelani/">xibelani skirt</a> as it’s used to perform the traditional <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOJ6VP1e84">xibelani dance</a>. The xibelani skirt is gathered in the waist, accentuated at the top of the hips and consists of many layers of fabric that create a distinctive volume when the wearer dances in it. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/the-history-of-the-xibelani-a-look-behind-sjo-madjozis-signature-look-20200226#">reinterprets</a> this skirt. She pairs it with modern fashion items, sometimes shortening it or making it longer, reinventing its form. This contrasts and merges indigenous culture with fashion, tradition with modernity, and the local with the global. </p>
<p>She also incorporates vibrant Tsonga colours (pinks, yellows, purples, blues and greens) in her creative reinterpretations of costume. She does the same with her <a href="https://briefly.co.za/entertainment/celebrities/158996-sho-madjozis-iconic-hairstyles-4-stunning-earned-john-cena-hitmaker-queen-colourful-hair/">hair</a>, weaving bright Tsonga colours into it, adorning it with beads, experimenting with traditional accessories in her cornrows. </p>
<p>The xibelani <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOJ6VP1e84">dance</a> is also central to Sho Madjozi’s act. It’s native to Tsonga women, where girls learn it to celebrate their heritage and perform it on special occasions. Xibelani means “hitting to the rhythm”. The dancer shakes their hips, exaggerated by the skirt, with the whole body following. This is often accompanied by hand clapping and whistling.</p>
<p>Sho Madjozi’s colourful and iconic redesigns of Tsonga costume are signs of what it means to be Tsonga in southern Africa today. She uses popular urban youth culture to spread Tsonga xibelani culture in a national space. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ut3lDyGoqVU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>She does so in a time when young South Africans often find themselves grappling to retain traditional cultural values in an ever-changing and fast-paced globalising world. </p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>Traditional costume often represents old ways that resist change. Sho Madjozi’s innovations around xibelani speak differently. Through her performances, social media image and public profile, she rises above conventional attitudes that often perceive minority ethnic groups as the conservative gatekeepers of unchanging cultures. </p>
<p>She presents Tsonga tradition and culture at the cutting edge of positive identity formation. She does so in ways that inspire, attract and convince other young South Africans to embrace local cultures in their own construction of urban identities.</p>
<p>She acts as a cultural agent for the transmission of positive change and values across ethnic, national and international boundaries. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi embodies the words of <a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/taiye-selasi">Taiye Selasi</a>, the young British-born, US-based writer, photographer and cultural activist of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin. Selasi <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/03/27/175466870/debut-novel-tackles-african-immigrant-stereotypes">says</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What distinguishes (Afropolitans) is a willingness to complicate Africa … we seek to comprehend the cultural complexity, to honour the intellectual and spiritual legacy, and to sustain our parents’ cultures.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Costume, hair and dance allow her to modernise Tsonga culture – and help shape youth identity.Owen Seda, Associate Professor in Performing Arts, Tshwane University of TechnologyMotshidisi Manyeneng, Lecturer in Costume Theory and theatre costumer, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103912023-09-13T13:09:34Z2023-09-13T13:09:34ZRehab for South Africa’s female inmates focuses on domestic chores – instead of finding good work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541043/original/file-20230803-27-8xeebf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Patriarchal norms influence the design of rehabilitation programmes for women in jail.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Corrections facilities are supposed to help rehabilitate offenders. However, during apartheid, South Africa’s <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/267012745.pdf">correctional system was a pillar of the repressive, discriminatory laws</a>. It was used to punish those – mainly the black majority – perceived to be a threat to the white minority regime.</p>
<p>Present day correctional services in South Africa remain <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/64290/Steyn_Profile_2017.pdf?sequence=1">patriarchal and discriminatory</a>. They disadvantage women by limiting their rehabilitation programmes to mostly domestic skills. In contrast, male offenders have a richer array of skills programmes to choose from. This increases their chances of being gainfully employed or self-employed, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2022.2044123">lessening their chances of re-offending</a>. </p>
<p>There are 143,223 convicted prisoners in South Africa, of which <a href="https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/south-africa">3,724 are women</a>. Yet the idea of women in corrections continues to be a taboo subject. Because of the persisting patriarchal idea of women as nurturers, carers and homemakers, their mere presence in correctional facilities is considered to go against what society expects them to be. </p>
<p>Such beliefs contribute to how women are treated within correctional services and which rehabilitation programmes are deemed appropriate for them. </p>
<p>As psychology scholars, we set out to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358198293_Women_offenders%27_experiences_of_rehabilitation_in_a_South_African_correctional_centre">explore</a> the rehabilitation experiences of women offenders in one of South Africa’s correctional centres for women classified as maximum security offenders. We interviewed 18 women at the Johannesburg Correctional Centre.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-smart-ways-to-help-curb-reoffending-in-south-africas-prisons-106255">Two smart ways to help curb reoffending in South Africa's prisons</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our findings indicate the need for culture and gender sensitive offender rehabilitation programmes and processes. They also highlight the role the women play in reshaping their identities. </p>
<h2>Enforcing women’s domestication</h2>
<p>Correctional services rehabilitation programmes aim to reduce offenders’ risk of reoffending (recidivism). They also seek to enhance the chances of successful community reintegration upon release. This is only possible if such programmes take seriously women’s needs, histories, cultures and overall worldviews. We found this was not the case.</p>
<p>For example, the women we surveyed highlighted the imposition of Bible reading sessions whether they were Christian or not. </p>
<p>Also, in order to restore the “traditional good woman narrative” – being a good mother and a good wife – correctional centres enforce domestication. Most of the rehabilitation programmes and processes for women tend to be centred on home life. Women are expected to do beadwork, knitting, sewing and laundry and to take care of the sick. </p>
<p>Giving incarcerated women less exposure to non-traditional vocational training, such as entrepreneurship and digital skills, limits their prospects in the job market and business upon their release. This raises <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/sw/v53n2/08.pdf">their prospects of reoffending</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigeria-has-too-many-prison-inmates-awaiting-trial-technology-could-achieve-swifter-justice-193237">Nigeria has too many prison inmates awaiting trial. Technology could achieve swifter justice</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Those who try to defy these prescripts by accessing formal education through correspondence say they have to fight to overcome barriers. These include limited access to computers and a conducive learning environment (single cells instead of communal cells). A participant in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306624X19895974">one of our studies</a> indicated that women sometimes resort to court action to claim their right to education:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We just struggle to have every little thing … We had to go to courts … We had to do motions just to make sure that we had laptop in our cells … I understand, they say the policy doesn’t allow that, but I mean education cannot be curtailed by anything, not even incarceration, it’s a right for me to study. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Incarcerated women continue to be stigmatised and judged by the justice system and society at large for breaking the law, and the moral standards of what it means <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/02645505211010336">to be a good woman and a good mother</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, some of the women also look at rehabilitation processes as an opportunity for restoring their moral status as a good mother. </p>
<h2>‘Bad mothers’</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358198293_Women_offenders%27_experiences_of_rehabilitation_in_a_South_African_correctional_centre">findings</a> also showed that the incarcerated women experienced an internalised “bad mother” narrative. In trying to circumvent this, one of the participants pointed to good behaviour and studying with a view to restoring her motherhood status:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now if you doing … something better … then you are also sending a message to your kids because they will say okay at least mommy is studying. Even when you reprimand them when you say Lucy (pseudonym) do not do this then she will realise that okay mummy is a better person.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Correctional facilities mimic society</h2>
<p>Our study shows how the vocational activities for incarcerated women in South Africa are in line with what a patriarchal society demands. While it may be argued that the women are being equipped with skills they can use upon their release to earn an honest living, their relegation to such domestic activities as sewing and beading needs to be challenged.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/juvenile-offenders-in-ghana-arent-prepared-for-rejoining-society-how-the-system-is-failing-them-203253">Juvenile offenders in Ghana aren't prepared for rejoining society - how the system is failing them</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While the odds of securing a “decent job” are reduced for many offenders, it doesn’t justify the relegation of women into stereotypical and gendered rehabilitative practices. We therefore argue that all incarcerated women should be more exposed to non-traditional vocational training which broadens their options beyond the job market into entrepreneurship post-incarceration. This is particularly important in view of women’s much more nuanced pathways to crime, with economic marginalisation as one of the factors, especially in the South African context. </p>
<p>Rehabilitation experiences for women offenders should include programmes that empower them financially, such as entrepreneurship and technical skills, including computer literacy. They must be equipped with skills that will contribute to lessening re-offending.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sibulelo Qhogwana received funding from the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Puleng Segalo receives funding from the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. </span></em></p>Inmates who are mothers tend to be accused of being bad parents.Sibulelo Qhogwana, Senior lecturer, University of JohannesburgPuleng Segalo, Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106552023-09-03T07:46:09Z2023-09-03T07:46:09ZZimbabwe’s climate action plan: a win for the environment, health and energy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545067/original/file-20230828-26-s7ub5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C5000%2C3263&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reducing carbon emissions will promote health and development in Zimbabwe. Zinyange Auntony/ AFP/</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/school-children-ride-bicycles-through-a-forest-to-school-on-news-photo/1258934871?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The dumping of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and other <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022">greenhouse gases</a> into the atmosphere yearly is already having a devastating impact around the world. This includes <a href="https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6/wg2/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FullReport.pdf#page=140">widespread flooding and droughts, raging wildfires, heatwaves and record temperatures</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=22125">Africa</a> is particularly hard hit, with temperatures and sea levels rising faster across the continent than the global average. </p>
<p>In Zimbabwe, unreliable rainfalls and extended droughts are affecting <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/zimbabwe-drought-driving-hydropower-crisis-and-search-alternatives">hydro electricity generation, resulting in rolling blackouts</a>. Food production is also affected. A <a href="https://www.wfp.org/stories/how-drought-killing-zimbabwe">large fraction of Zimbabwe’s population is at risk of severe hunger</a>.</p>
<p>In 2015, almost all countries signed the <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf">Paris Agreement</a>, a commitment to tackle climate change. The intention was to limit global temperature increase to below 2°C, or ideally 1.5°C. To achieve this, countries submitted individual plans, called Nationally Determined Contributions, to reduce their contribution to climate change. They agreed to update them every five years.</p>
<p>The continent of Africa <a href="https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=22125">contributes 2%-3%</a> of the global greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221146452300091X">contributes less than 0.1%</a>. Despite this small contribution, all African countries submitted their plans to reduce emissions. </p>
<p>In 2015, Zimbabwe committed to <a href="https://unfccc.int/NDCREG">reducing its emissions</a> by 33% by 2030. In 2021, it <a href="https://climatepromise.undp.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/zimbabwe">updated</a> the target to a 40% reduction by 2030 across all sectors. This significant improvement increases the fraction of emissions that Zimbabwe will reduce from all emitting sectors. </p>
<p>The energy sector is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221146452300091X">responsible for about 34%</a> of Zimbabwe’s total emissions. Including other sectors, like agriculture and forestry (58% of total emissions), waste (5%) and industrial processes (3%) will substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions if Zimbabwe achieves its target. </p>
<h2>How Zimbabwe can meet its emission reduction target</h2>
<p>The updated target was informed by an assessment of how greenhouse gas emission could be reduced. The assessment was done by a team of researchers from Zimbabwe and the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York (including myself). It provided a clear plan to achieve the targets through the implementation of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221146452300091X">28 specific policies and measures</a>. </p>
<p>We assessed the benefits of these actions to mitigate climate change. We also reviewed other implications of taking each action locally in Zimbabwe. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221146452300091X">Our research</a> showed that by implementing its climate change plan, Zimbabwe would not only meet its international obligations, but achieve a broad set of health, social and development benefits. </p>
<p>The study assessed and quantified how the 28 actions to achieve Zimbabwe’s climate change plan would contribute to specific <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals">Sustainable Development Goals</a>. </p>
<p>The top three benefits identified were improved public health, enhanced biodiversity, and greater access to reliable energy supplies. Each of these benefits is a priority within <a href="https://zimbabwe.un.org/en/153007-2021-2025-national-development-strategy-nds-i">Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy 1 2021-2025</a>. </p>
<p>Good health is a constitutional right in Zimbabwe. Air pollution and unsafe sanitation are among the top 10 <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30752-2/fulltext">risk factors for health</a> in Zimbabwe, and can be reduced by carrying out Zimbabwe’s climate change plan. </p>
<p>Reducing biodiversity losses will not only address an environmental challenge in Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy, but preserve and enhance the tourism industry. </p>
<p>After years of unreliable energy supplies due to drought, and reliance on biomass fuels for cooking for much of the population, providing <a href="https://www.zera.co.zw/National_Renewable_Energy_Policy_Final.pdf#page=9">regular and reliable energy supplies</a> is critical for alleviating poverty and economic growth. </p>
<h2>Counting the benefits</h2>
<p><strong>Public health:</strong> Currently, almost 6,000 infants and over 8,000 adults <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221146452300091X">die</a> yearly from air pollution in Zimbabwe. Almost 1,600 people die from road traffic accidents, and 337 people <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221146452300091X">die</a> from unsafe sanitation. The study estimates that actions reducing greenhouse gases would also reduce air pollutant emissions by between 35% and 45% by 2030. This would lead to lower air pollution exposure, especially indoors where women and girls are most exposed while cooking.</p>
<p>Cleaner energy for cooking, improved transport systems and improved waste management all reduce air pollution. Increasing the use of public transport, or walking and cycling, rather than using cars can reduce road accidents and greenhouse gas emissions from transport. </p>
<p>Expanding access to sanitation systems would reduce the number of people dying from diarrhoeal diseases, and reduce methane emissions if the correct systems were installed.</p>
<p><strong>Improved biodiversity:</strong> Zimbabwe’s climate change actions also include changes to how land is used. It aims to <a href="http://www.envirotourism.org.zw/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Zimbabwe-Revised-Nationally-Determined-Contribution-2021-Final-1.pdf#page=36">reduce burned areas of forest by 500,000 hectares and add 100,000 hectares</a> of natural forest every year to 2025. The plan would also manage 250,000 more hectares of cropland using sustainable “conservation agriculture” techniques. </p>
<p>These actions were estimated to achieve multiple benefits, including improving soil health and protecting biodiversity, with possible reduction in the losses of both animals and plants.</p>
<p><strong>Access to reliable energy:</strong> Achieving Zimbabwe’s climate change plan is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221146452300091X">built</a> on extending electricity access to 95% of urban households and 75% of rural households. Actions in the plan include the expansion of renewable electricity generation, energy efficiency improvements, and reducing losses from electricity transmission and distribution. These steps can help ensure that access to energy is quick and effective, thereby reducing blackouts and reliance on fossil fuels. </p>
<p>In addition, the study shows that Zimbabwe could increase recycling rates while reducing emissions from waste. The country can equally reduce the time people – predominantly women and girls – spend cooking by switching to cleaner cooking fuels.</p>
<h2>More than a sacrifice</h2>
<p>Tackling climate change is often viewed as a necessary sacrifice, rather than an opportunity to improve lives. </p>
<p>Climate change targets are often focused solely on how they contribute to global, long-term aspirations, rather than the benefits that countries can achieve in the short term.</p>
<p>Our study shows the social, health and development benefits that Zimbabwe could enjoy by tackling its (small) contribution to climate change. This is not unique to Zimbabwe, nor a full list of all possible <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0012-x">benefits</a> from climate change action.</p>
<p>What is notable about the Zimbabwe study is that these local benefits were evaluated and quantified, alongside greenhouse gas emission reductions. They provide a positive case of what countries can gain from taking climate action. </p>
<p>Integrating quantitative assessment of local benefits when countries develop their climate change plans, following Zimbabwe’s example, could help boost national climate plans. This would in turn help the world meet necessary emission reduction timelines and avoid the worst impacts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Malley receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme, and UK Research & Innovation, . </span></em></p>Zimbabwe’s climate action plan is on track to check emissions and promote development. Other countries can learn from it.Chris Malley, Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute York Centre, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1923382023-08-30T13:39:00Z2023-08-30T13:39:00Z‘Motherhood is hard’: young, HIV-positive mums in South Africa open up about regret and anger<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489318/original/file-20221012-22-szjlec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women aren't often given space to discuss the difficult aspects of motherhood.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">fizkes/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For any woman, pregnancy and giving birth are major life-changing experiences. Becoming a mother brings with it a range of emotions and, in <a href="https://www.africaknowledgeproject.org/index.php/jenda/article/view/92">many African cultures</a>, positive emotions are centred when talking about motherhood. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?hl=en-US&publication_year=2016&author=O.+Oyewumi&title=What+gender+is+motherhood%3A+Changing+Yoruba+ideals+of+power%2C+procreation%2C+and+identity+in+the+age+of+modernity">Scholarship</a> from the eastern, western and southern parts of the continent has <a href="https://www.africaknowledgeproject.org/index.php/jenda/article/view/92">emphasised</a> how motherhood is linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139344333">notions</a> of continuity, strength and sacrifice, unconditional love, consecration and spirituality, family ties, loyalty and happiness.</p>
<p>In many African cultures, mothers are expected to be resilient, happy and tenacious. But what about the often “silenced” aspect of motherhood? Generally, mothers are not expected or encouraged to share any <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/678145">negative emotions about their experiences and role</a>. Those who defy this expectation are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558420945182">frequently stigmatised</a> and labelled “bad mothers”. </p>
<p>These responses often arise from the belief that motherhood is life’s key purpose. Seen through this societal lens, becoming a mother ought to be fulfilling and overwhelmingly positive.</p>
<p>But human emotions are complex. People can experience joy and sadness simultaneously. This is underscored by <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2158244019848802">our study</a> among HIV-positive mothers in South Africa about their experiences of motherhood. These young women, aged between 16 and 24, told us how they grappled with harsh realities and daily challenges. </p>
<p>They expressed regret about their unplanned experience of motherhood and wished their circumstances were different. It was clear they were experiencing conflicting internal emotions as they considered the roles, responsibilities and difficulties of motherhood. </p>
<p>Such negative emotions – especially regret – are seldom expressed when talking about motherhood. This leaves little room for African mothers to be vulnerable. To change this ideology and practice, safe space must be created for these feelings. </p>
<p>Doing so can promote open, honest and non-judgmental discussions that will lead to changes in the narratives surrounding motherhood, influence practices and boost emotional, mental and physical health. It can allow mothers and their children to thrive and be better equipped with the necessary skills to face life, irrespective of their challenges.</p>
<h2>Motherhood is hard</h2>
<p>We conducted one-on-one, in-depth interviews with ten HIV-positive mothers in Johannesburg, South Africa. The women all became mothers when they were adolescents. Their children’s ages ranged from two months to seven years old. We also interviewed three key stakeholders who, through their work as academics and researchers and in the healthcare field, engaged closely with adolescent mothers and HIV-positive individuals in South Africa.</p>
<p>None of the young mothers had planned to become pregnant. They were dealing with intersecting psychological, socioeconomic, health, cultural and physiological dynamics. They were stepping into new, unknown realities: as young mothers, some still had school responsibilities. Others were unemployed, <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.FE.ZS?locations=ZA">as is the case</a> for most adolescent girls and young women aged between 15 and 24 in South Africa. They depended financially on others such as their grandmothers, the government’s monthly child support grant, or transactional sex partners. </p>
<p>Their HIV status created another layer of complexity due to the attached health responsibilities, stigma and shame. Apart from the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791450#:%7E:text=In%202019%2C%20an%20estimated%2070,aged%2020%20to%2024%20years.">high susceptibility</a> of adolescent girls to unplanned pregnancy and HIV infection in South Africa, another important reason for working with this group of mothers was to give voice to their experience and to possibly inform relevant policies.</p>
<h2>No judgment</h2>
<p>We created a safe, non-judgmental space in which the young women could share their feelings, both positive and negative. At least half of the participants told us that this was the first time they’d felt able to freely narrate their experiences, especially negative feelings about the experience of motherhood. Away from the pressure of cultural beliefs and expectations, they opened up. </p>
<p>The most prominent emotions they expressed were negative: specifically, they felt regret and anger. Their reflections were sometimes painful. One said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I will always feel like I robbed myself of my childhood, and at times I will resent my child. I would hit my child so badly, and even though she couldn’t hear what I was saying but I will always tell her that I regret being with her.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t know whether it was worth it, but I know maybe I could have prevented it … I wish I had known how difficult it was to actually be a mother.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a powerful negation of society’s notion that the moment a woman becomes a mother, she has access to knowledge and systems that enable her to maintain the image of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/678145">“the good mother”</a>. The notion that the fear and doubt will be pushed aside and only positive emotions will dominate is simply false.</p>
<p>Most of the mothers also shared the joy and rewarding feelings of having their children. One stated that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… at first I was scared, but now I am happy because I look at her and she inspires me a lot … now I am seeing life in another way … with the support of my aunt and friends, I feel better.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… it is good to see my baby laughing, happy, playing, very nice … like it is very (long pause) … it is beautiful … I like him smiling cos I’m like I can no longer imagine my life without my son (laughs).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Freedom and support</h2>
<p>It’s time to shift the conversation from conventional and rigid constructions of motherhood to a more open, inclusive picture across Africa. </p>
<p>This will do more than just give mothers the freedom to express the full range of their emotions about motherhood: it can also contribute to more inclusive, tailored policies and programmes that take into account the many complexities and dilemmas our participants spoke about. </p>
<p>These might include access to need-specific, supportive, non-judgmental counsellors and therapists, and increased peer mentorship programmes, as well as access to sexual and reproductive health information and career support programmes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morolake Josephine Adeagbo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Negative emotions, especially regret, are seldom expressed when talking about motherhood.Morolake Josephine Adeagbo, Senior Research Associate, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2121312023-08-30T12:40:58Z2023-08-30T12:40:58ZZimbabwe’s election was a fight between men – women are sidelined in politics despite quotas<p>Zimbabwe’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65775996">2023 harmonised elections</a> have largely been depicted as a battle between the two “Big Men” – President <a href="https://apnews.com/article/zimbabwe-elections-emerson-mnangagwa-president-crocodile-56668e87d9459980b9d38b57175c31ce">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a> of the ruling Zanu-PF and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/who-is-nelson-chamisa-can-he-win-zimbabwes-election-2023-08-23/">Nelson Chamisa</a> of the leading opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). Significant media attention focused on the <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/315335/zimbabwe-police-ban-92-ccc-opposition-party-campaign-rallies/">uneven playing field</a> between the ruling party and the opposition.</p>
<p>The election results announced on the 26 August are <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-embassy-joins-others-voicing-concern-about-zimbabwe-election/7242392.html">being disputed</a> due to <a href="https://www.sadc.int/slide-item/sadc-electoral-observation-mission-2023-harmonised-elections-zimbabwe-launched">reports</a> of delayed voting, voter intimidation and ballot paper irregularities. <a href="https://www.zec.org.zw/download-category/2023-presidential-elections-results/">Mnangagwa</a> has been announced as the official winner of the presidential poll, but the CCC has <a href="https://twitter.com/ccczimbabwe/status/1695576909839487050?s=46&t=knTMoeo4WZETacMv4PIpAw">rejected these results</a>. </p>
<p>Another concern distinct to this election was the stark decline in the number of women candidates nominated by the main political parties for direct election. </p>
<p>We are working on a three year research <a href="https://nai.uu.se/research-and-policy-advice/project/making-politics-safer---gendered-violence-and-electoral-temporalities-in-africa.html">project</a> with a focus on the representation of women in politics in Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe as well as gendered electoral violence. This project seeks to explore barriers to women’s participation in politics in Africa and pathways forward, initially researched in the book <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/gendered-institutions-and-womens-political-representation-in-africa-9781913441210/">Gendered Institutions and Women’s Political Representation in Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Zimbabwe ranks low in measures of gender parity in southern Africa. South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique boast <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS">46%, 44% and 42% women’s participation</a> in parliament, respectively. Zimbabwe’s political parties need to field more women for direct election, outside the confines of the quota, in order to reach gender parity. </p>
<h2>Gender quota</h2>
<p>Zimbabwe’s <a href="https://www.veritaszim.net/sites/veritas_d/files/Constitution%20Updated%20to%202021.pdf">constitution in 2013</a> introduced a gender quota to ensure the equitable representation of women in parliament. Zimbabwe’s parliament is composed of a National Assembly (lower house) and a Senate (upper house). The <a href="https://www.veritaszim.net/sites/veritas_d/files/Constitution%20Updated%20to%202021.pdf">quota requires</a> that the lower house reserve 60 of its 270 seats (22%) for women representatives. The upper house is to appoint 60 of its 80 senators from a list that alternates between female and male candidates, called the “zebra-list”. </p>
<p>The purpose of the quota is to push the country towards gender parity – 50/50 female/male representation – as directed by the <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/protocol-african-charter-human-and-peoples-rights-rights-women-africa">2003 Maputo Protocol</a> and the Southern African Development Community’s 2008 <a href="https://www.sadc.int/sites/default/files/2021-08/Protocol_on_Gender_and_Development_2008.pdf">Protocol on Gender and Development</a>.</p>
<p>However, women’s representation in Zimbabwe’s parliament has declined since 2013, in spite of the quota. <a href="https://wpp-africa.net/sites/default/files/2021-05/English%20Policy%20brief%20on%20women%20participation%20in%20politics%20in%20Zimbabwe.pdf">In 2013</a> women made up 33% of the National Assembly and 48% of the Senate. Only 12% of these women were elected directly. In <a href="https://wpp-africa.net/sites/default/files/2021-05/English%20Policy%20brief%20on%20women%20participation%20in%20politics%20in%20Zimbabwe.pdf">2018</a> the numbers in the National Assembly and Senate fell to 31% and 44%, respectively. </p>
<p>There was a significant decline in the number of women nominated to contest the 2023 elections. Only 68 (11%) of 633 aspiring parliamentarians for direct election were women. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/women-stand-up-comedians-in-zimbabwe-talk-about-sex-and-the-patriarchy-156052">Women stand-up comedians in Zimbabwe talk about sex - and the patriarchy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In spite of these challenges, <a href="https://www.zec.org.zw/download-category/national_assembly/">23 women were elected into parliament</a> (against 26 in <a href="https://www.womenpoliticalleaders.org/women-make-up-more-than-one-third-of-zimbabwe-s-new-parliament-un-women-1447/">2013</a> and 25 in <a href="https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/country-view/312/35">2018</a>). The 23 newly elected women will be added to the 60 women appointed through the quota, making a total of 83, or 30.7% representation of women, in the lower house. After the appointment of senators, as <a href="https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/zw/zw038en.pdf#page=52">stipulated by the constitution</a>, the number of women in the full parliament will increase. Though commendable, this still places Zimbabwe below average within the region. </p>
<p>These gains may fail to go beyond the 31% representation achieved in <a href="https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/country-view/312/35">2018</a>. The women in the National Assembly will still be less than 50% of parliamentarians and have limited decision making powers. Moreover, there is little indication of the substantive impact these women will have to empower Zimbabwean women, considering their limited numbers. The country’s record of democratic deficits is another important challenge. </p>
<p>The newly elected women MPs may have limited room for manoeuvre to promote gender equality in this political context. But they are still important as decision makers, legislators and role models for other women to enter politics. </p>
<h2>Looking beyond the quota</h2>
<p>A gendered audit of the <a href="https://www.zec.org.zw/download/government-gazette-extraordinary-vol-64-30-06-2023-electoral-act-2/">published list of nominated candidates</a> for direct elections reveals that Zimbabwe’s political parties did not field enough women to reach gender parity in 2023. </p>
<p>Data shows that 633 registered candidates contested 210 seats through direct election. Of these candidates only 68 were women. That is, only 11% of aspiring parliamentarians for direct election were women. Of these 68, Zanu-PF fielded 23 women (34%), the CCC fielded 20 (29%), and the remaining 25 women were from small minority parties (27%) and independent candidates (10%).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/animal-farm-has-been-translated-into-shona-why-a-group-of-zimbabwean-writers-undertook-the-task-206966">Animal Farm has been translated into Shona – why a group of Zimbabwean writers undertook the task</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Harare and Bulawayo provinces nominated the highest number of women candidates for election. In Mashonaland Central only one woman was nominated across 18 constituencies. Only two women were nominated in Matebeleland South across 12 constituencies.</p>
<p>It is important to ask why political parties are not fielding more women for direct election. And what this means for the future of representative politics in Zimbabwe. </p>
<h2>Gender bias within political parties</h2>
<p>The data above indicates a bias against woman candidates that permeates across political parties. Apart from the women nominated through the obligations of the quota, neither the CCC nor Zanu-PF fielded enough women to make gender parity a reality in the 2023 elections. </p>
<p>The active exclusion of women from politics is driven by gendered prejudices. These are informed by social, cultural and religious beliefs <a href="https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/29600">rooted in patriarchal values </a> that view women as inherently weak and untrustworthy. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/women-bear-brunt-of-political-violence/">threat and use of violence against women candidates</a> continues to be used to coerce and discourage women from contesting elections. As argued by Zimbabwean scholars <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0021909620986576?journalCode=jasa">Sandra Bhatasara and Manase Chiweshe</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>patriarchy, intertwined with the increase in militarised masculinities, is producing exclusion with limited spaces for women’s participation. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A negative perception is also linked to “quota women” as they were not elected by “the people”. These women are often subjected to <a href="https://core.ac.uk/reader/188770530">elite patriarchal bargaining</a>. They primarily serve the needs of their party, rather than representing Zimbabwean women.</p>
<h2>Gatekeeping</h2>
<p>The presence of a gender quota system provides a facade of progress. This conceals the stark reality that neither the CCC nor Zanu-PF is committed to increasing women’s representation outside the confines of the quota. Political parties function as “election gatekeepers”. They determine the level of women’s inclusion in representative politics, outside the quota system.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-informal-sector-organisations-in-zimbabwe-shape-notions-of-citizenship-180455">How informal sector organisations in Zimbabwe shape notions of citizenship</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The number of women elected indicates that, unlike in <a href="https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/country-view/312/35">past elections</a>, Zimbabweans seem more willing to vote for women representatives. Political parties should build on these small gains and nominate more women for elections. This will allow the country to move closer to the goals of gender parity, gender equality and democratic plurality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diana Højlund Madsen is a project leader for the project 'Making Politics Safer - Gendered Violence and Electoral Temporalities in Africa' funded by the Swedish Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shingirai Mtero works for the Nordic Africa Institute on the project Making Politics Safer. This project receives funding from the Swedish Research Council. </span></em></p>Women’s representation in Zimbabwe’s parliament has declined in spite of a quota imposed in 2013.Diana Højlund Madsen, Senior Gender Researcher, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, The Nordic Africa InstituteShingirai Mtero, Postdoctoral Researcher, The Nordic Africa InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114912023-08-23T13:03:22Z2023-08-23T13:03:22ZThe power of needlework: how embroidery is helping South African women tell unspeakable stories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542686/original/file-20230814-28-wbiufb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C577%2C5000%2C3958&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In her artwork for the project, Christina Leputla depicted victims of domestic violence fleeing their attacker.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In June 2020, three months after South Africa entered the first of a series of hard lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID, the country’s president Cyril Ramaphosa described men’s violence against women as a “<a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-06-18-gender-based-violence-is-south-africas-second-pandemic-says-ramaphosa/">second pandemic</a>”. </p>
<p>In the first three weeks of that lockdown the Gender Based Violence Command Centre, designed to support victims of gender-based violence (GBV), <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-09-01-shocking-stats-on-gender-based-violence-during-lockdown-revealed/">recorded more than 120,000 victims</a>. Also in its <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/april_to_march_2019_20_presentation.pdf">2019/2020 crimes statistics</a>, the South African Police Services indicated that an average of 116 rape cases were reported each day.</p>
<p>While South Africa’s GBV crisis is not new, it was exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, which made the perpetual challenges faced by many women and gender non-conforming individuals hyper visible. </p>
<p>This visibility sheds light on the reality that the home is a complex space where <a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2917&context=jiws">care and violence</a> can <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/spc3.12568?casa_token=fhtiC323xA0AAAAA:nQOf6gVo54TLKsikaMp4ayC7xFFB9B2Um2AUyoeiwTlzn3J_ePd1yH5i1lq8y7NAXxuREDAkTKepoReV">co-exist</a>. Women can feel simultaneously safe and in danger in their homes. All of this happens behind closed doors, often robbing women of a voice to express their fear, suffering and pain. </p>
<p>That affects more than just individual women: GBV is a collective, structural challenge. When women are violated at homes, it affects familial relations, productivity at work, and <a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2917&context=jiws">overall societal functioning</a>. </p>
<p>I am a psychologist who wanted to harness the power of visual artistic expression to highlight the multi-layered ways in which gendered violence is woven into everyday encounters. To do so, <a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2917&context=jiws">I turned</a> – as I have done <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-embroidery-broke-the-silence-around-womens-apartheid-trauma-146714">in previous research</a> – to embroidery.</p>
<p>As I have written in my previous research into the role of embroidery in empowering women’s storytelling, for this current work, I drew again from this methodology to visually tell the narrative of GBV in colourful and creative ways, paying attention to moments of encounters where those who perpetrate and those against whom the violence is perpetrated appear in the same frame. The visual artwork invites the viewer to witness. The hope is that beyond the witnessing is a call for action. </p>
<h2>Everyday violence</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An embroidery depicts a woman with blue hair, her eyes wide and frightened and her mouth covered by another person's hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542685/original/file-20230814-20-p9bccb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542685/original/file-20230814-20-p9bccb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542685/original/file-20230814-20-p9bccb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542685/original/file-20230814-20-p9bccb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542685/original/file-20230814-20-p9bccb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542685/original/file-20230814-20-p9bccb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542685/original/file-20230814-20-p9bccb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evelyn Twala’s embroidery communicates fear and pain.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond making visually appealing artwork, needlework has always been a useful tool <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13603116.2015.1047661?journalCode=tied20">to tell difficult or unspeakable stories</a>. Through depicting their lived experiences of gender trauma, women can have an outlet for their pain. While their embroideries serve as a canvas for the outpouring of pain, loss and trauma, their work also tells stories of hope, resilience and resistance.</p>
<p>For this research I worked with the <a href="https://www.artivismexhibition.com/intuthuko-embroidery-project.html">Intuthuko women’s collective</a>. The group consists of 16 Black women based in one of the townships (these are historically Black urban residential areas) in Ekurhuleni in the Gauteng province. GBV in South Africa continues to <a href="https://aho.org/news/south-african-poor-black-women-are-the-face-of-health-inequity/">affect Black women</a> disproportionately, a reality rooted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2023.2219535">in history</a> as well as in present systems. </p>
<p>The idea with this project was to let the visuals do the talking. So we did not focus on personal experiences, but an overview of the many ways in which GBV shows itself in our lives. I was part of the group and also contributed in making an embroidery piece. This allowed me to shift from being just a researcher and spectator to becoming a contributor in the process of thinking, reflecting and making. It was a collaborative endeavour where we came up with themes as a collective and then each focused on a particular theme for the making of the embroideries. </p>
<p>During the process of making the embroideries, we would share stories of how GBV constantly affects our communities, reflecting on the need to use these embroideries as a form of awareness raising, tool for community dialogues, and to challenge the patriarchal system that has rendered the world unsafe for women. </p>
<p>The aim was to highlight the multi-layered ways in which gendered violence is woven into everyday encounters. We sought to engage the ways in which creative meaning could be made of GBV in our communities – and how the challenges facing our society because of gendered violence could be given attention. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-embroidery-broke-the-silence-around-womens-apartheid-trauma-146714">How embroidery broke the silence around women's apartheid trauma</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Perpetual fear</h2>
<p>The embroideries depict a society where <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-08-05-female-fear-factory-any-woman-can-be-made-into-a-whore-so-sit-like-a-girl/">fear is manufactured</a>, created, and produced by patriarchal and unjust structural violent systems. This in turn leads to women living in perpetual fear; they cannot feel safe within and outside of their homes. </p>
<p>Through our artistic visual depictions, we expressed how GBV creates a sense of women being regulated and controlled, and of not entirely owning their bodies.</p>
<p>Some embroideries featured women being violated and robbed in public places, reduced to kneeling down for mercy. The artworks highlighted women’s sense that the streets are not safe and that they are never sure whether they will make it back home safely. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An embroidery depicts a male figure groping a woman in a street alongside some houses. She is raising her hand to object." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542688/original/file-20230814-23-qeu3kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542688/original/file-20230814-23-qeu3kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542688/original/file-20230814-23-qeu3kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542688/original/file-20230814-23-qeu3kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542688/original/file-20230814-23-qeu3kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542688/original/file-20230814-23-qeu3kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542688/original/file-20230814-23-qeu3kt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angela Mangte’s artwork captures women’s sense that they are not safe in the streets.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Feeling unsafe and in a constant state of fear makes it difficult for many women to exercise their agency: when society is structured in ways that make women victims, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/reseafrilite.45.4.89">patriarchy prevails</a>.</p>
<h2>Staring reality in the face</h2>
<p>These embroideries are not just pieces of visual art. They are a challenge to the viewer to stare the violence in the face with the hope that they will be compelled to reflect and to act. </p>
<p>The embroideries have been displayed at an art exhibition where the public could attend and engage with the pieces. We also produced a multilingual visual booklet which is being used in the women’s community and schools as a tool for opening up dialogues on GBV.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Puleng Segalo receives funding from the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. </span></em></p>Pain in a thousand stitches; depicting a society where women live in constant fear of being attacked.Puleng Segalo, Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103432023-08-02T13:27:23Z2023-08-02T13:27:23ZSouth Africa’s new Marriage Bill raises many thorny issues - a balancing act is needed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539927/original/file-20230728-16043-9x88ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brides attend a mass wedding ceremony at the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, south of Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ihsaan Haffejee/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa is changing its marriage law to recognise all types of intimate partnerships – irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, or religious, cultural and other beliefs. </p>
<p>The Department of Home Affairs has <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/department-home-affairs-invites-public-submit-written-comments-draft-marriage-bill-11-jul">invited public comment</a> on the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/marriage-bill-draft-7-jul-2023-0000">Draft Marriage Bill 2022</a>. The bill amends some marriage laws, and prescribes what’s required for marriages to be considered valid, forms of registration, and the property consequences of marriage. As the <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/48914_7-7_HomeAffairs-4-28.pdf#page=3">preamble</a> shows, it seeks to promote liberal values of equality, nondiscrimination, human dignity and freedom of thought. </p>
<p>While it is innovative for bringing all forms of intimate partnerships under one piece of legislation, the bill raises thorny questions. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism">Liberalism</a> – or openness to different behaviour, opinions or new ideas – is a strange beast. It pushes accepted conduct to its limits.</p>
<p>For instance, if the bill truly seeks equity, why does it not recognise intimate partnerships such as cohabitation? Why does <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202307/48914gon3648.pdf#page=20">section 22(6)</a> criminalise marriage between people who are related to each other by adoption or by blood (to certain degrees)?</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JgVz0yUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researched</a> these issues, notably as a member of the Advisory Committee on Matrimonial Property of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/Salrc/ipapers/ip41-prj100E-MatrimonialPropertyLawReview-6Sep2021.pdf">South African Law Reform Commission</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-the-relevance-of-african-customary-law-in-modern-times-150762">Understanding the relevance of African customary law in modern times</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I believe that even though the bill promotes important constitutional values, it does not sufficiently reflect changing social and economic conditions. Specifically, it ignores polyandry – marriage of a woman to more than one man – and unmarried partnerships. This is significant because other laws recognise <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a17-061.pdf">civil unions</a>, which include formalised marriage-like partnerships of same-sex couples.</p>
<h2>The thorny issues</h2>
<p>Firstly, radical socioeconomic changes require society to reevaluate traditional assumptions about accepted forms of relationships. Due to urbanisation and the interaction of different cultures, relationships such as cohabitation and polyandry are rising. A couple could live together for reasons such as exorbitant rent, distance to workplaces, and prohibitively high bridewealth (<em>ilobolo</em>). </p>
<p>The bill doesn’t recognise such intimate partnerships, which the Constitutional Court has accorded the same legal status as formal marriages. As the court has <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/51.html">acknowledged</a>, unmarried partnerships have serious implications for finances, human dignity, property ownership and child custody.</p>
<p>Secondly, the Marriage Bill <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/48914_7-7_HomeAffairs-4-28.pdf#page=8">defines</a> <em>ilobolo</em> as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>property in cash or in kind … which a prospective husband or the head of his family undertakes to give to the head of the prospective wife’s family in consideration of a customary marriage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This implies that only (traditionally male) family heads can receive it. The definition does not anticipate a role for women, as happens among the Galole Orma people of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2744433">northeastern Kenya</a>.</p>
<p>Also, the position of family head could be disputed where the mother is divorced and raised the bride alone. As far back as 1997, the Transvaal High Court <a href="https://www.bbrief.co.za/content/uploads/2019/11/Mabena-v-Letsoalo-1998.pdf">ruled</a> that the bride’s mother could negotiate and receive <em>ilobolo</em>. The bill should therefore redefine bridewealth as “money, property, or anything of value given by the groom or his family to the bride’s family in consideration of marriage and/or to symbolise a union between the groom and bride’s families”.</p>
<p>This definition is consistent with the decreasing role of the extended family in the education or raising of the bride. Uncles and aunts should not benefit from bridewealth if they did not assist in raising the bride. </p>
<p>Thirdly, the bill is silent on the coexistence of a civil law marriage with a customary or religious marriage. For reasons like legal certainty and communal respect, <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/journals/SPECJU/2018/14.pdf">double marriage is common</a>. Previously, if a couple in a civil marriage subsequently concluded a customary or religious marriage, the state regarded the latter marriage as invalid. </p>
<p>The bill creates ambiguity because it does not stipulate the fate of a subsequent customary or religious marriage. This could affect inheritance, property and child custody because legal systems may govern these issues differently.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-courts-and-lawmakers-have-failed-the-ideal-of-cultural-diversity-91508">South Africa's courts and lawmakers have failed the ideal of cultural diversity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Furthermore, the bill defines polygamous marriage as “a marriage in which a male spouse has more than one spouse at the same time”. This patriarchal definition does not promote equality. It implies that a woman should not marry more than one man. </p>
<p>Finally, the bill imposes an omnibus standard for divorce on all marriages. This standard may complicate divorce under Islamic and customary law, where the standard is relaxed. Also, <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202307/48914gon3648.pdf#page=19">section 21(1)</a> of the bill states that a marriage may be dissolved by the “continuous unconsciousness of one of the spouses,” without specifying how long a spouse must be unconscious following an injury, for example.</p>
<p>If the thorny issues in the bill are not addressed, the eventual legislation could be challenged as discriminatory. Its amendment would then drain the public purse. </p>
<h2>A balancing act</h2>
<p>Significantly, the bill emerged from the 2022 <a href="http://www.dha.gov.za/images/PDFs/White-Paper-on-Marriage-in-SA-5-May2022.pdf">White Paper on marriages and life partnerships</a>. The advisory committee that worked on the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/dpapers/dp152-prj144-SingleMarriageStatute-Jan2021.pdf">Single Marriage Statute (Project 144)</a> proposed two options for regulating life partnerships in its discussion paper.</p>
<p>These are a <a href="https://www.lssa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/SALRC-discussion-paper-152-on-single-marriage-statute-plus-media-release.pdf">Protected Relationships Bill and a Recognition and Registration of Marriages and Life Partnerships Bill</a>. It appears Home Affairs did not add life partnerships to the bill because it is controversial. But legislative avoidance is unhelpful because it <a href="https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1727-37812021000100048">postpones inevitable problems</a>. The Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/51.html">recognises</a> the right of a woman in a life partnership to inherit or claim maintenance from her deceased partner’s estate. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-rights-african-union-watchdog-goes-back-on-its-own-word-197555">LGBTQ+ rights: African Union watchdog goes back on its own word</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Ultimately, new forms of relationships demand legislative recognition. Law reform should be carefully handled to ensure that non-discriminatory cultural and religious practices <a href="https://repository.uwc.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10566/7355/Diala_law_2021.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">are respected</a>. The bill should strike a balance between preserving these practices, promoting liberal values, and recognising the evolving realities of contemporary relationships.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Diala receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 136532). </span></em></p>The Marriage Bill should strike a balance between preserving non-discriminatory cultural and religious practices and promoting liberal values.Anthony Diala, Director, Centre for Legal Integration in Africa, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.