The past month the country has been having
quite a dialogue on the New Equitable Empowerment Framework, or NEEEF. Various
solutions have been proposed to remove barriers of socio-economic advancement
in order to enable previously disadvantaged persons to access productive assets
and opportunities of empowerment. The initial discussion focused, rather to its
detriment, on race, instead of on another group of previously, and some would
say currently, disadvantaged persons.
This is a group comprising 51.4% of the
population, and which the SWAPO party itself recognised when it committed
itself to equal gender (zebra) representation. I’m referring, of course, to
women. And while our constitution in Article 10 states, “No persons may be
discriminated against on the grounds of sex, race, colour, ethnic origin,
religion, creed or social or economic status, “ and in Article 14 states, “Men
and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, colour, ethnic
origin, nationality, religion, creed or social or economic status shall have
the right to marry and to found a family. They shall be entitled to equal
rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution, ” it took until
the 1996 passage of the Married Persons Equality Act to grant women their full,
constitutional, rights.
Until 1996, if she was married under civil
law, a woman’s autonomy was restricted due to Dutch-Roman common law. She was
treated like a child! No married woman could bring a case to court! She could
not sell or buy property! She could not sign a contract, take out a loan, be a
company director… Not any of this, without permission from her husband. In
addition, if married within community of property, the husband had control of
their joint estate, even though half of everything belonged to her.
It can thus not be said that any group has
been quite as historically disadvantaged as women. And the advantages of
empowering them are quite phenomenal. Women tend to do more work in caring for
families – in fact, on average, women devote 1 to 3 hours more a day to
housework than men and 2 to 10 times the
amount of time a day to care (for children, elderly, and the sick). In our
country, women are the ones who tend to communal farms! With the current
drought, they were in fact the worst hit!
And yet, when women are empowered, spending
patterns change. Women tend to spend more on child welfare – and children are
our citizens of the future. Anything that benefits them, benefits the nation.
When women join the labour force, the country has faster economic growth! In
fact, about 25% of the economic growth in developed countries over the past 50
years is due to increased education of their girls.
For every additional year of education a
woman receives, child mortality drops by 9.5%.
It is estimated that if women farmers receive the same access as men to
productive assets (as NEEEF envisages), agricultural output could increase by
2.5% to 4%. In fact, women contribute substantially to food production
worldwide. They often grow the majority of staple crops for domestic
consumption and petty trading, and raise chickens and other smaller animals.
And women are paid less than men. Women in
most countries earn on average only 60 to 75 per cent of men’s wages. Yet, more
women than men work in vulnerable, low-paid, or undervalued jobs. But women’s
economic equality is good for business! Companies greatly benefit from
increasing leadership opportunities for women, which is shown to increase
organizational effectiveness. It is estimated that companies with three or more
women in senior management functions score higher in all dimensions of
organizational effectiveness.
But here in Namibia, thirty-two percent of
married women aged 15 to 49 have experienced physical violence at least once
since age 15. 33 percent of married women aged 15 to 49 report having
experienced physical, sexual, and/or emotional violence from their spouse.
Among married women who had experienced spousal physical violence in the past
12 months, 36 percent reported experiencing physical injuries. Six percent of
women reported experiencing violence during pregnancy. Sadly, fifteen percent
of Namibian women who have experienced violence have never sought help and
never told anyone about the violence.
Why is it that more than 20% of Namibians
believe that husbands are justified in hitting and beating his wife if she
burns the food, or argues with him, or goes out without telling him, or
neglects the children, or refuses sex? Why do we live in a country where 24% of
females aged 15 to 24 had rape as their first sexual encounter? Why do those
females aged 10 to 14 who’ve had a sexual encounter report that in 42% of the
cases it was rape?
Violence perpetuates violence, and allowing
it in a household raises children that perpetuate it. Violence is the last
refuge of the incompetent. This violence against women (73% committed by people
known to the victim) paints a picture of a still-disadvantaged segment of our society
– a picture we should urgently change.
NEEEF and the Harambee Prosperity Plan
requires solutions – and one is staring them in the face. Global data suggests
that gender inequality is strongly correlated with national poverty levels. Our
ruling party has shown that it is willing to do what is necessary to close the
gender gap – but it needs to do more. In 1996, the Marriage Equality Act made a
man and a woman joint heads of the household. If we want to build a united
Namibian House, it is time we did the same with our country.
No comments:
Post a Comment