In Celebration of the International Women's Day

Vibrant Call to End the Impunity for Violence against Women

In observance for the International Women's Day, ECA's African Centre for Gender and Social Development organized on Monday 12 March 2007 an important Symposium on the theme chosen for this year: “ Ending the impunity for violence against women”. Many participants drawn from the international community and the UN system, and representatives from universities and various organizations in Addis Ababa, as well as the ECA staff, attended the Symposium, which objective was to reflect on a number of issues under the theme of the year. This encounter crowned a number of activities that were organized by various institutions and organizations in the preceding days to mark this year's International Women's Day.

Given the need to sensitize men and have them join the collective endeavour aiming at building a culture that banishes violence against women, the overarching theme chosen for this year focused particularly on the central role that men are requested to play to reach this goal. This theme has been sub-divided into 5 issues so as to look at the role men are called upon to play to end the impunity for violence against women and girls in” i) armed conflicts; ii) the judiciary; iii) at the community level; iv) in the work place; v) in the UN system.

Heated rounds of discussions followed all five presentations made on these specific issues by various speakers. A series of radio programmes on violence against women, previously produced by ECA, in collaboration with a number of African national broadcasting corporations were broadcast during the symposium to enrich the debate and illustrate various forms of gender-based violence that still plague women's life in Africa. Participants also listened to a poem produced by a young UN staff on sexual harassment in the work place.

In his concluding remarks, Mr. Fidele Sarassoro, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative commended ECA efforts to organize the symposium. He also insisted that such an initiative should be sustained by institutionalizing it and developing a follow up mechanism to assess progress achieved in the area of combating violence against women and the girl child.