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ECA Press Release No. 05/2005 AFRICA's WOMEN REFLECT ON THEIR LOT POST-BEIJINGADDIS ABABA, 28 February 2005 (ECA): “People should stop stigmatizing and discriminating against us, because whether you like it or not, we are still human beings. I still have to live … I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter.” This is just one of the sentiments expressed by an HIV-positive woman, representing a cross-section of female voices from Africa on a ground breaking audio CD produced by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) to coincide with the “Beijing Plus 10” process. Ten years after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing – which adopted the Beijing Platform for Action - stakeholders are meeting in New York from 28 February to 11 March to assess the gains and the many challenges still facing African women today. The CD, entitled “Reflections: African Women Post-Beijing”, aims to bring the voices of African women themselves to as wide an audience as possible. It stems from the ECA’s ongoing collaboration with African broadcasters to promote creative programming around key issues facing Africa today. The CD features women who have experienced at first-hand the stigmatization associated with HIV/AIDS, rape or lack of education, all of which act as a brake to gender progress and development on the continent. What the interviews show is that women across Africa experience similar agonies that curtail their impact on decision-making processes. Poverty, illiteracy, inaccessibility to basic health care and the African preference to “invest” in boys are all contributing factors to the slow progress of women’s empowerment on the continent. But it is not all doom and gloom. On the CD, the ECA’s gender experts illustrate some of the advances achieved since Beijing 1995. While there is still a long way to go, they note that African governments are taking gender issues more seriously. As a result there has been some progress in women’s role in decision-making which in turn should help alleviate some of the problems faced by women in society. For more information Issued by the ECA
Communication Team |
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