13 Aug 2015

Some SADC states are lacking behind in terms of fulfilling the gender protocol articles which were adopted in 2008 and collectively aligned with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). 

Addressing the media ahead of the 35^th SADC summit, the programme officer for research, gender unit and monitoring at the SADC secretariat, Ms Elizabeth Kakukuru said while she appreciates efforts taken by some member states in coming close to achieving a 50:50 representation in parliament by 2015, more still needs to be done. 

Ms Kakukuru said out of the 15 member states only three scored above 40 per cent of women representation in Parliament, and these include Namibia at 47, Seychelles at 44 and South Africa at 42 per cent.

Mozambique is at 39.2 per cent followed by Angola with 36.8, Tanzania 36, Zimbabwe 32 and Lesotho at 26.7 respectively. 

Poorly performing countries  are Malawi at 17 Swaziland 15, DRC 11, Zambia 10 and Botswana at eight per cent.
She said SADC places gender and women’s empowerment firmly on the agenda of SADC Programme of Action and Community Building Initiative. 

She noted that gender was one of the critical crosscutting issues to achieving poverty reduction and improvement of the quality of the standard of living of the majority of the citizens of the region.

Meanwhile, Botswana is among the top three countries in terms of the percentage of women in decision making positions in the public service.

The positions include that of permanent secretaries and directorship of head of department.
In terms of the number of women in the judiciary, Botswana has the least number of women judges while it comes second after Seychelles in terms of the number of women magistrates. The number of women in peace building and conflict resolution were however visible from few the countries who contribute towards UN operations.

Ms Kakukuru said while many member states have clear policies aimed at addressing Gender Based Violence (GBV), it was disturbing to learn that incidents of gender based violence perpetuated on women was growing at an alarming rate.  ENDS