Minister
Essop Pahad
Opening remarks: African
Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Conference
4
February 2003
Friends, welcome
to our remarkable country, South Africa.
Your conference
here in South Africa opens with a celebration of African Women's
Health Day today, and we indeed have a lot to celebrate.
We have come
a long way since the grim-faced, embattled years of white supremacy
and resistance. Though much remains to be done, and we in the Government
are far from complacent, we have moved to transform the length and
breadth of our country. This has been not only to ensure non-racialism
and corrective action, but to live up to the expectations of the
50 or more percent of our population who are women, to grant them
the justice and equity that they worked for so tirelessly over so
many years of racial and sexual repression.
We have also
moved to remedy years of neglect of the rights of the child and
disabled people, and our approach is to view these issues as matters
of fundamental human rights and not as matters of sentimentality
or scant concern.
We see the
strides we have taken as reflecting the yearnings and aspirations
of past generations who fought in such repressive conditions for
social and political justice. The women who marched, in protest
at having to carry passes, to the Union Buildings in our capital
city of Pretoria nearly half a century ago, they march on with us
in spirit as we seek to keep faith with their hopes - hopes expressed
in the face of police bullets and racial harassment and abuse. Much
of the justice you will see welling up in this fabulous country,
South Africa, is testimony to those who went before and who endured
so much for us to be able to live in growing stability and enlightenment.
May you, be
happy on our shores. May you savour the fruits of a democratic,
culturally diverse yet inexorably uniting nation. May you see and
enjoy the breathtaking sights of our African landscape, of our sophisticated
cities, of rural hamlets where there is a stillness and stress-free
atmosphere under warm sunshine or brilliantly-lit, starry skies.
But despite
all the reasons to celebrate we are also meeting here today at a
time when world peace is particularly threatened - and the major
inequalities which characterise our times are highlighted. These
inequalities have a direct impact on the rights we not only want
to recognize but also need to make real, particularly for women
and children.
Many times
it is observed that men make wars, it is men who fight wars - but
those that suffer the most from war and conflict situations are
women and children.
Peace is not
just the absence of war but it is fundamentally linked to achieving
development and pushing back the frontiers of poverty. Our experience
is just that in Africa.
The most serious
effects of conflict and war does not lie in the imminent danger
and insecurity it brings but more so in the long term effects of
not building people centred societies in which poverty and under
development can be defeated for good.
In the context
of continuing wars and conflict such as the Congo, Burundi and the
most recent situation in Cote d'Ivore, the famine conditions (and
growing levels of poverty and under development) in southern Africa
- the effects of these are most widely felt by women and children.
We are not yet able to understand the full extent of the depth of
trauma caused by these realities on the lives of our children. That
is not too mention that war and conflict also leaves physical scars
on these young victims. The numbers of our young people that grows
up with disabilities due to land mines cannot be argued away.
Therefore it
sometimes could sound like a moot point that the majority of African
states are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child - a convention which says in Article 24 that children have
the right to good health.
At the Beijing
Conference in 1995, African Women ensured that the girl-child is
on the Global Agenda. As we approach the end of the current decade
of women it is critical that we re-assess the situation of the girl-child,
is she indeed less vulnerable; what is the extent to which ALL children,
but specifically the girl-child has the right to the best possible
health?
In responding
to these questions we need to be honest and respond in a manner
that shows we indeed mean ALL children, no matter where they live
- in urban and rural areas, conflict areas, with disability or without
disability. ALL children
Therefore,
in my view, the only way to ensure that children, and African children
in particular enjoy their rights, especially the right to healthy
minds, bodies and souls hinges on our ability to make peace and
foster a culture of peace - to find long term political solutions
to the war and conflict that lead to poverty and underdevelopment.
Civil society
will not be able to address these issues for as long as these situations
prevail. Together as governments and civil society structures we
have to accept the challenge.
Rolling back
these frontiers need to acknowledge the key role women have to play
in all aspects of life, including their participation in key decision
making positions.
At the recent
Inaugural meeting of the African Union we celebrated the decision
that women should occupy 50% of all positions in the AU. There has
been a flurry of activity as women's rights groups lobby governments
to ensure that women are represented in the AU Commission. We expect
that we will be lobbied when matters such as the management mechanisms
and their representivity are considered.
Similarly the
New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) cannot succeed
in ensuring the rights of women and children if we do not continue
to look for mechanisms through which women and children can speak
for themselves, assert themselves in the important developments
to put our continent on a path to a more stable and prosperous future
- free of war and conflict.
In South Africa
we are keenly aware of our responsibility and it seems that we are
in agreement - the vision and long term objectives of NEPAD and
the decisions of the AU are correct and accepted. Not least because
of the tireless work of our President as the current Chair of the
AU and the Non-Aligned Movement.
As always the
devil is in the detail. Working out the details is where our main
challenges arise, we need to find concrete actions and mechanisms
which would help to ensure that women and children live in peace,
have healthy bodies, and equal opportunity to create a better life
for all.
We see our
whole African continent as a shared asset, as a place of revival
and innovation and resolution. We see a century unfolding that will,
we insist without apology, become the African century; and we see
the clear signs of a glimmering African renaissance, in art, letters,
music, culture and innovation. We see the tears, too; we see the
ravages of HIV/Aids; we see, still in evidence, some of the past
disabilities of women which have taken time to end; we see the searing
effects of crime and abuse of women and children and the inherent
threat of this to family life; we see a legacy of huge pools of
poverty. We need concretely to press on to change our Continent
for the better.
We share all
this with you, as our sisters in the cause of Africa. We, the nations
of Africa, have devised a scheme for social and economic development
and poverty alleviation, the New Partnership for Africa's Development,
which promises to bring stability and peaceful order to this continent
that boasts such riches, human and material.
Your activities
carries with it many challenges. Enlightenment, communication and
attitude lie at the root of changing things for the better.
Let's agree
there will be no human or health progress in Africa without a climate
of underlying peace and stability. It is for this reason that the
African Union and NEPAD is so important and is making such strenuous
efforts to bring about peace and keep the peace, and to keep initiatives
for conflict resolution suitably high on the agenda. As long as
there is conflict women and children suffer the most not only in
terms of the violations of their rights but in their everyday practical
existence. They are the ones who bear the brunt of the brutality
of war and insurrection. Whole villages have been wiped out, people
have been maimed by landmines on a huge scale, whole communities
have been abducted in conflict situations, as we know too well.
We should all
be in the vanguard of the movement to find peaceful solutions to
African conflict. South Africa troops for peace are stationed in
a number of countries in this cause. In doing all this, we should
seek to achieve a people-centred, tolerant society with emphasis
on security and development.
We feel that
it is a right and not a privilege to grow up with a sound mind in
a healthy body - what the Latins called mens sana in corpore
sano. This is critical to African progress, and certainly realizable
among the young people growing up in the steadily increasing number
of African democracies, many of which now have sound economic growth
rates and realistic programmes to deal with the challenges they
face.
This soundness
of development, in human and economic terms, is very much tied up
with the long-term success of NEPAD and the AU, as I have indicated
previously.
I urge you
not to only to find out more about NEPAD and the AU but critically
to assist with practical and concrete solutions so as to ensure
that our struggle to make women and children's rights real, does
not end with civil and political declarations but indeed that it
echoes in the social and economical spheres of all their lives.
Contact:
Louis du Plooy (012) 300 5332, 082 575 3985
Issued by
The Presidency
4 February 2003
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