Voices of African Women

Wednesday 5^th November 2008
House of Commons, London

UK WILPF did an amazing job organising this event to get the voices of African women in conflict heard in parliament. Big applause having succeeded in booking every seat in the room - some even had to stand, which in itself describes how popular the event was.

Ten grassroots African women campaigner, who travelled from Malawi, Sudan, Namibia, Zimbabwe, DR of Congo and Nigeria highlighted their human struggle in surviving under conflict conditions, injustice and revolt. This was a good seminar in highlighting how the atrocities in Africa is impacting on civilians and how these situations came about. There was a lot of focus on businesses, government on all levels and African people in and out of the continent.

I learnt many things from this seminar, much of it emotional and moving in nature. African women made great emphasis on eradicating arms trade, which fuels war and escalate violence and how large corporations seem to have more power and authority with the governing of resources than their own government. One of the speakers made it quite clear how oil companies like Shell, Cheron, Texaco seem to have overshadowed the government, while the government take a back seat or focus energy on ethical cleansing like that of Robert Mugabe. This understanding has made me even more determined to look into Corporate Social Responsibility and the chaos that MNE seem to cause in host countries where they set their business up in.

Here are some questions they were asking that grabbed my attention:
*What can the Commonwealth and EU do with MNEs who have influence in Africa?
> Ask for certification of resources going out of the country and have regulations/ monitoring schemes so that resources that are exported can be traced to its final destination
> African government should have tighter control over MNE trading with rebels and direct some benefits toward host countries rather than home countries
*Who is the International Community and what are they REALLY doing?
According to the women, Africa has a very vague idea on who or what the international community is, agreeing that entity like the UN are not doing enough to prevent war from breaking out, just as we had witnessed in recent news (a war broke out not far from UN offices in the Congo). They also asked who these wars are benefiting because it isn't the people. War equals to high death toll, murder, genocide, rape, and sexual violence, of course among other things. Women and children suffer the most as victims of gross human rights. Women are continually raped, killed, abused, tortured and children used as soldiers or a tool for diplomacy (in other words, killed).
So - are men really benefiting from these war?

The issue in Africa has become complex due to human greed, insolent behaviour and desire for wealth. Governments across the globe need to work together to cease arms trade so that no more victims are innocently killed deliberately or in cross-fire. People need to be re-educated, government need tougher regulations and punishment for breaking the law (please, no more talk of death, yeah!), and need better communication with MNEs who are using their resources.

It is a huge topic and not something that can be solved or learned overnight. But considering I have no knowledge of African politics, this was a good insight to what has been going on - 10 different accounts of what is happening in each of their country, which I believe is what made this seminar a success. Women felt empowered and men wanted to join us in wanting to spread the word about their experiences.

Well done Marie-Claire Faray for your excellent facilitating and translating. It was admirable, continue all your good work sister. We're all behind you!!!!