Women And Law In Southern Africa Research Trust

- ESAP and women

Africa, with its mix of statute, custom and religion is at the centre of the debate about law and its impact on gender relations. This is because of the centrality of the gender question and its impact on the cultural relativism debate within human rights. It is therefore important to examine critically the role of law, broadly constructed, in African societies. The book focuses on women's experiences in the family. This is because the lives of women continue to be lived out largely in the private domain, where the right to privacy is used to conceal unequal treatment of women which is justified by invoking 'custom' and 'tradition'. The book shows how law and its interpretation is used to disenfranchise women, resulting in their being deprived of land and other property which they may have helped to accumulate. It also considers issues of violence within the home, reproductive rights and examines the issue of female genital cutting. The role of women in development is explored as is their participation in politics and the NGO sector. A major theme of the book is a consideration of the linkages of constitutional and international human rights norms with local values. This is done using feminist tools of analysis. The book considers the provisions of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women which was adopted by the African Union in July 2003.

Beyond Inequalities is a series of publications which profile the status of women in Southern Africa, and the initiatives being made to mainstreamgender in development processes in the region. The series presents the situation of women and men in the Southern African Development Community(SADC) as a region, and in each member country; and reviews the roles and responsibilities, access to and control over resources, decision-making powers, needs and constraints of women vis-a-vis men. The series is forward looking, based on an assessment that inequalities are now generally acknowledged as an impediment to development and economic growth in most countries and regions of the world. The twelve country profiles document and analyse information along themes drawn from theCritical Areas of Concern identified in the Beijing Platform for Actionand derived from what the countries of the region consider to bepriorities. Each profile is in three parts: Situation Analysis, Policiesand Programmes, and the Way Forward, and each has references, bibliography, appendices, and illustrative tables, figures and boxes.