Date: 04/02/2003
Source: The Presidency
Title: E Pahad: African Women's Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights Conference
OPENING REMARKS BY DR ESSOP PAHAD, MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY, TO THE AFRICAN WOMEN'S SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS CONFERENCE, Glenburn Lodge, Kromdraai Road, Swartkops, Muldersdrift, 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 also 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.
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 recognise 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 to mention that war and conflict also leaves physical scars on these young victims. The numbers of our young people that grow 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 that 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, have 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 detail 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 carry 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 are so important and are 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, landmines on a huge scale have maimed people, and 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 African 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 realisable 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 NEAPD 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.
Issued by The Presidency
4 February 2003
Source: The Presidency
Title: E Pahad: African Women's Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights Conference
OPENING REMARKS BY DR ESSOP PAHAD, MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY, TO THE AFRICAN WOMEN'S SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS CONFERENCE, Glenburn Lodge, Kromdraai Road, Swartkops, Muldersdrift, 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 also 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.
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 recognise 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 to mention that war and conflict also leaves physical scars on these young victims. The numbers of our young people that grow 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 that 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, have 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 detail 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 carry 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 are so important and are 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, landmines on a huge scale have maimed people, and 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 African 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 realisable 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 NEAPD 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.
Issued by The Presidency
4 February 2003
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