Structural Disquiet Amidst Public Outcry Over Women Abuse

The public space is filled with outcries about the alleged gang rape, physical abuse and death of a teenage girl in Addis Abeba. Saddening as the case is, the tragic incident calls for a serious reflections on the underlaying social and economic currents that emboldens abusers to perpetuate their acts from defacing with acid to the murder of a 16-year old student.

Indeed, there are laws written and institutions created to ascertain the rights of women in Ethiopia. Sadly though, the problems they face is deeply structural in their nature which disadvantage them from the very beginning. It starts from how many families treat their boys and girls differently.

The structural issues boil down to the low economic status that women continue to suffer in society. No effective physical and psychological security could be achieved by Ethiopian women until they are given a better economic status.

Hence, it ought to be there that the ruling Revolutionary Democrats focus the radar of the very bureaucracy they oversee. It is now time to give Ethiopian women real-time, practical and measurable access to economic resources and services that enable them to live their dreams.

It is only rarely that the ruling Revolutionary Democrats get swayed by popular perception in their response to policy gaps. One could mention few occasions that this has happened in their 23 years of power. Such has been the case with their urban development, micro and small enterprise (MSE) and information policies.

Even when they follow popular perception, though, they rather prefer to make their own unique arguments in a way that fits their democratic developmental red book. One such case has been their effort in the late 1990s and early 2000s to make long overdue amendments to family law.

Cognisant of the overwhelming uproar from women right activists, the ruling EPRDFites were open to consider a thoughtful revision. But their focus has mainly been on structural issues, including resource utilisation and management. As long as giving women equal rights is concerned, they were certain that it was all due to the resource matrix. Supporting their thesis were multiple researches conducted by various institutions, including the popular women’s rights advocacy group, the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), which showed that a slight change in the resource matrix of households could bring huge changes to the economic empowerment of women.

Of course, the track record of the Revolutionary Democrats in legislating for equal rights of women and men was smooth even before that. Their acceptance of the Universal Human Rights Declaration as the law of the land, through constitutional provision, was enough evidence to their commitment for equal rights.

Thus, their push for a structural review of the old family law was just an extension of their long overdue commitment. And the result was an amendment that provided women with better leverage on the economic resources of their households. Access, ownership, management and transfer of key economic resources of families, including land, were duly reviewed. The resulting outcome, therefore, was a family law that put women in a new limelight.

As committed to changing the gender bias in the system as the ruling EPRDFites might have been, though, their legislative efforts are taking a long time to become reality. Even after 20 years of legislating on the issues, if one is to employ the constitutional clock, the Ethiopian economy continues to witness considerable gender-based inequalities. In a host of areas, including labour force participation, wage equality for similar work, earned income, employment and professional mobility, women still live far lower than male counterparts.

The nation’s ranking in the Global Gender Gap Index, an assessment of gender inequality published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF) exemplifies this. According to the 2014 ranking, Ethiopia is placed 127th out of 142 countries with a score of 0.614 out of one. The nation’s ranking is worst in educational attainment and economic participation, wherein it is placed at 139th and 103rd place, respectively. In a literal sense, this ranking focuses on two areas are where gender disparity is very high.

Accounting for the fast economic growth of the past 11 years, reported as an average annual growth of 10.1pc, the disparity in economic aspects would mean more than it seems at face value. A lower economic position entails a lower political, social, technological, legal and institutional leverage to influence decisions. It also means lower access to key means of production, or the inability to have an equivalent say on their use.

Not only would this translate into inferior physical and psychological security, but it also deprives the whole economy of essential human capital. Certainly, an economy that employs only half of its human capital cannot be effective in sustaining its growth. It will only be a matter of time before it faces a capital formulation trap.

For a ruling elite that associates high value with economic growth and developmental results, such a scenario ought to be avoided. If anything, the necessary prices ought to be paid to avoid an economic slump.

This new era, though, is not about legislative talks. It is about walking the walk as well as talking the talk. After all, legislations only would not be able to change the long overdue social constructs that continue to hinder women’s ability to achieve their full potential. It, instead, is essential to destruct obsolete attitudes and create new gender-neutral ones.

In countries such as Ethiopia, where the state continues to command a significant part of the economy and plays a central role in almost every aspect of individual life, a change in attitude has to start from governmental structures. Progressive bureaucracies are essential to bringing a change in social constructs, for they are focal points of access to economic resources and services.

As it stands, the bureaucracy is no better, if not worse, than the public in treating women unequally. Women’s businesses, for instance, face serious challenges in accessing land, technology, credit and capacity development training. The gender offices established under the varying tiers of the bureaucracy serve nothing more than to organise workshops.

Even if gender mainstreaming is considered as one key evaluative criteria within the policy circle, there is no practical instrument put in place to check whether it is rightly done or not. Be it in policymaking, program design or project planning, there is little practical attention paid to aspects that benefit women.

It all needs to start from political commitment. So much as the era of legislative efforts have been effectively passed, although legislation is an evolving process, it is now time to give equivalent attention to putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak. Be it in program and project design or service provision, the whole public service process ought to be reoriented in a way that could help address the structural economic inequalities between men and women. Bringing women up to their deserved economic place ought to be the focus of the bureaucracy.

For the ruling EPRDFites, there is enough to learn from their experience, be it from their guerrilla years or their 23 years of legislating on gender issues. What bears fruit is focussing on structural issues.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.