Radio Miraya
2704: Know Your Rights: Access to Basic Needs to All Without Discrimination
Hello and welcome to this particular program which is your rights program, right here on Radio Miraya the Voice of Peace. It's a quarter past 9am and today we want to look at the rights of women and the topic is promotion and protection of rights of women on elections in South Sudan. As we all know there is hope for elections to take place in December this year and so this as many look forward to this. We want to understand if indeed women and their rights are actually being promoted and protected as we gear towards elections in South Sudan and so our guests in the studio we have the Executive Director Center for Inclusion, Governance and Peace and Justice. This is Jacqueline Naseer. Good morning Jacqueline and welcome to Radio Miraya. Good morning Kideh and good morning Miraya listeners. Yes thank you very much for coming Jacqueline and we also have Honorable Nuna Rhoda and Defu, member of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly. You're very welcome Honorable Nuna. Thank you. Yes thank you both for coming during this particular show as we speak on the rights of women but first just to know a little bit more about you and your work starting with you Jacqueline. Why have you delved into working in governance and peace and justice issues? What exactly do you do and why what inspired you to work in that specific area? Thank you very much Lulu. What inspired me to be working on justice and peace is the long history of myself when I was growing as a young person. I think I'm one of the many children who grow up during the conflict and we have seen the horrors that conflict bring in the issues around protection of women and girls and as a young girl having experienced the bitterness of the conflict and also the need for justice and protection of all the people but particularly women and girls. This has given me the passion to be working on issues of peace and justice and also peace and justice they go concurrently so you can't have peace without justice and you cannot sustain that peace when impunity is not ended so this has made me really to be passionate working on these issues. All right thank you Jacqueline for sharing that about your motivation to work in this specific area. Honorable Nuna what about you? How did you become a member of parliament? What inspired you to actually join the Legacy Native Assembly? Thank you very much. So what inspired me is as a young person I decided to go to be a waste of waste less of my community. I believe it is good letting me be there to represent them and to talk about the challenges that they face so I also feel motivated to see the other remains in political positions so it inspire me also to join our politics and to be in parliament. Okay what constituents did you represent? I represent in Zara County. How long have you been a member of the National Legacy Native Assembly? I joined in 2020. Okay well thank you for sharing that and just before we delve into the topic the questions that I have prepared let me just ask you in your different work experiences you work in an inclusive space we have men and women do you feel that these needs this need for promotion and protection of the rights of women do you feel like there is a need or it's actually okay from your experience and please speak openly starting with you Honorable Nona. Thank you very much. There is a great need to protect women in politics to protect them and even to promote them because the few women who are in politics now they face a lot of challenges. They face a lot of challenges from men and also as a woman they are overlooking at a women but special so it needs protection and it needs promotion and it needs awareness. Protection promotion and awareness and Jacqueline what can you add to this? I would say that women have progressively advanced the women's rights and gender equality and we have made some gains in terms of some men understanding also women's rights and being also behind women to promote for their rights but still we have a lot that needs to be done as Honorable Nona said. Most often when we bring up the debate of gender equality or promoting women in public and political spaces it ends up a debate and this debate is often like why are women demanding for a lot and why women want even more when we have given them the 35 percent will be given when they have been given so it is not even fulfilled and some of them may think oh women are not there that's why even we cannot fulfill the 35 percent so it becomes a long debate but I will say that there is a lot to be done and as we are also approaching the transition to democracy these challenges are going to be increasing and that means that women and men have to work together to close the gender gap and this means that we have to deliberately create awareness among even men and policymakers but we also have to take drastic measures to ensure that these laws that draft data are implemented. Okay thank you for stating that and you just you mentioned the 35 percent coming from that the 35 percent affirmative action and does this does the electoral body and here we are talking about neck in place do they have mechanisms to ensure the effective participation of women and how how will this the way the electoral body has been informed how will it affect the participation of women. I think the electoral act talks about the affirmative action and the 35 percent representation of women. Specifically it's saying the in the formation of this act and in the process towards election there will be a gender representation and the affirmative action is streamlined in this act. The challenge here is that maybe first we need to look at the institution itself yes the national electoral commission there are nine commissioners and in these nine commissioners we only have two women and that does not reflect the 35 percent affirmative action. The top decision making also the chair and probably the deputy and the secretary general it's not reflective of gender and I think this required a national electoral commission to come with I could say a policy towards engender the electoral process and mainstreaming gender in its decision in the process and also during elections and that means that probably some of the positions and committees and these committees include the high committees which will be formed at the state level and also even the polling officers that will be appointed they have to really take seriously the issue of gender representation in this process. Women voters and women are also going to be candidates and the electoral act is clear in terms of the women's representation is saying there will be a women's party list women will come from the political parties and later on we will need to look at the political parties how gender sensitive are they in terms of ensuring that these women's party list is respected by the parties. Lulu if we go back to the R-axis power sharing ratio we'll find that the 35 percent affirmative action for women is coming from these political parties who are signatories to the peace agreement. And largely these parties they have not even met in all structures the 35 percent. Probably few in parliament have met the national parliament only have made the 35 percent but largely women's representation is around 31 percent in the national parliament and in the state parliament it's around 26 at average. So that means that when we are going to be going for elections with the challenges that women have in the community stemming from cultural biases structural discriminations and lack of awareness on these women's rights issues and then we are likely to face a challenge when women would be participating in this process. All right no no no no no sorry Honorable Nuna why do you think that the laws are in place but they are not being effectively implemented in regards to the 35 percent? Yes so we pass the law and the law need to be implemented by the citizen. But the law is not being implemented implemented has it has been passed from a parliament. So this one it need an action for it because if the law is passed let it be implemented. Has my colleagues said Jacqueline in parliament it has the 35 percent of women is complete there because even from the hierarchy the speaker is a woman and the herself she used she makes sure that all the names that are coming from different parties let it be a gender balance let women be there. So in parliament we pass the law and we make sure that we implemented what we pass. So what in other institutions now because then for parliament there's at least representation but what about the other institutions like for example in neck there's a part there's an electoral act that has the laws in place that actually the laws are there to protect and promote women participation but then two two female representation why do you think it's not happening who who is not doing their part. The men are not comply yes they're not comply because it's supposed to be balanced should not be only two women there should be at least four or five women so that we could to say it as balance that's why we are saying women are going a lot there's a lot of challenges that women go through this one is the first challenge because if they say that the five percent and the men are not complying with it so it means they are not they are not who are represented women are not well represented yet there is challenge. Okay thank you Nuna and what should be done Jacqueline you're out there with the organization calling for inclusive governance and this should definitely embrace the 35 percent now especially with the electoral policies and the electoral bodies what can be done to ensure that the 35 percent representation is adhered to. I think we have we should borrow so from other context on how they are able to enforce the affirmative action and I think one important thing is the political will to ensure that actions by decision makers is gender sensitive and I think what I could say is that the final appointing authorities have the key to women's emancipation in this country and the deliberate action to ensure that they are able to enforce their quota is very important and I think one example Nuna gave is in the parliament where the speaker herself ensures that she makes a checklist of their candidates that will be brought and to ensure that women are also in that list. So this is a good example of a political will that our male counterparts in decision-making institutions should be able to enforce. The other one is in terms of the legal framework you know when the law is clear on how women can be represented and then it becomes easier. Like we also have our constitution that is talking about women's equal rights to public life and all this but our constitution is also contradictory by saying we have to adopt our customs and traditions as sources of law and you know our tradition is mostly geared towards the patriarchal society where men make decisions even including in the society and this has affected the participation of women because we have women who have this intelligence you are married to another community and that in that sense you belong to that community you can no longer stand in the community where you are born or sometimes say you are born in the community but they will prefer their sons to go and represent them and these are cultural biasness and we have them in our constitution. The third one is that we don't have an enforcement mechanism so if a party or decisions of the executive I could say for this case in terms of appointing or the political parties in terms of the nomination missed out the gender quota there are no penalties to that in other contexts we have seen that they have penalties so maybe if you have not respected the the quota they will have a language to eat that says maybe your party will not be registered or you will not be able to benefit from the funding that the electoral commission will give or there will be judicial processes that will penalize you for not respecting the quota so oversight is very important and also having enforcement mechanism for this affirmative action is important. All right and so you play different roles in your different institutions we have run in here in Parliament and you in an organization that promotes inclusive governance so let's start with you Nuna how are you in your work how are you ensuring promotion and protection of women's rights what are you doing specifically yes so we have a committees there virus committee for all for MPs the women right and there are all types of committees in Parliament so we protect women's right is like example is the current formation of committees they are positioned for women but men are fighting to grab to take them yes but we will stand as women and we say this is for women it cannot be taken by by a man so here we protect the the position and the woman will take that position as I told you also from the beginning that the positions in Parliament are being controlled also the speaker should know women are equally here women are secured their position so if they bring all the list of a man she will have a question right and return the list even back that there is no gender women are not enough and in this case the speaker is a woman yes now how what is what roles are you playing to ensure that the men are also on board with the 35 affirmative action you earlier talked about need for awareness how is that being how is that happening in Parliament we go for training we go for training and we give awareness there are some organizations we are giving a invitation to to MPs and they go for training on how to protect the women's seat and also we go also together with the men in Parliament for the training and they listen some time they only call women and some time we go both and together for training how to protect women women position and even how men can support women to be in a high decision or decision making in government offices all right thank you we've been speaking about the 35 percent affirmative action and now it's very key to ensure the protection of women's rights as well as protection of women participation in elections in political offices and with me in the studio is Jacqueline a C.Y. executive director center for inclusion governance piece and justice and we also have Honorable Nuna Rodan Defu member of the transitional legislative assembly representing Zara County after the break we will have more we'll be speaking we'll try to look at is the rest of the country aware of their rights in terms of participation in political groups participation in arms of the government but also do they know their rights to the electoral processes and so we'll be looking at that and also seeing how this right can be protected and promoted in terms of participation in the election stated [Music] [Music] What a clean and safe environment protect our forest protect our water sources protect our air from pollution take care of our motherland society so our motherland can take care of us all with the children of South Sudan want to protect it South Sudan [Music] Broadcasting from the heart of the nation's capital this is Radio Mariah 101 and 101.5 FM Radio Mariah the voice of peace [Music] Welcome back it is now 20 minutes to the top of the hour which is 10 AM right now this is your rights program my name is Lui Sike then and as I take you through the show today the talk the talking point or rather the topic for the day is promotion and protection of rights of women on elections in South Sudan I have guests executive director center for inclusion governance peace and justice Jacqueline Nasewa and Honorable Nuna Rhoda who is a member of the transition national legislative assembly representing Zara and so we talked about the need to ensure the implementation of the 35% in government positions this is one of the ways to promote and protect rights of women on elections and that means that this 35% affirmative action should also be enforced in the different electoral bodies that have been put in place to ensure elections happens effectively in the country as directed by the revitalized peace agreement and now something we understood as Jacqueline and Honorable Nuna spoke is that there's a great need to protect promote and create awareness on women participation and we understood that the national elections commission out of nine executive positions we have only two women and so this does not this look amount to the 35% quota that is actually set aside for women and then Jacqueline was able to say that the electoral act actually has laws in place that that promote and is there to you know to follow in terms of women participation we understood that parliament is doing a great job trying to ensure that 35 women actually make up the 35% and one of the ways is her the speaker being in an executive position and a woman she ensures that this happens when the list is sent to her she looks at the balance and how our women are being represented and where they are positions for women she ensures that a woman takes up that position and Honorable Nuna actually mentioned that there are men who are fighting for those positions which is very very interesting but let's try and understand a little bit about the grassroots levels the women out of these positions do they know their rights do they know that they too can be part of a political party do they know that they can contest for a position do they know that they have a right to vote for whoever they feel can be able to effectively serve in the positions that are available you know during elections well you can send in a text message or later on I'll be opening the lines for you to ask any questions to our guests the numbers are 0 9 1 2 1 7 7 1 4 1 you can send in your message with your question or comment or you can call in later on 0 9 2 9 6 8 6 2 9 7 or 0 9 1 2 0 6 2 9 5 0 or 0 9 1 2 0 6 2 0 7 9 so back to our guests Jacqueline and Honorable Nuna let's talk about the public the women who are not actively part of the different political parties at the different electro bodies in place the different government institutions can you briefly speak from your observation and engagement with these women are they aware of their rights to participate effectively during elections Jacqueline are they aware of their effective participation in elections I will say that not all women know that they have their right to participate in elections and this is where creating awareness around the electoral processes becomes very important and that means that we have to do grassroots dialogues of which the center for inclusive governance piece and justice is already doing and I think many other civil society colleagues are also doing we create awareness through campaigns like we have campaigns called they know your rights campaign and this know your rights campaign we do it with the support of our partners like the government of Canada and then we also have the when women rights campaign supported by the Netherlands so different activities that we do in terms of mobilizing women to know their rights and our approach is that women's rights are human rights but we cannot be able to reach to all the cross root level so we use platforms like Miraya we use other platforms like maybe the I radio and other private radio stations to create this awareness but I'll say that there's a lot that needs to be done at the cross root and if we are talking about elections what is election to the ordinary person in the village in the communities in the bombers what is their role in terms of participating in these elections I think most people at the grass root do not know that even they have their right to participate in this peace agreement mechanisms so they're thinking that this peace agreement is about political power sharing which I don't blame them for because this peace agreement is based on power sharing by politicians yes but when we are talking about elections it's about the people giving people the power to be able to elect their leaders and to hold them accountable and this is a challenge to us as civil society and also as religious leaders on how we can be able to create this awareness to the communities and to the grass root women so that they can be able to participate in elections and by the way women are more than half maybe of the population and it's our challenge that we need to have these women become more informed to make decisions during elections okay um Honor Wannuna one of the key ways I believe is to be an example right and here you are you are a member of parliament you are a woman you are doing your job how can other women in your position also be able to create not just awareness but also encourage these other women who are out there qualified women to be part and parcel of political processes in the country yes that is a major thing has my colleagues said that women are many so what exactly make women not participate in politics is fear fear is a barrier so what are they afraid of you know politics you know politics is not something easy it is a determination and currently if you don't do in party you will not be in a in a in a already to stand for for election or to be in as a politician so we have very many parties in South Sudan that women young women could determine and join so that they can be able to be in decision-making or to stand for the election so we are we are here to encourage them let them do in parties and I even when I visited my place I talked to them to young women even young men doing parties so that you can be able to exercise the talent that you have so my not doing party it cannot be easy so that's why we also need awareness to them at the grassroots to explain to them that they they should be doing parties so that they can be able to raise their voice and to be in decision-making when you talk about joining parties are these parties sensitized as well do the party leaders do they are they willing to actually bring in these women into their parties to in leadership positions that is a very nice question so in my in my party that way I came from the chance is for women and my leader is encouraging women young people so my party is really promoting women can I ask which party this is oh my god yes please go ahead that is SPLM IU okay yes and so with your experience there's a lot of encouragement for women to join the party and they are put in leadership positions yes all right thank you for stating that and explaining and encouraging women to join parties that is the way you can be part of politics in South Sudan it's the only way so make sure you join a party now calling if you have a question this is the time to do that or you can send a text message on 0 9 1 2 1 7 7 1 4 1 you can go ahead and call on 0 9 2 9 6 8 6 2 9 7 or 0 9 1 2 0 6 2 9 5 0 or 0 9 1 2 0 6 2 0 7 9 we're talking about promotion and protection of women's rights on elections in South Sudan as we gear up towards elections if you're a woman do you know that you have a right to participate both politically but also as a voter during the time of elections yes let's hear from our first caller Radio Miraya yes hello what's your name and where are you calling from your name again okay some well go ahead and ask your question okay thank you very much for the government in this video and I was sitting in the program that we initiated you know I'm very happy when I heard the woman and the politics you know those the women are the platform of the nation and what they are really doing the politics that they're being in the government of South Sudan is the real politics if you the politics that is set and we likely to protect them from the politics if you want it done want it done to join and together with them okay and want you to promote the percentage yeah the 35 percent okay what's your question wrong what is your question my question my question my question to them is a domain in the polity what is your role to to to talk with the other women which are not even joined the polity and also to aware them the goodness of the polity in the medical government okay thank you very much thank you that there is someone from lakes estate go ahead and call in right now there's room for two more colors and you can call on the line it's very open yes radio me right hello hello good morning yes could you please speak louder could you raise your voice zero sort i'm fine thank you what's your name yes i'm on what is your question how are the civil society suffering how are the citizens about they were present but no no both systems for treatment where if you go to all citizens you will get a little bit of another and then there will be quite a drug for you why in the settlement okay people are dying for familiar thank you thank you very much for your question we have room for one more caller you can call in and ask a question as we talk about promotion and protection of the rights of women on elections in south Sudan yes hello joining wow i have swelled akishina i know you're not looking at looking at you know yeah i mean i know you're not looking at the right area or what else is looking at you i yeah don't add for so true africa (speaking in foreign language) - Okay. (speaking in foreign language) Thank you very much, John there. So we have John, Simon, and then we had Samuel as well. And all of them, their questions are related to elections. I want us to start with Simon's question. We don't have much time left. We're about three minutes. And Simon is asking, how can we hold elections yet? The civil population is suffering. You have the issue of services and health. There are no good services around the country in terms of health. So how are we gearing, looking towards the election, yet this is ongoing. One of you just answered that in one minute. Yes. - Yeah, thank you very much. I'm very pleased with this question. And it is true that people are suffering. We should do first, organize our own. We should do first to make people to be well, as you can see the situation now in South Sudan, it's not friendly. In fact, I visit hospital. People are suffering. There is no treatment. There is nothing there. From a national to state level. - Yes, yes. - There is hospital are down. So even the school for government, they are down, but only the private school are the one working. So why is it that? - So with this situation, why should the country still go for election? - We are not sure. We are not sure of it, because the implementation of election, for election to take place even, is not completed. - Mm-hmm. - But they talk of election election, but it's not really 100%. - Okay, yes, Jacqueline, you have something to say. - Yeah, I think I would say that yes, service delivery is at minimum, or non-existing in some of the communities, and the civil population is suffering. Elections of an opportunity for the civil population to choose the leaders who can be answerable and responsive to their needs. - Okay. - The citizens can now know who is a good leader for them, who can deliver services to them, what are their priorities? It could be health, it could be education, it could be roads, it could be when they are all in employment issues. And at this time of elections, politicians will come with their manifestos. And that means that their manifestos should reflect on the needs and priorities of the city. - All the citizens. - Yeah, thank you, Jacqueline. And as we conclude now this discussion, I want to touch on John's question. He said women can be anything. Do you see women actually stepping up to stand in some of these positions? - Yes, we have women who are already in the parties, but also we have women who are not in the parties, but they can stand as independent candidates. And women are ready to stand. - What is generally lacking for the whole electoral process is the opening of the civic and political space so that women can be able to participate in a conducive environment for elections. - So this means even if you're not part of a party, you can stand as an independent candidate. - Yes, you can stand as an independent candidate. - And thank you very much. Now I'm just gonna give you 15 seconds each to share a final remark with the citizens, starting with you, honorable Nona, 15 seconds. - Yeah. - One word. - Thank you very much. So I'm greeting the lovely people outside there and telling them if there is election, let them be ready, let them prepare. It's better to get prepared than let it come to catch you before you get prepared. - Thank you very much, Jacqueline. - I think I will add that as we get towards elections, we need to be preparing for peaceful elections. - Okay, thank you so much for coming and this has brought us to the end of the show. Thank you for coming, ladies.