UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 136
Week of: Sunday, 21st January, 2007
Recording Date: Thursday, 25th January, 2007
Topical Issue(s):

" Women in Sierra Leone are still suffering the effects of the devastating ten year conflict in their country. Sesan Sesay who deals with gender issues in the Eastern Province of the country says efforts are being made to empower Sierra Leonean women to take their rightful place in society.

" Africa is leading the battle to fight measles which has long killed, sickened and disabled African children. UN agencies involved in a campaign against the disease say that while the number of people dying from the disease worldwide has dropped by 60 per cent, in Africa it went down by 75 per cent.

" Nigerian women continue to leave their country by choice or coercion to satisfy the markets for prostitution in Europe. According to Silke Albert, a UN expert whose work involves fighting trafficking in women, when the women arrive in Europe, they become sex slaves.

RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

Hello and welcome to UN and Africa, I'm Derrick Mbatha.

In today's programme, women in Sierra Leone continue to suffer the effects of the ten year conflict in their country.
CLIP 1: SUSAN SESAY

"Before the war, during the war and even after the war, the situation of women has not improved. Women suffered a lot in the war. They were abused and misused. They are now heading households. They are catering for their children. They are paying school fees. They have assumed the part that previously was ascribed to men."

PRESENTER:

That was Susan Sesay who deals with gender issues in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. You will hear more from her in a moment. Also in this programme, the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan says there's good news from Africa in the fight against measles.
CLIP 2: MARGARET CHAN

"The measles deaths there, in Africa, declined by a very impressive 75 per cent. So the good news is Africa is leading the way."

You will hear more from Dr. Chan and other participants in the campaign against measles. And later, we look at the problem of trafficking Nigerian women to satisfy the sex market of Europe.
So, stay tuned to UN and Africa.

*** SIG TUNE *** (Bring up briefly, dip and hold under until first sentence.)

PRESENTER:

It's that time of the year again when government representatives come to New York to share with each other what they are doing in their countries to improve the lives of women. They do so in front of a committee known as the CEDAW, made up of twenty-three international experts on women's issues. Those countries that have ratified the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, also referred to as CEDAW, must tell the Committee some of the things they have done to make sure women are treated fairly. This week I caught up with one of the participants, Susan Sesay who deals with gender issues in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone, a country that is recovering from a brutal ten year conflict. She told me that her role in this session is to observe how other countries present their reports to the Committee in preparation for future presentation of the report of Sierra Leone.
SESAY: European countries are now doing their presentations and I have found out that most of the issues are almost the same: stereotyping, prostitution, trafficking that form part of Articles V and VI, is stealing the show in all these presentations, meaning that trafficking is on the agenda, meaning that Article VI in CEDAW is so crucial to women's advancement.

MBATHA: Article VI deals with what?

SESAY: Trafficking and the exploitation of women in terms of prostitution.

MBATHA: What is the situation of women in Sierra Leone? I know that your country is recovering from a devastating and vicious war.

SESAY: To sum it, they are in a powerless situation. Before the war, during the war and even after the war, the situation of women has not improve, as far as I am concerned. There are a lot of things to this, you know, because just coming from war, women are fighting for survival. Women suffered a lot in the war. They were abused and misused. They are now heading households. They are catering for their children. They are paying school fees. They have assumed the part that previously was ascribed to men. Although now we say that women also are partners in development, but what they are doing today used to be done by men. The burden has now increased on the women. They are finding it so difficult to survive.

MBATHA: Why is it so?

SESAY: Because of the war, as I said earlier on, most men were killed. Husbands were killed. Sons were killed, those that used to cater for them. So now women are doing a lot to survive.

MBATHA: Sierra Leone is at peace now. What is being done to help Sierra Leonean women to tackle these challenges that they are facing?

SESAY: Recently we partnered, the Ministry partnered with CCR in South Africa and we are at the moment conducting a lot of gender and peace building training for women because women have to be empowered. If women are to take their rightful position in society, they have to be empowered. They have to know their rights. They have to know their responsibilities in society in order to move forward. So these trainings are going to be continued by CCR and the Ministry. And the Peacebuilding Commission also.

MBATHA: If I may ask, what is CCR?

SESAY: CCR is Centre for Conflict Resolution based in South Africa, Cape Town.

MBATHA: Is the UN doing anything to help women in Sierra Leone to deal with some of the challenges they are facing?

SESAY: Of course. We have UNIFEM that helped us in a way to put our report in place. You have other UN agencies that are doing quite a lot for women. And even the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. We are doing everything possible in order to let the women know what is their portion in the Peacebuilding Commission, their roles and how these roles will be enhanced.

MBATHA: And, by way of concluding, give me your prognosis of the future of women in Sierra Leone. Do you see progress or is a gloomy future?

SESAY: Progress indeed. It is not going to be gloomy. With the report now completed, action points have been derived from this report and massive public sensitization is going to be mounted to enable women to know what is in place for them. Elections are close in the corner there. We hope that women this time will rise above the many challenges and Article VII in CEDAW talks about women's participation and we are doing everything to let them know that they have the right to vote and to be voted for.

PRESENTER:

That was Susan Sesay, Regional Gender Desk Officer in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone.
STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME
PRESENTER:
Measles has long killed, sickened, and disabled millions of African children. But now, thanks to a partnership of United Nations agencies, private foundations and companies, Africa is winning the fight against the disease. And Africa seems set to make measles a thing of the past very soon. UN Radio's Ransford Cline-Thomas reports.
NARRATOR:
The number of children who have died of measles since 1999 has dropped by sixty per cent worldwide. This has exceeded the goal set by the United Nations to cut by half the number of children who die from the disease by 2015. The Measles Initiative, as the campaign against the disease is known, has been spearheaded by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the United Nations Foundation, the American Red Cross and the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The initiative has also had financial support from governments, private foundations and companies. The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan says the immunization campaign around the world has saved the lives of more than two million children.
CUT 1: MARGARET CHAN
And the news is actually even better for Africa, the region with the highest measles burden. The measles deaths there, in Africa, declined by a very impressive 75 per cent. So the good news is Africa is leading the way.

NARRATOR:
According to Dr. Chan, the results of this success are visible all over Africa.
CUT 2: MARGARET CHAN
Instead of seeing numerous fresh graves for young children, this is something of the past. We do not see this anymore. Another important sign is many measles wards have become empty in hospitals in Africa.

NARRATOR:

Meanwhile, the American Red Cross says it's been using social mobilization techniques to promote the campaign against measles. Bonnie McElveen Hunter explains.
CUT 3: BONNIE MCELVEEN-HUNTER
It's really neighbour helping neighbour. And those neighbours are in many cases in the most remote parts of the world. And we also refer to it sometimes as that last mile. It is somebody getting vaccine, someone bringing it to a place. It requires those boots on the ground. In most cases they are women, those mothers clubs who really deeply care and have been educated about how to bring these children together.

NARRATOR:

The campaign against measles, according to the head of UNICEF, Ann Veneman, has also contributed to tackling other diseases facing children in Africa.
CUT 4: ANN VENEMAN
In addition, children who have been given the measles immunization often are also getting a bed net to protect them against malaria, are getting Vitamin A supplementation and other kinds of immunization. So the integrated approaches, I think, are also building on the measles initiative to help produce more results and sustainable results.

NARRATOR:

Ann Veneman points out that despite the success of the campaign against measles, the overall challenge of saving children dying from preventable diseases is still there. She says people must build on the momentum created by the partnership to fight measles.
CUT 5: ANN VENEMAN
There are about ten million children who die of largely preventable causes every year. Those causes are primarily disease and malnutrition. Of those ten million deaths, five million of them, one half of them occur in Africa. And this is despite the fact that Africa only has eleven per cent of the world's population.

NARRATOR:
The United Nations agencies and their partners have now set themselves a new goal - to reduce the number of people who die from measles by ninety per cent over the next three years. Reporting for UN and Africa, I am Ransford Cline-Thomas.

PRESENTER:
As you heard earlier, trafficking in women and prostitution are some of the major issues women around the world are concerned about. They are problems facing women in Europe and Africa alike. For example, on the African continent, Nigerian women continue to leave their country by choice or coercion to satisfy the markets for prostitution in Europe. Louise Potterton spoke with Silke Albert an Anti-Trafficking expert at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, about how some women are leaving Nigeria to become prostitutes in Europe.
SILKE: The women don't know they will have to pay back an amount of let's say starting from 40,000 Euro which is a huge amount to pay back through prostitution. And that means you will even have to accept any kind of sex without condoms. You work all day and you have to serve a certain amount of clients just to pay back the debt.

POTTERTON: And how do the traffickers manage to convince these women to leave the country?

SILKE: People do want to leave the country. Prostitutes are among a vulnerable group because traffickers know they do prostitute already. So you just tell them they have the chance to make double or three times or 10 times whatever the income in Europe. And there's always an element of deception, especially in the case of Nigerian women, voodoo practice, which they call "chu-chu." Women are taken to a shrine and they have to deliver an oath towards the traffickers that they are loyal, they don't report, that they stick to that 'madame'. In the Nigerian case that pact is sealed with maybe pubic hair and so on, that they pack in sachets that is like very, very strong means of linking the women.

POTTERTON: What about the actual journey to Europe? If some of these women are forced to travel over land, this must be a terrible journey even before the real nightmare has started.

SILKE: Yes, yes. I mean there are also several ways again but of course going through for example the north of Nigeria and then through the Saharan area, and through Algeria. Several people they die in the course of the trip. Traffickers seem to be like extremely brutal also, like leaving those behind who are a bit troublesome. I've heard of a story where they shot a pregnant woman in the stomach. Then you have the other ways of course that people simply use fake documents and travel like on behalf of someone else with a residence permit in Europe and travel with that visa.

LOUISE: Nigeria has signed and ratified the UN's Anti-Trafficking Protocol. Is this being implemented?

SILKE: Yes. In the Nigerian context, first of all the main requirement the Trafficking Protocol asks for is to criminalize trafficking. And that is done in Nigeria. Nigerian legislation even has a broad definition of trafficking so it's not just focusing on women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation, but it considers that also men could be victims, boys could be victims of trafficking. And that there are other purposes like forced labour. Nigeria has also established a specialized agency which is very, very good and people have very much experience with investigating and prosecuting trafficking, which is one of the aims also of the trafficking protocol.

STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME
PRESENTER:

That was Silke Albert an Anti-Trafficking expert at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
SIG TUNE ((Bring up briefly, dip and hold under)

PRESENTER:
And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our Production Assistant was Nyi Teza and our sound engineer was Zach Pruitt. And from me Derrick Mbatha, please join us for another edition of UN and Africa next week. Until then, bye bye.

*** CLOSING MUSIC ***