'Give African women a voice,' say activists

 

Rainatou Sow, Marie-Claire Faray and Betty Makoni are advocates for equal rights who through their organizations aim to empower and inspire all African women. In 2010 the African Union launched the African Women's Decade. The initiative promotes female empowerment and gender equality and put female rights at the heart of development in the billion-strong continent.

 Dubbed African Women's Decade (AWD 2010-2020), the ambitious scheme aims to create the conditions for the active participation of women in the socio-economic development of the continent.

Now, more than two years after the Nairobi launch, African Voices caught up with three diaspora-based, prominent African activists to discuss the current state of women's rights in the continent.

Rainatou Sow is the founder and executive director of "Make Every Woman Count," an organization that monitors female rights in every African country. The Guinean activist was named "Inspirational Woman of 2012" by the UK group "Women 4 Africa."

Marie-Claire Faray is an activist from the Democratic Republic of Congo who campaigns to end violence against women, especially in her home country. As a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, she is advocating for change and pushing for action during the AWD 2010-2010.

She noted that they really hope to bring a lot of women on board to first of all commit to changing at the individual level, local level, national level and international level. "We hope to bring women from all backgrounds -- not only the lawyers, the politicians, but also the grassroots women, particularly them, to come and hold their government to account.

Zimbabwe's victim turned survivor, Betty Makoni is fighting to rescue girls from sexual abuse. She was raped at the age of six and lost her mother at the age of nine. After surviving these traumas, she vowed to devote her life to protecting young women and girls from abuse. Through her program "Girl Child Network" she says she is protecting more then 300,000 girls in her home country. Among the many honors she has received, Makoni was named a CNN Hero in 2009.

"Definitely, I'm coming to confirm that. People are looking at big organizations like the United Nations, SADIC or EU. They don't come to your house when you are being raped, they don't come to your community when you are being stopped from going to school. Action begins with an individual girl like myself who was adopted into a good girls school and I said: "I've got the brains but no money, allow me in." It was my voice, so it is that voice of an African girl we are trying to say "let it come out."

So, I think let's enable; the girls in Africa, the women have been disabled, they've received handouts, they've been given fish to eat instead of the fishing rod. But we are coming to change that, to say that there is potential we can unleash.