Over 800 delegates from all over the globe are gathering in Kigali for the Global Gender Summit (GGS), which takes place from November 25-27. This year’s GGS coincided with the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women, and the start of the 16 days of activism against Gender-Based Violence. The New Times’ Glory Iribagiza interviewed some of the participants to gather their views on whether the elimination of violence against women is attainable, and how. Fatma Ben Rejeb, Rwandan based Tunisian and CEO Panafrican Farmers’ Organisation First, of course, we need to have the political will to eliminate this kind of violence. But also, ourselves, women must speak. They must not be ashamed of what happened to them. And they must follow (sue) the abusers. Brigitte Sylvia Mabandla, African Peer Review Mechanism and former South African Minister of Justice I liked what President Kagame said, that we really must act now. We must put much emphasis on what we are doing for a change, and act. I come from a country where we were the ones leading the campaign, but the situation is bad, there is so much violence against women. We really must address it. Clarisse Uwingabire, Rwanda exhibitor at GGS It has been a long journey, but it is possible to eliminate that violence. We can take small steps until we reach there. We can empower women by telling them that they are capable of doing different things. That way, they can be able to fight for their rights, and violence can be eliminated. Toure Adama, Senegal, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) I think it is possible. First of all, we need willingness, and politics should support that. It should go to the national assembly or the parliament, to make it applicable. If they put a law against that, people who act against the law will be punished. Abdul Mahamat, African Union Sure! We need participation. I’m a middle-aged man. Our time is passed, what we need is to teach our children from the basic. We have to start with the family and school, and we need to have a ‘gender champion’ from the schools too. When they grow, they will know about it. We have to get practical in the field. Esther Tawaiah, Ghana, Director of Gender Centre for Empowering Development There is a lot of work to be done. Yes, the advocacy system is there, but people need to first change their mindset. Most importantly, this year’s theme is focusing on rape, and we know where this comes from, because it is power structured. Sometimes these (abusers) men are powerful. They have money to influence other human beings. It is important that we continue talking about it, for people to know that it is important for them to change their behaviour towards women. Because if you are a man, and you have a girl child, and somebody does the same thing to your child, how are you going to feel about it?
