SADC leaders whisper softly on gender justice.

When African governments gather in early October in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to present their achievements in preparation for the 2005 Beijing + 10 review, many will have little to say.

Gender justice is key to democratic change and any talk of democracy without the action to transform laws, policies, structures, norms and values to place women in their rightful places as equal participants in our societies, continues to be a half-stepping effort. Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had an opportune moment at their August summit to show that they are more action and less talk on the issue of women in decision making, one of the critical areas of women's empowerment throughout the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action.

Out of this summit should have emerged a clear strategy for presentation at the upcoming Africa Beijing + 10 Review to ensure SADC member countries meet the 30% target of women set by their own 1997 declaration. But they met and left. And, at the end of all of the pomp and circumstance, the SADC summit made barely an audible noise on gender equality. One hates to speculate that holding the meeting on the paradise island of Mauritius, which has the worst performance on women in decision-making among the SADC states, firmly clamped shut the leaders' mouths and minds. But the evidence speaks for itself.

Of the 55 paragraphs of the Summit's final communique, women are mentioned in only two paragraphs of four lines each. Paragraph 36 noted that Member States are making progress in the promotion of women's representation in political and decision-making structures, while paragraph 37 urged those who have not attained the target to use the forthcoming elections to achieve the 30% of women in politics in line with the 1997 SADC Declaration on Gender and Development.

H.E. Patrick Mazhimake, Deputy Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union was the one who demarcated himself by saying: "women's empowerment has to be given top priority. The continent cannot develop unless its women are empowered". He also added that the Assembly of Heads of States of the Union had decided on a 50% gender balance of appointments at the African Union and urged SADC to follow suit. "I know that SADC had in 1997 decided on 30% women representation in decision making. There may be need to align the percentage to that of the Union." He also congratulated South Africa for having reaching 42% women in cabinet and Rwanda with 48% in Parliament.

Members of the SADC community, especially women had their eyes, ears and minds working overtime during the summit to see if the leaders and their 'experts' would do all sorts of multiplication and gymnastics to calculate how the majority of the countries would reach SADC's own target of 30% women in decision-making by 2005.

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Instead of showing accountability to the SADC Declaration, although not a legally binding document, but a commitment nevertheless by many of the same leaders who came to Mauritius' premier tourist destination once again, this year's summit was a worn-out record of the old cliche, 'women should be seen and not heard'.

The only time we got a glimpse of the women at the SADC Summit was during a television snapshot on one of their tourist visits. They were all on parade at the Pamplemousses Garden in the company of the wives of Mauritian politicians. In the local print media, they were neither seen nor heard.

Maybe the Heads of States are not to blame. Maybe it is taboo to talk about women in a country, which boasts that it can export democracy and yet women are absent in politics. Maybe it is too shameful for SADC leaders to admit that they all went home in 1997, save for a few sterling examples, and conveniently forgot what they had signed.

Seven years is a long time to show no results. If a country like Rwanda where war and genocide took place, and a country like South Africa, which has only 10 years of democracy, can do the right thing, why can't other SADC countries finally tell the difference between talk and action?

Loga Virahsawmy is the President of the Media Watch Organisation in Mauritius, a local chapter of the Gender and Media Network in Southern Africa (GEMSA). This article from the Gender and Media (GEM) commentary service has been slightly shortened. Source: www.genderlinks.org.za