16 5 / 2013
Lesotho court to rule on women’s rights
On 16 May, the Lesotho Constitutional Court will issue its decision on whether women in Lesotho can succeed to chieftainship. The ground-breaking case brought by Senate Masupha, the first-born child of a chief, challenged the Chieftainship Act, which only permits first-born sons to succeed to chieftainship.
“Denying all women the possibility of succeeding to chieftainship not only violates the right to equality under the Lesotho constitution but also reaffirms the notion that women are subordinate members of Lesotho society,” said Priti Patel, Deputy Director of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), who intervened as friends of the court (amicus curiae) in the matter. “We will see tomorrow whether the court will affirm the rights of women in Lesotho or further entrench women’s secondary status.”
In its submissions, SALC argued that the law is unconstitutional under the Lesotho Constitution as well as under Lesotho’s international and regional obligations. The submissions also document how laws that discriminate against women significantly harm the government’s ability to effectively respond to Lesotho’s HIV epidemic.
This case is part of a broader trend in the region to change or repeal laws which explicitly promote gender discrimination.
The Constitutional Court in South Africa has struck down laws which deny women the right to inherit or succeed to chieftainship. In Botswana, the High Court recently struck down a customary law which denied women the right to inherit.
Courts in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania have also all struck down laws which deny women the right to inherit due solely to their gender.
From: osisa.org
‘Mme Senate Masupha, you (and all qualified African women) deserve your place in African leadership and I sincerely hope the court rules in your favour.
(via dynamicafrica)
15 5 / 2013
Factreton, Cape Town, South Africa | May 2, 2013 - The funeral service for Desmond Abrahams, 48, who lived with his brother and had no connections with local gangs. Desmond and two others were shot the head at point blank by members of the 28’s Prions gang just after midnight on the 20th of April. Two of the three men shot that night died and the third fell into a coma. Photo by Charlie Shoemaker @charlieshoemaker #capetown #capeflats #southafrica
14 5 / 2013
Ten Point Program of the Black Panther Party:
1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black and oppressed communities.
2. We want full employment for our people.
3. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black and oppressed communities.
4. We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.
5. We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
6. We want completely free health care for all Black and oppressed people.
7. We want an immediate end for police brutality and murder of Black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States.
8. We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.
9. We want freedom for all Black and oppressed people now held in U.S. federal, state, county, city, and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace, and people’s community control of modern technology.
(via madriche)
13 5 / 2013
Africa loses benefit of billions of dollars annually, report says
Africa loses the benefit of billions of dollars each year through illegal tax evasion, money transfers and secretive business deals, more than all the money coming into the continent through aid and investment, according to a report released Friday.
About $63 billion is lost annually, the 120-page Africa Progress Report states, and despite the continent’s surging economic growth fueled by the global resources boom, poverty and inequality has worsened in many resource-rich African countries.
“It is unconscionable that some companies, often supported by dishonest officials, are using unethical tax avoidance, transfer pricing and anonymous company ownership to maximize their profits, while millions of Africans go without adequate nutrition, health and education,” Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general who heads the panel behind the report, wrote in his introduction.
The African Progress Panel releases a report each May analyzing one aspect of the continent’s progress, on jobs, equity and other issues, with the 2013 report examining Africa’s extractive industries and the massive lost opportunity the global resources boom represents for Africans.
Countries with massive wealth in resources such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo languished at the bottom of the global Human Development Index, which measures how well countries provide services such as health, education and other key services. Equatorial Guinea, ranked 45th in the world in terms of average income, ranked 136th out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index, while the DRC was last in the HDI.
Many resource-rich African countries had some of the world’s worst infant mortality rates, including Angola, Equatorial Guinea and the DRC.
“Revenues that could have been used to improve lives have instead been used to build personal fortunes, finance civil wars and support corrupt and unaccountable political elites,” the African Progress Panel report said.
“Some political elites continue to seize and squander the revenues generated by natural resources, purchasing mansions in Europe or the U.S. or building private wealth at public expense,” it said.
In many African countries, most of the benefits of surging growth were captured by the wealthiest 10% of the population, according to the report. It called for African leaders to embrace transparency and accountability in revenue from resources.
The report said secretive deals, poor governance and corruption cost the continent billions in lost revenue. In the DRC, the government lost $1.3 billion in five underpriced mine privatization deals involving state assets, more than double the amount it spent on health and education.
Angola lost track of $4.2 billion between 2010 and 2012, while Nigeria lost $6.8 billion in the same period.
“Revenue losses on this scale cause immense damage to public finance – and to national efforts to reduce poverty,” the report said. “Opaque practices in the natural resources sector are reinforced by opaque national budgets with citizens routinely denied access to key budget documents.”
“Looking back over the past decade, it is clear that growth alone will not transform human development prospects in resource-rich countries. Governments need to ensure that the revenue streams that come with the growth of extractive industries are invested efficiently and equitably,” the report said.
Graca Machel, president of the Foundation for Community Development and wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, said in a statement that if African leaders accepted the report’s recommendations, “more kids will go to school, fewer women will die in childbirth and more children will survive their childhood.”
13 5 / 2013
Alternate Opening Sequence Credit.
Pam Grier dancing to the popular surf song “Misirlou”.Jackie Brown.
(via rickycarmona)
12 5 / 2013
