Chicago Tribune: In Africa, Women Are Vanguard of Progress [View All]

[RandomKoolzip]

It's stuff like this that makes me feel hopeful. Despite everything horrible that's going on in the Middle East and here in America, there's this:

Women and girls, who used to have no inheritance rights, now inherit equally with men. Rape, once rarely prosecuted, is commonly punished with sentences of up to 15 years in prison. And if a girl drops out of school, social workers show up at the family home to try to get her back in class. "We are having a kind of revolution," said Sen. Odette Nyiramilimo, head of the Rwandan Senate's committee on social affairs and human rights. "The way of thinking and taking decisions is changing."

Bucking tradition, women are quietly and steadily assuming larger leadership roles across much of Africa. Liberia has Africa's first elected woman president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former World Bank economist. Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe have women prime ministers and South Africa and Zimbabwe have female vice presidents. Zambia has a woman running for president, Tanzania has a female foreign minister and women hold at least 30 percent of the legislative seats in Burundi, South Africa and Mozambique.

For the most part, that hasn't yet stemmed the most serious problems women face in Africa: poverty, AIDS, violence and lack of access to schools, health care, credit and other vital services. But Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's highest-profile female leader, predicts that the growing number of women in power in Africa will in time bring real change. "Because they're mothers, there will be stronger peace-building efforts," she told the Tribune during a visit to Chicago after her inauguration early this year. "There will be more attention on children and education" and a move away from heavy spending on militaries and defense. In Liberia, "women are still far behind in all aspects" of life, she said. But a major reason she was elected in the war-fatigued country, she said, is that "everyone concluded that men had ruled the country for over 100 years and had failed."


:bounce: Damn straight!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0608090182aug09,1,1523377.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true