Booklet on San rights launched

GOBABIS, 13 JUL – The Women Leadership Centre (WLC) on Thursday launched a booklet here aimed at increasing awareness among San young women and their communities on their rights, in conformity with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
The booklet also aims to strengthen San young women as human rights leaders and as agents of change through their engagement with CEDAW.
The 45-page booklet contains information on various aspects concerning the rights of San women, which have been simplified for easier reference.
It also contains recommendations on various human rights issues featured, while poems written by San young women complement the information in the booklet.
WLC works with San women and girls in seven villages across Namibia in a programme titled ‘Speaking for Ourselves: Voices of San Young Women’.
Four of these villages are in the Omaheke Region; Drimiopsis, Skoonheid, Omitara and Witvlei.
Launching the booklet, WLC’s Liz Frank said the ultimate aim of the booklet is to empower San young women to challenge marginalisation and exclusion, and to overcome discrimination and poverty.
“We do this through building their feminist leadership, voice, visibility, cultural pride and human rights knowledge so they can speak for themselves in claiming their rights,” she said.
Omaheke Governor, Festus Ueitele, in a speech read on his behalf said Namibia has undertaken to protect the human rights of all its people, including the human rights of San girls and women.
“Our Constitution, which is the highest law in the country, states that nobody must be discriminated against on the basis of being a woman or a man, or on the basis of being from a specific tribe or ethnic group,” he said.
The Women Leadership Centre, a feminist organisation based in Windhoek, facilitates the voice of marginalised young women through participatory research, training, writing, photography and the publishing of critical feminist text.
CEDAW was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 18 December 1979 and entered into force as an international treaty on 03 September 1981. It aims to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and in equal rights of men and women.
The convention establishes an international bill of rights for women and an agenda for action by countries to guarantee the enjoyment of those rights.
(NAMPA)