Two South African women have been nominated for Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s job, reports Ann Eveleth
TWO South African women – parliamentary Speaker Frene Ginwala and Judge Navi Pillay – have been nominated for the position of secretary general of the United Nations.
Women’s rights activists proposed them, and they are among six candidates put forward by an international women’s group. The campaign to install a woman in the UN’s top post follows calls by the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference for the promotion of women to senior posts in the world body.
South African affiliates of United States- based international women’s rights campaigners Equality Now are compiling a petition to urge President Nelson Mandela to nominate a South African woman for the post, which is up for grabs in December at the end of incumbent Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali’s first five-year term. The group’s 2 000 affiliates in 65 countries are campaigning for their own governments to back a woman candidate.
Ayesha Mahomed, a South African representative of Equality Now, said the group is calling on the government to “put its money where its mouth is and apply its commitment to gender equality to foreign affairs policy. In the 50-year history of the UN, there has never been a woman secretary general. It’s our turn now.”
A government representative suggested, however, that prior regional agreements may prevent South Africa forwarding a female nomination. Both the Organisation of African Unity and the Southern African Development Community recently agreed to back Boutros- Ghali – the first African to occupy the post – for re-election. The SADC did so after a proposal by Mandela.
Ginwala has been accused of taking a “high- handed” approach in Parliament, but even her critics admit she has handled a rough transition efficiently, standing her in good stead for the task of rationalising the UN beauracracy and forcing member states – most notably the US – to cough up the R14-billion in outstanding dues needed to keep the body afloat.
Pillay, who chairs Equality Now, made judicial history with her 1994 appointment to the Durban Supreme Court Bench and is now making her mark internationally in the UN’s International Rwanda Tribunal.
Both have been active in the liberation movement and have made their mark on global women’s rights campaigns.