Brazzaville | Thursday
MORE than 60% of African women are illiterate, and discrimination is the cause, an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) official said on this week.
“The discrimination, of which the women are the victims, concerns access to education,” said Julienne Ondziel, rapporteur on women rights for both the OAU and the African Commission on human and people’s rights.
“The amount of participation from women in public decision-making is tiny,” although they represent more than half the African population, Ondziel told the opening of a consultative meeting of central African nations on a project to draw up an addendum to the African human and peoples rights charter.
According to Ondziel, civil wars have “reduced African women to a state of extreme poverty”.
The African human rights charter was adopted by the OAU in 1981 and ratified by member states five years later.
The consultative exercise, which will continue here until Friday, aims at boosting the charter’s defence of African women’s rights.
Among those taking part are central African ministers presiding over human rights, social affairs and the promotion of women.
Similar talks will be held in other regions of the continent. – AFP
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